“Therefore it is that pity and sympathy and assistance await those whose failure is due to Fortune; reproach and rebuke from all men await those who have only their own folly to thank for it.” Polybius, 202-120 BC.
“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years” Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, PDF McMaster University, p.138
Two Magatrumpian Republicans walk into a bar. One says something really mean and really stupid; the other replies in kind.
If Hillary painted Trump supporters, with too broad a brush, as deplorables, that pejorative might, at this later date, be better justified. The gullible have been disabused of their naivety, or hold to a state of innocence but by willful ignorance, by the constipative state of certitude, and those of better knowing, by powers of rationalization supportive of their own advantage. At this point in time, anyone supportive of Trump may be judged victim of intellectual inadequacy or guilty of moral turpitude. Certitude in an uncertain world is at best a comforting liability. A flat earth concept is fine so long as one does not approach the edge too closely.
Trump’s audacity reveals his depth of depravity, his supporters, excepting the mentally impaired, reflective, to varying degree, of that moral state. As first a showman, he creates a spectacle of depravity, an entertainment wherein one may surrender to the savage state, by which one may be elevated as witness to the pain of others. Rome declined as matters of state declined in priority to those of bread and circus.
Much of thought is backwards: we would process information against templates of our own desires and preconceptions rather than holding them first to the light of fact. As lies beget lies in support of themselves, so rationalizations are layered, sequentially supportive of willful delusion. The lie is excused by virtue of commitment to positions adopted as perceived necessity to the preservation and furtherance of one’s personal interest. A rationalization is an argument from conclusion, distinguishable from lies told to others as being those told to one’s self: sunk cost justification for preservation of previously established opinions.
Heaven and Hell, are metaphors for the development of the moral state that, while not denying spontaneity and the fruits of pleasure, subordinates immediate gratification or narrow personal interest to that of a harmonious and sustainable existence within a community of persons.
An old man may perhaps be forgiven for repeating himself, but often the past seems reminiscent of the present:
Somehow it feels as if, like the overheating of the steel making the collapse of the towers inevitable, the blow to our self-assurance has deeper reverberations, something struck hard within our vitals begins to crumble and achieves its own undeniable momentum. At some point in the future we my again feel ‘normal’, but it will be of a different standard of normalcy—normal will not mean the same as before, and it may be quite some time before we experience that newly defined sensation. (After 9/11)
To what extent may one live in a world without boundaries? Sovereignty is of a whole with all of us. There is great advantage in minimizing conflict. We do this by law in interest of self-preservation and in order that all, subject to ‘fate’ and relative talent, might have the opportunity to prosper.
It is not so much the speed of change that so disturbs our sense of equilibrium, but rather the discontinuity of one thing from another.
Trying to get my last words in before the general curtailment of speech …
Babel Burnt offerings, notwithstanding, the tower is falling, foundations are eroded, strong winds are unabated. It collapses from decay, a failure of those in the penthouse to realize the limits of their omnipotence, or that paradise of necessity must promise inclusivity, and of those below to take responsibility for their own causality. We live a thousand miles above the surface of the earth; the tower is crumbling, and no one knows to fix it.
Comments, whether affirmative, civilly negative or critically constructive are appreciated. Comments and likes are both helpful in ratings related to Substack’s algorithmic determination of how widely articles will be seen.
Thanks again for reading!