Thursday, October 23, 2003
I had a though about morality or values: that human beings need a sense of awe in order to respect a set of morals. Or perhaps less grandly, that morals simply need to be aspirational. They need to come from heroes, or from Gods. This country's love affair with the war is a love affair with Churchill, this sixties with Lennon and Dylan. A secular morality based on pragmatism and books simply isn't sexy enough to bind a society together.
Also, we face very few tests of what values we have. Our moral dilemnas are either small and personal or far away and easily ignored. We rarely face trials in which we are forced to put ourselves in danger, or face real fears, either social or physical. The triumph of civilisation is to have eroded the need for morality. When everyone is more or less ok, values are less necessary. In their place we find something more like personal sentimentalism.
eheh, eheh eheh. He said 'values'. eheh.
Also, we face very few tests of what values we have. Our moral dilemnas are either small and personal or far away and easily ignored. We rarely face trials in which we are forced to put ourselves in danger, or face real fears, either social or physical. The triumph of civilisation is to have eroded the need for morality. When everyone is more or less ok, values are less necessary. In their place we find something more like personal sentimentalism.
eheh, eheh eheh. He said 'values'. eheh.
