Friday, March 20, 2020

No, It Won't Do, My Sweet Theologians








THEODICY

Czesław Miłosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

6 comments:

  1. 1)i must be old and out of touch - and of course i am - but i had never heard of the PSL - Party for Socialism and Liberation - before

    i had heard of the democratic socialists of america

    i wondered - how do they differ?

    https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/7okvql/struggling_between_the_dsa_and_the_psl/


    2)like Czesław Miłosz [and what are those słashes across the ł's about? the worłd is so fułł of a number of things, i am sure we shoułd ałł be as happy as kings] i have wondered why we live in a world of pain -

    Is there a reason for today? Do you remember?*

    *from a song recorded by cream and written by spouses felix pappalardi and gail collins, whose last interaction was a fateful one - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Pappalardi

    2.1 the poet finds an explanation in

    a pre-human downfall so grave
    That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power


    2.2 he is not the first to have found this view congenial

    2.3. nevertheless i find an excuse in the plea of necessity - life requires sensitivity - pain and pleasure are inherently part of the process

    2.4 it's just business, it's nothing personal

    2.5 i do believe, deep in my heart, we** shall overcome some day

    **"we" in the sense of beings that resemble us to some extent, and perhaps even recognize us as their predecessors

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  2. "Richard Burr = Dianne Feinstein." Untrue. Simplistic. Poor take. Perhaps a confirmation bias? Certainly, that is the line Trump wants us all to take. But DF is one of the very few elected reps to have all her (albeit substantial) holdings in a blind trust. (Do you know what that is? Trumpites certainly don't). RB traded nearly ALL his (meager, by comparison) holdings after the briefing—also he trades rarely—while happy talking to the the public and warning constituents. His anomalous; hers routine. False equivalency, but you be you. Sorry to disagree.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment, always has been ok to disagree, and we've disagreed about these things often and very ok.

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    2. Simplistic, sure. Untrue, depends. There's plenty to criticize about their financial activity and I am not sure a citation of the default plausibly deniable and routine nature of her financial activity is much of an ethical plus, but if one is to focus on where things are either > or < instead of =, then, yeah, Burr falls firmly into the territory of illegality, which in terms of D vs. R tends to jibes well with how they be. In the spirit of compromise might I suggest Burr + Feinstein >/= us. One of them might just drag us into hell, but the other is pretty good at greasing the skids.

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  3. Well, all I've got to say is that if people still carried handkerchiefs around with them as was once done on a regular basis none of this would have happened. Now people just use their hand. Terrible!

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  4. who knows if it might be good or bad?


    https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-inside-militarys-top-secret-plans-if-coronavirus-cripples-government-1492878

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