= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
NancyLebovitz comments on Utopian hope versus reality - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (53)
When and where in the past are you talking about, and what do you mean by dignity?
All of the past up until roughly the dawn of rampant consumerism and advertising. I'm not very familiar with the relevant history but it seems to have been a gradual change starting largely around 1900.
Dignity, propriety, Christian morality, pagan virtue, noble savagery, bestial dharma... things that so many atheists, humanists, and transhumanists throw aside because they don't see why they're there. Conservatism. Chesterton. Monogamy. Applying good taste to the living of ones life, acting as if one were to be made a final cause, as if ones actions had a real effect on eternity. Having real principles. Self-restraint. Having a reason for existence greater than the temporary gratification of misunderstood desires, e.g. serving God or attaining enlightenment. Unsophisticated but rigorously applied common sense as opposed to elaborate rationalization or unreflective endorsement.
Actually caring deeply about what morality might be and how one should act on that knowledge.
What's bestial dharma? Google doesn't turn up anything useful.
I just made up the phrase, it's not a very good one. I meant basically how animals are at least true to their natures and instincts and don't pretend to be something they're not. Wolves have more of it than dogs. Chesterton talks about a similar phenomenon among humans when he talks about how pagans did what they did soulfully and authentically, as opposed to modern anti-Christians who only take up paganistic and heathenish ideals and practices more out of a sense of rebellion. I like how folk like Hofstadter and probably a lot postmodern lit geeks and analytic philosophers I don't know about manage to avoid the insincere orthodoxy versus inauthentic rebellion dilemma by jumping out of the system. I'm being vague. I get access to a real keyboard for the first time in weeks later today.