Neo-Puritanism And The Quest For Perfection As Frequent Precursor Of Fascism
Neo-Puritanism And The Quest For Perfection As Frequent Precursor Of Fascism
Religion, Perfectionism, Savonarola and The Pending Apocalypse of The Republican Party (This Post Was Written In 2012)
The New Testament Parable Of "The Widow's Mite," Relativity, Perfection And Contextualization: "The Chances Of A Refugee-Terrorist Killing An American Are 3.6 Billion To 1"
"Too Pure Principles" Make Things Worse, Not Better
"Too Pure Principles" Make Things Worse, Not Better
Girolamo Savonarola by Fra BartolomeoPainted shortly before death at the stake in 1498Savonarola is the case study par excellence of the suicidal righteousness of religious maniacs.
Savonarola's Wikipedia Entry:(Savonarola is BEGGING for a play to be written about him, perhaps, a along the lines of "A Man For All Seasons.")
Dear John,
Nothing would be more restorative to The Body Politic than widespread realization that democratic process is intrinsically compromised (and intrinsically compromising) and that all of us -- even "The Most Principled" -- are called to participate in less-than-perfect trade-offs.
Lacking this humility, The Body Politic will hurtle, ever faster, toward terminal decline.
Again: "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton
Life is not about perfection - at least not in the mathematical, geometrical sense that Americans (mistakenly) construe perfection. ("Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" would be more accurately translated: "Be ye complete as your heavenly Father is complete.")
Life is muddle. And it is our station in life to muddle through to "something better" even if "better" proves (in the near term) nothing more than forfending decline. (In the long run, I envision ongoing Revelation that will insure the replacement of humankind's "dominance-submission hierarchies" by even-handed enlightenment - social, intellectual and spiritual.)
As Italo-latinate cultures well know, our lives are not about mistaken notions of "mathematical" perfection.
When imperfect people insist on perfection, an unusually large load hits "the fan."
Girolamo Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo
Painted shortly before death at the stake in 1498
Savonarola is the case study par excellence of the suicidal righteousness of religious maniacs.
Savonarola's Wikipedia Entry:
(Savonarola is BEGGING for a play to be written about him, perhaps, a along the lines of "A Man For All Seasons.")
Dear John,
Nothing would be more restorative to The Body Politic than widespread realization that democratic process is intrinsically compromised (and intrinsically compromising) and that all of us -- even "The Most Principled" -- are called to participate in less-than-perfect trade-offs.
Lacking this humility, The Body Politic will hurtle, ever faster, toward terminal decline.
Lacking this humility, The Body Politic will hurtle, ever faster, toward terminal decline.
Again: "The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice. The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization. We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal. Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good. The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.” Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton
Life is not about perfection - at least not in the mathematical, geometrical sense that Americans (mistakenly) construe perfection. ("Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" would be more accurately translated: "Be ye complete as your heavenly Father is complete.")
Life is muddle. And it is our station in life to muddle through to "something better" even if "better" proves (in the near term) nothing more than forfending decline. (In the long run, I envision ongoing Revelation that will insure the replacement of humankind's "dominance-submission hierarchies" by even-handed enlightenment - social, intellectual and spiritual.)
As Italo-latinate cultures well know, our lives are not about mistaken notions of "mathematical" perfection.
When imperfect people insist on perfection, an unusually large load hits "the fan."
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