GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:

> 
> 
> Paul Mackin wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, 5 Dec 1999, Michael Perez wrote:
> > 
> > > rj wrote:
> > > "Yes, these are questions the text leaves the reader with. Unanswered
> > > questions. Or, relativism and ambiguity accrue because there are too
> > > many answers, too many possibilities, crowding in on top of one
> > > another, each one depending on context and perspective for its local
> > > 'truth.' [snip]'Good' and 'evil'? Yeah, right. Not in this Text, fella.
> > > The only moral compass here is the one in the reader's hand: 'There is
> > > time, if you need the comfort, to touch the person next to you, or to
> > > reach between your own cold legs . . . '"
> > >
> > > Exactly.  This is sort of what I getting at since the beginning of this
> > > wonderfully mutant thread.
> > 
> > Hard to keep one's moral compass from twirling incessantly.
> > 
> >                         p.
> > 
> 
> 
> But it's only the moral compass YOU thought was your own,
> right?
> 
> "Nearer, My Couch, to Thee"


We all must have some kind of "moral compass" we can call our own.
Something incorporating our notion of the bad. It's a basic human need.
It's the only thing we can truly own (call our own) in this increasingly
standardized, routinized world. There has to be something out there,
sufficiently separate from us, something that repells and offends us 
enough that we can summon up energy to fight it, so that we will try
to defect from it. It's the only force keeping us in motion, keeping us
alive. And, yes, it must be separate from the evil we may or may not
recognize as being internal in ourselves. It must be external. It must be
Their evil rather than Our evil. Take away this extenal, necessary evil
and you have taken away the essence of our individualized being. The
"truth" or "fiction" of the evil is quite irrelevant. The two realms meld
quite easily into each other. It is said that we live in a fictional
world anyway. In the fictional world of Thomas Pynchon or in one we invent
for ourselves. Now what the hell is whatever it was I'm ranting about.
I'm lost. Anyway if you don't believe me just ask s~Z, he'll tell you.

			P.