Recog ch 2

[Michael Bailey]

Jed Kelestron wrote:
>> If he doesn't believe in some kind of transcendental rightness that he
>> has to answer to, be judged by, and expect non-earthly rewards from,
>> then why does he do that?
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Perhaps because doing the right thing doesn't have to be motivated by
> the Puritan bullshit this nation is founded upon.
>

cascade o' questions:

a) but if so, then, within TR, what is doing (or even knowing) what is
obviosuly right motivated by?

I mean, between the dourness of Aunt May personifying the Protestant
ethic -which I think it's fairer to say is a school of thought that
"runs the risk" of generating Aunt Mays and breaking down into social
darwinism rather than "inevitably" doing so...

and the economic stagnation, confusion, illiteracy, and fraud that
Gwyon ignores but Gaddis highlights in Catholicism (which could more
fairly (imho) be characterized as "vulnerable to" rather than
"synonymous with" these failings)

and the fragmentary (not to mention frequently unscientific,
unhygienic and violence-prone) nature of what we (and Gwyon, and
Wyatt) know of the classical and Native American ethos rendering them
unusable as guideposts for living in 20th Century Western Civ, an
unsuitability that is ignored by Gwyon but seems to me to have been
pretty well underlined by Gaddis...

what is left as a lantern for the aspiring ethicist?

Is there something in Chapter 1 (a cluster of lines tending toward an
ethical vanishing point) that defines how Wyatt will respond?

Or is there some Kantian categorical imperative that readers are
expected to recognize - paying an art critic doesn't feel right?

Or just the unflattering description of the guy?


b) are we sure that it's so right to disdain Cremer?

Maybe doing so is the tragic flaw that dooms Wyatt!