Recog ch 2

[Paul Mackin]

On 4/23/2011 1:47 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
> 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!
>
Yeah, what's so wrong after all about cheating rich art collectors?  An 
open question, at least.

As to the general question of what "right" is motivated by,  wouldn't we 
have to call it largely the result of social conditioning? There tends 
to develop kind of a consensus as to what good and bad behavior is.  
While such norms are often honored more in the breach than in the 
observance, nevertheless they are real enough that even our worst 
politicians want to appear at least to follow them.  But where does this 
social conditioning come from?  Well, professor Peter Brown, respected 
historian of later Roman antiquity, finds that profound changes in 
social thinking regarding what we would now consider moral questions 
occurred with the rise in power and influence of Christianity in the 
later Roman Empire.  The example he dwells on is  treatment of the 
poor.  Whereas before Christianity become dominant the wealthy upper 
classes were extremely civic minded spending huge amounts of money for 
the benefit of the citizenry, but no thought was given to the welfare of 
the poor often starving immigrant non-citizens wandering the byways of 
the Empire.  The new Christian religious powers saw things differently. 
A main function of the church leaders was seeing that the poor were 
better cared for.  In time no respectable Roman could afford to ignore 
the poor and downtrodden. Such changes in social expectations and peer 
pressure were often incompletely honored but were nevertheless a factor 
in developing Western society's notion of right and wrong.

It's a stretch between feeding the poor and Wyatt's dilemma but it's 
important to acknowledge the role of social conditioning, and, in the 
case of the West, Christian conditioning, in modern day behavioral 
expectations.  Speaking generally.

Of course Wyatt isn't the sort of person to put much stock in social 
expectations and peer pressure. I think he just artistically freer in 
his new environment.

P