Cormac McCarthy, RIP

[David Morris]

The snippet quote sounds to me like Ayn Rand on steroids. The full version
is below.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/390610-moral-law-is-an-invention-of-mankind-for-the-disenfranchisement#:~:text=Moral%20law%20is%20an%20invention%20of%20mankind%20for%20the%20disenfranchisement,error%20as%20to%20his%20views
.

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the
powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A
moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man
falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to
his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and
broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument
as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers
of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the
opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument
is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest.
Man's vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge
remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgments
ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no
special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral
right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the
litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what
shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes
are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/394535.Blood_Meridian_or_the_Evening_Redness_in_the_West>

On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 12:00 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Who is speaking in this quote? Is this Judge Holden, the author, White…?
>
> > David Morris wrote:
> >
> > I guess that’s one way of framing HUMAN CIVILIZATION (GMAFB*).
> >
> > "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the
> >> powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every
> turn."
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>