Cormac M

[kfan]

It was the judge.  The gang had made camp for the night.  Immediately
preceding the monologue you quote, "Brown studied the judge.  You're crazy
Holden.  Crazy at last.  The judge smiled.  Might does not make right, said
Irving.  The man that wins in some combat is not vindicated morally."

"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the
powerful in favor of the weak..."

The quotation you cite is followed by this passage: "The judge searched out
the circle for disputants.  But what says the priest? he said.  Tobin
looked up.  The priest does not say.  The priest does not say, said the
judge.  Nihil dicit."


On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 8:23 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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
> >
>
> So nobody remembers who said this, or if it was a commentary by the
> writer?  Context seems rather important here.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>