She left the barb to
rankle in Miss Gleason’s breast, and followed her mother to her room, who
avenged Miss Gleason by a series of inquisitional tortures, ending with the
hope that, whatever she did, Grace would not have that silly creature’s blood
on her hands. The girl opened her lips to attempt some answer to this
unanswerable aspiration.
The sanctimonious aspiration is as old as the hills and just
as unanswerable as it ever was. Dishonest aspirations of this general type are
not usually as explicit as in the above quote and those we see in the public
arena tend to be political. Nauseating of coursed but essentially political.
Equality – we don’t want people to suffer from unequal
treatment do we?
Feminism – isn’t it a scandal that women still have to
demand equal treatment?
Profit – who supports profit for the few over decent
standards for all?
Education – surely no child deserves to be left behind.
Environment – the planet belongs to everyone not just the
rich.
General purpose – the future of our children and
grandchildren blah, blah, blah...
And so on and so on. Such mantras which come in infinite
variety are merely sanctimonious aspirations intended to choke off debate. In
particular they are intended to evade a genuine exploration of human nature,
difficult social realities and limited economic resources.
It is a kind of back-stop for situations where outright
banning of free speech has not been possible or successful. Slightly more
subtle than a hysterical harangue and almost always as difficult to handle as
in Howells’ fictional case.
To begin with the assumed moral high ground has to be tackled
and levelled off. After that nuances and complexities have to be introduced to
set the stage for a discussion which is at least realistic. It is hard and
unrewarding work and we should not be surprised if many don’t bother.
3 comments:
"Never be intimidated by the mediocrity of others', is the best mantra I ever learned.
So my answer to anyone who thinks I'm going to listen, is to ignore them! Might even say 'bollocks' just to make me feel good!
Much easier than having to bother to hear whingeing.
I am always on the moral high ground. It is just that most people seem to be a lot higher than I am.
Scrobs - that's a sound mantra - one to remember.
Demetrius - it's merely an illusion they create with mirrors and sometimes a little smoke.
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