I found this interesting, Kristin. My read was already that you were about the most Calvinist Catholic I had ever encountered. :)
It also explains a lot. You want a world with a single, moral Author (undoubtedly, morality would be a lot less murky if it had one.) You want the authorship to be evident everywhere, potentially to everyone, or else it's the betrayal of indifference. And you're stoic enough to imagine that most if not all human moral challenges would be transparent to a wise authorship, which is why you won't let humans off the hook for what they don't know and why predestination calls to you.
So if moral authorship is visible everywhere, then it should also be visible in the creative subconscious, which is why you're reading tea-leaves in movies.
That's a huge cognitive load though. It explains why you have to cherry-pick what you read from where: why it has to be American movies from your own era, and just those which already talk to you, offering comfort within uncertainty. Making coherent moral sense of the full spectrum of human creativity would do the opposite: it would challenge and destabilise, even though theoretically, the same moral insight should be visible there too, in every culture, and consistently over time.
But that's not the interesting part.
The interesting part to me is how much forgiveness this demands. You have individualised every harm that is structural, ignoring the historical reality that a lot of our moral sensitivity is social. Our ancestors burned cats for sport; we no longer do so. Subsistence survival is brutal, but food and energy surpluses let us entertain moral choices that once would have been luxuries.
Empathically you're a collectivist, but morally you have to be isolationist. Hence the individual magisteria.
As someone who couldn't belong if he tried, I feel I can safely say: you have sacrificed an awful lot of fellowship just to stitch together a feeling of coherent certainty.
I would say the huge cognitive load is focusing on the big tent model. Accept everyone, make accommodations for everybody, adapt as needed for the multitude of cultural and personal preferences. Its impossible and foolhardy. Having lived in multiple countries as a child teen and young adult I’ve simply come to the conclusion that A small tent is always preferable because maintaining a righteous life and a clear eye view of humans (and our creator) is simply impossible if you change it for every cultural quirk, you encounter. I look at everything, including morality and fictional analysis, through an American lens, not only because I am American, but because I believe the founding precepts of America and the examples laid out for us by our founders, are the purest most correct translation of what God has commanded of us in a framework that we are able to execute within. And I regret that I must correct your assertion that humans no longer hunt cats for sport. They do. Either with their own hands or using pet dogs to do it at their behest. Humans, American and otherwise, are every bit as nasty and disgusting as they ever were. What stops them from publicly behaving as our forebearers did, is social shame. Not a change in our nature or what is required to keep it in check.
Living outside the US, I'm not aware of many other liberal democracies where a constitution is thought sacred. I recognise the US privilege to be proud of its constitutional traditions, but globally, sanctification is rare.
In my own country, and all the liberal democracies I know of, a Constitution is normally thought a work in progress. Instead of the presumption of sanctity, we have a due process to create changes, but that process specifically lets the principles change too. To see how easily a principle can change, we need only ask 'who is counted a citizen'?
Which makes me want to ask what you think about Amendments. Your country's first was in 1791 — 13 years after ratification; its latest was in 1992. Should they be frozen? Unpicked? Submitted to reform against Biblical canon? And if the latter, against whose interpretation of it?
And what of federalism? The US has not one Constitution, but 51 — a federal constitution, plus one for each state. State constitutions need to be consistent (or not obviously inconsistent) with the federal Constitution, but not with each other. So if the federal principle is unimprovable, then which are the imperfect states and why are they not simply copies?
And what does federalism mean for civic duty? If you're resident in a State, is it your civic duty to press the Federation to submit to the interests of the State, or to press the State to capitulate to the interests of the Federation? If a State grants you a right, but the Federation does not, is it legitimate to pursue that as a privilege over fellow countrymen who don't have that right?
(You need not answer personally if you think there's an essay in it. I'd wait to read one if you wrote it.)
Regarding the torture of cats, that certainly happens today. But in Europe (e.g. Paris, Metz), in the 16th through 18th centuries, it was a public entertainment. Christian parents of that era would bring their toddlers to a cat-burning as part of midsummer celebrations. Same canon, greater piety; different moral sensibilities.
There are many such examples, but I think it illustrates a moral bind for people into canonical wisdom. I think it sensible to oppose clericalism, because clerics look after themselves. But canonical wisdom isn't resilient against an emerging understanding of cause and consequence — or a changing range of moral options due to growing wealth and technology.
And we can appeal to principle over word here, but you have pointed out yourself quite recently: 45,000-ish sects tells us that interpretation is selective and malleable. Even the more common elements, like the Nicene Creed, don't tell humans how to live; only what you can safely attest without accusation of blasphemy. If it were a math test, I'd have to ask how well the text was serving the course.
As for what the human condition is, I think how we see ourselves depends on what we try to do. I like caring and learning; growing agency in people who care, reflect and are accountable. I have yet to see a human harness threats of death and torment to the long-term public good.
I found this interesting, Kristin. My read was already that you were about the most Calvinist Catholic I had ever encountered. :)
It also explains a lot. You want a world with a single, moral Author (undoubtedly, morality would be a lot less murky if it had one.) You want the authorship to be evident everywhere, potentially to everyone, or else it's the betrayal of indifference. And you're stoic enough to imagine that most if not all human moral challenges would be transparent to a wise authorship, which is why you won't let humans off the hook for what they don't know and why predestination calls to you.
So if moral authorship is visible everywhere, then it should also be visible in the creative subconscious, which is why you're reading tea-leaves in movies.
That's a huge cognitive load though. It explains why you have to cherry-pick what you read from where: why it has to be American movies from your own era, and just those which already talk to you, offering comfort within uncertainty. Making coherent moral sense of the full spectrum of human creativity would do the opposite: it would challenge and destabilise, even though theoretically, the same moral insight should be visible there too, in every culture, and consistently over time.
But that's not the interesting part.
The interesting part to me is how much forgiveness this demands. You have individualised every harm that is structural, ignoring the historical reality that a lot of our moral sensitivity is social. Our ancestors burned cats for sport; we no longer do so. Subsistence survival is brutal, but food and energy surpluses let us entertain moral choices that once would have been luxuries.
Empathically you're a collectivist, but morally you have to be isolationist. Hence the individual magisteria.
As someone who couldn't belong if he tried, I feel I can safely say: you have sacrificed an awful lot of fellowship just to stitch together a feeling of coherent certainty.
I would say the huge cognitive load is focusing on the big tent model. Accept everyone, make accommodations for everybody, adapt as needed for the multitude of cultural and personal preferences. Its impossible and foolhardy. Having lived in multiple countries as a child teen and young adult I’ve simply come to the conclusion that A small tent is always preferable because maintaining a righteous life and a clear eye view of humans (and our creator) is simply impossible if you change it for every cultural quirk, you encounter. I look at everything, including morality and fictional analysis, through an American lens, not only because I am American, but because I believe the founding precepts of America and the examples laid out for us by our founders, are the purest most correct translation of what God has commanded of us in a framework that we are able to execute within. And I regret that I must correct your assertion that humans no longer hunt cats for sport. They do. Either with their own hands or using pet dogs to do it at their behest. Humans, American and otherwise, are every bit as nasty and disgusting as they ever were. What stops them from publicly behaving as our forebearers did, is social shame. Not a change in our nature or what is required to keep it in check.
Thank you for your reflections, Kristin.
Living outside the US, I'm not aware of many other liberal democracies where a constitution is thought sacred. I recognise the US privilege to be proud of its constitutional traditions, but globally, sanctification is rare.
In my own country, and all the liberal democracies I know of, a Constitution is normally thought a work in progress. Instead of the presumption of sanctity, we have a due process to create changes, but that process specifically lets the principles change too. To see how easily a principle can change, we need only ask 'who is counted a citizen'?
Which makes me want to ask what you think about Amendments. Your country's first was in 1791 — 13 years after ratification; its latest was in 1992. Should they be frozen? Unpicked? Submitted to reform against Biblical canon? And if the latter, against whose interpretation of it?
And what of federalism? The US has not one Constitution, but 51 — a federal constitution, plus one for each state. State constitutions need to be consistent (or not obviously inconsistent) with the federal Constitution, but not with each other. So if the federal principle is unimprovable, then which are the imperfect states and why are they not simply copies?
And what does federalism mean for civic duty? If you're resident in a State, is it your civic duty to press the Federation to submit to the interests of the State, or to press the State to capitulate to the interests of the Federation? If a State grants you a right, but the Federation does not, is it legitimate to pursue that as a privilege over fellow countrymen who don't have that right?
(You need not answer personally if you think there's an essay in it. I'd wait to read one if you wrote it.)
Regarding the torture of cats, that certainly happens today. But in Europe (e.g. Paris, Metz), in the 16th through 18th centuries, it was a public entertainment. Christian parents of that era would bring their toddlers to a cat-burning as part of midsummer celebrations. Same canon, greater piety; different moral sensibilities.
There are many such examples, but I think it illustrates a moral bind for people into canonical wisdom. I think it sensible to oppose clericalism, because clerics look after themselves. But canonical wisdom isn't resilient against an emerging understanding of cause and consequence — or a changing range of moral options due to growing wealth and technology.
And we can appeal to principle over word here, but you have pointed out yourself quite recently: 45,000-ish sects tells us that interpretation is selective and malleable. Even the more common elements, like the Nicene Creed, don't tell humans how to live; only what you can safely attest without accusation of blasphemy. If it were a math test, I'd have to ask how well the text was serving the course.
As for what the human condition is, I think how we see ourselves depends on what we try to do. I like caring and learning; growing agency in people who care, reflect and are accountable. I have yet to see a human harness threats of death and torment to the long-term public good.