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November 9, 2012
On the Enormities of Kindly Men
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint.
It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. -- Written by The Ubiquitous and quoted @ | John C. Wright's Journal
Posted by gerardvanderleun at November 9, 2012 11:22 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
That sounds an awfully lot like a line from Lewis' introduction to The Screwtape Letters.
Posted by: mushroom at November 9, 2012 11:43 AM
I was going to say, it is a quote from the preface.
Posted by: Rich Fader at November 9, 2012 2:28 PM
Well.. Jon Wright filled in a few gaps in my understanding of the Rank-and-file Liberal minds disconnect with reality. Some excerpts:
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"Because irresponsibility is at the core of nihilism, its defining characteristic, the nihilist in economics can both claim to be attempting to take wealth from the greedy hence ill-intentioned rich and give it to the victimized hence well-intentioned poor in the name of social justice AND can achieve the direct opposite of its result.
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Once the link between intention and consequences is broken, the conscience is presented with the relatively easy task of merely maintaining one’s self esteem, not of standing in judgment on one’s actions, because actions have no meaning. All moral reasoning merely becomes introspection, and then degrades itself into narcissism, a repeated attempt to self-medicate the woes of life into drugged stupor, and to feels good about oneself.
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Metaphysics is the study of axiomatic truths, those truths that must be true under all times, places and conditions. If the despotism of moral relativism successfully abolishes all study of metaphysics from the minds of men, no axiomatic truths will be contemplated nor imagined by the minds of men, and link between the objective fact of right and wrong intentions and the objective fact of intentional or negligent consequences will be severed.
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That men will thereafter accomplish ever more destructive and ever more inhuman evils on ever more vast magnitudes in the name of ever more noble-sounding intentions, and be ever more foolish and incompetent as they do so, is the natural, perhaps inevitable, consequence. "
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Very nice essay.
Posted by: Anonymous at November 11, 2012 10:31 AM
Thanks. I too thought it was very worthwhile as are many of the essays at Wright's page.
Posted by: vanderleun at November 11, 2012 10:57 AM