What’s Wrong With The World Part V—More Hypocrisy— Four Puzzles
Four Puzzles of Hypocrisy
When the preacher said his theory, four other questions arose to puzzle me, which (as it turned out) the ramifications of his answer also eventually answered.
(1) Why was there so much happy-sappy talk about self-esteem in the modern era? The ancients never talked of self-esteem; they talked of honor and courage, justice and moderation, and how to endure sorrows and wounds with patient silence.
(2) Why is there so much happy-sappy talk about how the conscience has no authority? The Modern theory is that the contents of the conscience do not tell right from wrong, but instead merely registers a collection of unquestioned bigotries, a flotilla of taboos, which the enlightened man may ignore, or perhaps even has a duty to ignore.
(3) If the moderns had so much self-esteem, why where they so loud and angry, insanely angry, insanely self-righteously angry? Why were they never angry about things that would move an honest man to anger against a real enemy, but always about trivial, superficial, symbolic or unreal things, and always the anger is directed against the most willing, the most weak, the most patient of targets, that is, not against enemies but against authorities?
(4) Why are the children of the modern age, the freest and least responsible people in history, always, always, always talking as if they are about to be repressed, as if the jackbooted thugs of the dread and dread Theocracy were seconds away from kicking in the door to drag the screaming victims off to the torture chambers of the Grand Inquisitor? Why so paranoid?
Years passed ere the answers became clear.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
