Tagged: Christian

4

Ancient Vengeance

It is a main thrust of philosophical Liberalism (and of ancient Stoicism) that human beings have a duty to rise above not only animal but parochial and sectarian passions.  Any attempt to justify revenge must therefore represent a step back toward the jungle from which we escaped all too recently.

1

Reason vs. Passion

Robert E. Lee, who in so many ways epitomized the highest ideas of Christian civility, summed up the common feeling in his famous statement that, “Duty is the most sublime word in our language,” adding the injunction: “Do your duty in all things.  You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.”

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Poem by Thomas Chatterton

Chatterton, a late 18th century poet, is more famous as a legend–the teenage poet who died at 17–than as a writer.  The Romantics, French as well as English, lionized him.  His best known poems are the medievalizing  verses he attributed to a 15th century poet, but his talent for painting satiric portraits is evident in “Apostate Will”–a fine sketch of the clergy on the make,

2

Abortion and the Laws of Nature

The obligation to care for one’s offspring is a human universal, like the incest taboo or the prohibition of murder.  Human and primate mothers, as a rule, devote themselves to their children, and mother-love is regarded conventionally as the most selfless and irrational forms of human attachment.