On the contrary. I'm no starry-eyed idealist, by any length. Even though there are a thousand steps upwards to civilized behavior, there's only one step downwards into barbarism. But history is a record of people choosing to mount that thousand steps upwards again and again, rather than indulge in what people of my home town used to c…
On the contrary. I'm no starry-eyed idealist, by any length. Even though there are a thousand steps upwards to civilized behavior, there's only one step downwards into barbarism. But history is a record of people choosing to mount that thousand steps upwards again and again, rather than indulge in what people of my home town used to call "nostalgie de la boue". Between decadence and depravity on one side, and civilization and decency on the other, that which is civilized and decent tends to take far greater strides than that which chooses to lie face down in the mud.
I have not your courage to will to believe that there is some merit in our species that can create a telos that will lead us to a Lamarckian better future.
But I would rather have you as a neighbor than a Cassandra like me. May you increase and multiply.
Maybe the closest I can come is -- I cannot honestly conclude humans ever will be good.
Yet I do believe, and know, it is in our power not to be as dreadful as we can.
Humans -- hell, Americans -- made the James Webb space telescope. And Galileo persisted: Eppur si muove.
On the contrary. I'm no starry-eyed idealist, by any length. Even though there are a thousand steps upwards to civilized behavior, there's only one step downwards into barbarism. But history is a record of people choosing to mount that thousand steps upwards again and again, rather than indulge in what people of my home town used to call "nostalgie de la boue". Between decadence and depravity on one side, and civilization and decency on the other, that which is civilized and decent tends to take far greater strides than that which chooses to lie face down in the mud.
I have not your courage to will to believe that there is some merit in our species that can create a telos that will lead us to a Lamarckian better future.
But I would rather have you as a neighbor than a Cassandra like me. May you increase and multiply.
Maybe the closest I can come is -- I cannot honestly conclude humans ever will be good.
Yet I do believe, and know, it is in our power not to be as dreadful as we can.
Humans -- hell, Americans -- made the James Webb space telescope. And Galileo persisted: Eppur si muove.