The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry, aphorism 180

180
  1. A victim lies upon the altar of God and is not to be defiled by an honest explanation of the causes leading up to the injury.  

  2. Self-deception and an unfailing instinct for causal ignorance are necessary if an individual or herd is to justify a punishment with a good conscience.  

  3. Causal ignorance is not the obstacle to morality; it is rather this very hollowness which makes the moral conduit possible.



A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism



Popular posts from this blog

A valuable book, A Human Strategy, aphorism 387

387 A valuable book may be torn to pieces without diminishing the human spirit, just so long as the words have already been read and understood.  To feel the loss of the book — at its material destruction, even though one had already digested its contents fully and had aligned oneself toward its overall direction — is evidence that one values the non-human being over human becoming , the static thing over the dynamic process .  In response to the fear of our unknowable future we would rather freeze ourselves into a single stage of growth at the expense of the entire metamorphosis. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism
Read more
The Ascetic Impulse: We think we deliberately hurt ourselves when it is simply that we do know which version of ourselves will satisfy our needs more fully. We try on a personality as if trying on new clothes. Bizarrely, the self we beat up has heretofore been a complete stranger.
Read more