Christian Heaven and Hell

Been having a slight moral crisis lately. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, can the road to heaven be paved with bad intentions as long as the deeds involved are good? what if both are ambiguous or inconsistent?? what if you try to convince yourself that your intentions are one way but actually they're another though really you may not be sure at all? what if i want to be good but am being self-serving at the same time? what if im just tougher? life is confusing. sigh.

Tantalus, nee Hope

It has been a while...does anyone still check the site? This has already appeared on my blog, but it occurred to me to post here on the odd chance that it will rescucitate the site.

They [the damned] ferry over this Lethean sound
Both to and fro...
And...struggle...to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe....
But Fate withstands...and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus.
--Milton, Paradise Lost

Few myths speak of the grotesque and ineluctable disease of hope as eloquently as the story of Tantalus. Witness: For offending the gods, a man is condemned to a pool of Hell where he sees fruit he cannot eat and water he cannot drink. Nor is this any commonplace withholding of satisfaction: Tantalus is free to move towards the food and drink that recede from him. And so, for eternity, Tantalus inclines against hunger that will know no relief.

Here's the rub: For eternity?? Don't you think at some point he'd stop, at some point Tantalus would feel resignation, or despair, whichever you choose to call it, and cease the attempt? But no -- we are told this continues ad infinitum. It is one thing if he is chained there forever, but to strain against those chains the whole time? This is not a story about the implacable wrath of the gods. This is a story of the implacable, irrational hope of the human race.

Hope is as crippling and devastating as anything else with which we could have been cursed. Think about it: As a species, we are unable to accept when a cause is lost. The sun may cease to rise, but as long as it does rise it will never cease to rise in the east. Human beings will not cease to pass out of this existence, into what oblivion or what horrors we do not know. The water will never stop receding; nor will the fruit allow itself to be touched, but Tantalus will never stop reaching for them. We are condemned by denial to believe the love, the money, the happiness just out of reach may soon be within our grasp. We are unable to realize that the anguish of existence is total and final. And when those around us do realize it, we inflict our hopes on them, to what use or end I fail to understand. Perhaps the sole purpose of this journey is to realize the anguish of living, and pass thence from one form of anguish into another.

We like to assume that the Hope in Pandora's little box of blights was placed there as the antidote. But why should we not conclude that Hope was as deadly and destructive as the other horrors she released? And unlike the ills that fly about inflicting themselves on us, hope is the one horror that is always with us. The curse is forever safely in the box on the mantel. It is omnipresent, ineluctable. In death we may escape from famine, wickedness and grief. But not even in the afterlife do we escape from hope.

Schmaltzing with Schwarzenegger

Okay, so I don't even know what "schmaltzing" means, but really, how much can you do with a name like Schwarzenegger?

Apparently, during his speech at the Republican National Convention, Arnold described being inspired by Nixon's Republican rhetoric upon his arrival in the US. By contrasat, the Democrats sounded too much like the Socialists he'd left behind in Austria. For the record, my aunt and her family in Vienna do pay exorbitant taxes, but their health care and education (maybe up to the collegiate level) are taken care of by the government -- two of the very policies endorsed by some Democrats on the basis that they are the prerogative of every American.

To oversimplify, the U.S. is a capitalist economy governed by a democratic system. Capitalism theoretically offers equal opportunity for social mobility, and we are accustomed to thinking of Socialism and Capitalism as incompatible. "Democracy" seems to imply equal distribution, although I think it's only meant to imply equal access, which is not quite the same thing. (It may not even mean that. Suddenly I'm not at all sure what it means.) While we arguably don't even have that, the question stands in my mind: Can democracy and socialism coexist in a single governmental framework? Can American democracy support such policies?

Proffering bills for universal health care and education suggests the system is inequitable, an accusation that flies in the face of the founding precepts of this country (i.e., the Protestant work ethic, Horatio Algiers, and minimal government meddling in private lives and businesses). To vote such bills into law would be to concede that there are people who do not have access to such things through no fault of their own, to deny the Calvinist/capitalist/ American belief that if you're not succeeding, you're doing something wrong.

Now, although it is distinctly possible that these questions are born of a failure to grasp something fundamental about American government and economy, I ask anyway: Is our great nation capable of integrating both sets of values? How much freedom/democratic process -- if any -- must be sacrificed to ensure universal health care and education? Or must we choose only one at any given time? Can we pass such bills without drastically reevaluating ourselves as a nation? And are we -- is any nation -- capable of conducting such a profound reexamination of its ideals, values, and development without imploding?

Sophiaphilia

Welcome to the Erosophers' Den! Unlike most philosophers, we erosophers hunger for wisdom like most people hunger for good sex. We like nothing better than a long, steamy night of intellectual exchange, although we're not above having our Socratic dialogues interrupted by more Alcibidian revels. We ask "What's your theory?" the way most people ask "What's your sign?" Come in, look around, and join the great brain orgy in the Erosophers' Den!