{"id":8374,"date":"2016-09-22T20:32:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T00:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=8374"},"modified":"2016-09-22T20:32:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T00:32:48","slug":"thinking-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=8374","title":{"rendered":"Thinking online…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I dislike inconsistency, <\/strong>especially in myself. It occurred to me that I have embraced two apparently inconsistent philosophical positions.<\/p>\n

So I gave the matter some thought. Here\u2019s the problem, and my synthesis.<\/p>\n

The other day I linked to what I consider an outstanding article by historian Tom Holland<\/a>. In it he explains how he gradually came to realize, though his research, that modern ideas of cultural relativism are false. It\u2019s not true that all societies are pretty much the same. The Christian West espouses (though often fails to practice) the highest level of morality we know of, superior in every way to civilizations of the past that scholars love to praise. The Greeks and the Romans, for instance, from whom Enlightenment thinkers thought they derived their ideas, knew nothing of human equality and never contemplated ending slavery. It\u2019s only the Christian West that has even striven for these things.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one position I embrace.<\/p>\n

But I also embrace what C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Abolition of Man<\/a><\/em>, calls \u201cthe Tao.\u201d The Tao (as Lewis used it here) is a universal set of moral precepts that appear to be inborn. They are reiterated in cultures all over the world, across racial divisions and epochs of time alike. \u201cDon\u2019t steal.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t murder.\u201d \u201cKeep your promises.\u201d \u201cHonor your parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that contradict the Western exceptionalism I praise in Mr. Holland\u2019s article? <\/p>\n

No. There\u2019s a distinction here.<\/p>\n

Lewis’ Tao is remarkably consistent around the world. Along broad lines, it appears to be a natural law, common to all people who are not insane.<\/p>\n

But in general, all human societies have applied those rules only to \u201cus.\u201d You didn\u2019t steal from your kinsman or neighbor. You didn\u2019t murder another member of your tribe. You couldn\u2019t lie to a fellow countryman.<\/p>\n

But (generally speaking) all those rules went by the board when you were dealing with outsiders. Members of other clans. Foreigners. Infidels. In dealing with them, you could do whatever you could get away with. Thus (in an obvious example for me), the Viking raider considered himself an honorable man when he raided England or Ireland. Those people weren\u2019t \u201cus.\u201d They didn\u2019t count.<\/p>\n

What Christianity brought to western civilization was the idea (inconsistently put into practice, we admit) that even \u201cthe Samaritan\u201d was our neighbor. One was to treat everyone \u2013 even enemies \u2013 as one would like to be treated oneself.<\/p>\n

That was the new thing. All the other moral advances sprang from that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I dislike inconsistency, especially in myself. It occurred to me that I have embraced two apparently inconsistent philosophical positions. So I gave the matter some thought. Here\u2019s the problem, and my synthesis. The other day I linked to what I consider an outstanding article by historian Tom Holland. In it he explains how he gradually … Continue reading Thinking online…<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[1926,2767,3053,3164],"class_list":["post-8374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-morality","tag-the-abolition-of-man","tag-the-tao","tag-tom-holland"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}