"What is going on?" Niebuhr says is the first question of ethics.
"Are my choices the expression of my character, or is my character formed by my choices?" asks Sartre.
The resistance leader under the Occupation is stood up against a wall and shot. Whether she gave more or less than the philanthropist who endowed the sacristy is an open question.
Most of us cannot be faulted for our existentional choices because we do not see what is going on, any more than did Paul de Man, his nose in a text, in Vichy France. Blindness and Insight is the title of his most important book.
Only a few of us are philanthropists, but we are all collaborators. The Courage to Be, or even to see, is rare, but also contagious, like fear.
Very few people get up and "walk around", figuratively speaking, to find out what is going on. They're too busy on a leash between work, the video store and home, and also don't strain much at whatever particular ideological leash they have accepted.
Posted by: JJ Commoner | May 27, 2008 at 04:00 PM
We watch tv news to find out what is going on, and they show us. Not that hard, really. And the ads are informative also.
Posted by: Phil | May 27, 2008 at 05:45 PM
McLuhan's observation that ads are the cave art of the electronic age takes on new meaning when we remember Plato.
Posted by: Jeff Trexler | May 27, 2008 at 08:32 PM
Cave art painted by someone dipping blood from a skull of a child, smearing brains on the wall.
Posted by: Phil | May 27, 2008 at 11:26 PM