"Doctrines are less important [in Buddhism etc.] than they are in Western Christianity in part because it is believed that the purest knowledge of reality comes from direct experience..." (26) A belief about the relative un-importance of belief makes belief less important, "if (as so many students like to punctuate and safeguard even their safest assertions) that makes sense." I don't think it makes much.
"To know that one does not know is best..." (27) -- That's Daoism, but it's also Socrates. These traditions, superficially so different, converge at the source.
"This is why we need poetry: to give us some sense of what we cannot precisely capture in language." (29) Actually I think poetry sometimes does that, evocatively and subtly, but other times it gives us precision in language that we otherwise cannot fully capture in feeling.
Consider, on September 1, 2020, Auden's poem September 1, 1939: "The unmentionable odor of death/Offends the September night." Toward the end of the poem, he says, "We must love one another or die." (WA) That's precision in language, aligning with an inchoate feeling of outrage and futility as street violence in places like Portland spirals beyond control.
John Locke, vaunted champion of tolerance and individual liberty, said we should not tolerate atheists because they can't be trusted to keep promises. (41) What would he think of the fastest-growing belief being non-belief? He might just have to write a poem.
John Locke, vaunted champion of tolerance and individual liberty, said we should not tolerate atheists because they can't be trusted to keep promises. (41) What would he think of the fastest-growing belief being non-belief? He might just have to write a poem.
No comments:
Post a Comment