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Monday 25 December 2017

Christmas quote




It is a terrible dilemma in the life of reason whether it will sacrifice natural abundance to moral order, or moral order to natural abundance. Whatever compromise we choose proves unstable, and forces us to a new experiment.

George Santayana - Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion (1913)


It is a terrible dilemma so I'll need another sherry to think about it...

...maybe another mince pie too. 

3 comments:

Clacket said...

In the olden days, if you wanted to be accounted a significant thinker, you either had to be out and out specific (dangerous, facts might subsequently find you out) or allusive. I’m more of an allusive guy myself. I keep coming across Santayana quotes. What strikes me about him is first how amazingly ‘modern’ he is in his language and concerns, second, he was writing, seductively eloquently, just about a hundred years ago, which is in modern human terms (if not of course actual human terms) an awful long time ago. Third, it’s not always clear what he’s blowing on about. Is it pork pies now or later? S’obvious, innit? Gimme, now.

It would be nice if these ‘formative’ guys could come back and mark us, though I think we would generally disappoint, despite all our fantastical advantages. Equally, they signally fail to understand the (actually, largely economic) tide of affairs, stuff that they for all their cleverness either did not realise or weight accordingly. In essence, a three billion ‘locust’ world must be a more manageable proposition than a nine billion and rising world. But manage it we must, as we all for sure in some degree care for the future (just quite far out into the future our imaginations and care usefully extend is another interesting thing).

James Higham said...

Did not touch the mulled or mince pies this year. Feeling less healthy already.

A K Haart said...

Clacket - yes he is amazingly ‘modern’ in his language and concerns which may suggest that these matters haven't changed as much as we might suppose. What he is concerned about in this quote is the disintegrating effect of religious and social diversity which eventually has to be corrected until the correction becomes too restrictive and so it goes on.

It isn't easy to say if such people as Santayana gave too little weight to economic factors because we may be giving them too much weight which would bias our view of their ideas.

James - I'm shocked. I'm sure mince pies should be classed as seasonal vitamins.