Subject: Re: suicide
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 01 2000 - 07:53:03 EST
In a message dated 3/1/00 1:12:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, shok@netcom.com
writes:
<< Since we're talking about Seymour (as you've so aptly pointed out), we
can make some stab at variable Z, or we can just call him a Fucking
Moron - or a coward, as the case may be.
Yours,
-robbie
>>
I see...
First off, I think YOU heard me the first time, but there aren't too many
WE's who can say they heard me the first time :)
But beyond that, I think I'm seeing our (yours and mine) differences a bit
more clearly. When I labelled Seymour a coward (I think I've said this
before, but I didn't mean to sound as if I was defining his whole character
as that of a coward, but the motive for that one act. I don't know -- he may
have been a coward all his life. But I have no reason to believe that.) I
saw myself as saying something substantial about the character of the act and
the mindset of the person behind it at the time -- not something along the
lines "moron" which is merely an insult.
I mean, Aristotle's ethics have as their chief virtue courage, because
without it no other virtues are possible. Sometimes this is nothing more
than a determination to go on regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes
this involves just a willingness to be vulnerable, to be willing to run the
risk of being hurt. Sometimes courage means making the decisions you have
to, even though you don't like yourself for making them -- temporarily living
with compromise for the good of others. Or maybe it just means being the
first and last one responsible for what happens, and not granting yourself
the luxury of blaming others.
So "courage" is a "real" concept to me -- something I see us as having to
draw upon for our daily lives -- not a triviality or a myth.
Jim
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