http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/20/a-man-after-his-own-heart/ Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:14:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/20/a-man-after-his-own-heart/comment-page-1/#comment-39318 vernaculo Sat, 21 Aug 2004 20:17:12 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2056#comment-39318 "Advances in medicine" being the unquestioned good of the preservation of the individual in spite of and often against the unarticulated good of that within which the individual life arises, and into which it subsides. That subsiding, the individual death, being the universal wrong at which medicine advances, armed and grimly purposed. Through most of human history that goal, of individual lives preserved at any cost, was so distant and so hard to reach, in a daily context of threat and mortality, it passed without question. But most of what we did was inside a still larger context, in which individual lives participated as component, not purpose. We're outside that context now. We're like gods that way, but gods with the emotional maturity of diapered infants. The taboos against recognizing the steady accumulation of certain types of human being, and the steady attrition of others, are accepted without question, while it's emphasized that all human lives are statistically equal; as though any human being was replaceable with any other; even as real differences are exaggerated to terminal degree, behaviorally mostly, but culturally and racially as well. Brown lives have less value than white, primitive-culture lives have almost no, even a negative, value against the modern. The heart that's so easily transplanted makes the one we're born with disposable. That emotional parallel is less exciting to contemplate. “Advances in medicine” being the unquestioned good of the preservation of the individual in spite of and often against the unarticulated good of that within which the individual life arises, and into which it subsides. That subsiding, the individual death, being the universal wrong at which medicine advances, armed and grimly purposed. Through most of human history that goal, of individual lives preserved at any cost, was so distant and so hard to reach, in a daily context of threat and mortality, it passed without question. But most of what we did was inside a still larger context, in which individual lives participated as component, not purpose. We’re outside that context now. We’re like gods that way, but gods with the emotional maturity of diapered infants. The taboos against recognizing the steady accumulation of certain types of human being, and the steady attrition of others, are accepted without question, while it’s emphasized that all human lives are statistically equal; as though any human being was replaceable with any other; even as real differences are exaggerated to terminal degree, behaviorally mostly, but culturally and racially as well. Brown lives have less value than white, primitive-culture lives have almost no, even a negative, value against the modern. The heart that’s so easily transplanted makes the one we’re born with disposable. That emotional parallel is less exciting to contemplate.

]]> http://crookedtimber.org/2004/08/20/a-man-after-his-own-heart/comment-page-1/#comment-39317 John Quiggin Sat, 21 Aug 2004 00:16:00 +0000 http://crookedtimber.org/wp/?p=2056#comment-39317 You haven't mentioned the physical features of the heart that gave it its emotional weight in the first place. I think two are particularly important (1) heartbeat as a sign of life (2) changes in heartbeat as a sign of emotion I think (1) has been substantially undermined by defibrillators and so on, but (2) is still part of everyone's daily experience. You haven’t mentioned the physical features of the heart that gave it its emotional weight in the first place. I think two are particularly important (1) heartbeat as a sign of life (2) changes in heartbeat as a sign of emotion I think (1) has been substantially undermined by defibrillators and so on, but (2) is still part of everyone’s daily experience.

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