Skip to main content

Turtle Talk #3

Let us begin by saying that although what many ancient people called,  "the good, and the true, and the beautiful", may not be a perfect description of fundamental human interests, they are a wonderful way to think about what lures us.  I think that, of all places I most desire, that place where truth and beauty and goodness come together--where each is uncompromised by the full presence of the others--is most satisfying.  That is to say, for instance, that what we find beautiful does not require compromising what we know to be true; that what we find to be true is not in tension with what we believe is good; that what entrances us with its sheer goodness shines with beauty.

It is a kind of harmony.

I do not hear music when I walk in the woods--I hear chirping and leaves brushing each other--nor, when I hear a woman laugh or a child giggle, do I slip off into an episode of truth-seeking, and I do not sit under chrome-plated pyramid contraptions and wonder whether my navel is right- or left-handed, but I do want a life where nothing I discover to be true has to be denied because of what I believe to be good, nor where something that seems beautiful that it has to be denied because I know something that is true.

I have read fascinating articles that have tried to prioritize those huge human interests, that might argue, for example, that first we are attracted to beauty, and that what we call good is subsidiary to beauty but, for now at least, I am content to leave those explorations to others.  What does attract me are the confluences; where and when and how what I know to be true, and find to be good, and discover to be beautiful come together, without compromise.  And when they do not, where the tension lies.  Have I committed myself to an ethic, or a philosophy, or an interpretation of fact, or a shower of delight that needs to be rethought?  Something is out-of-joint!  That is to say, it offends us, something important to us, to abandon what is good, or what seems so plainly true, or is undeniably beautiful:  it happens, but it is not satisfying.  It bothers us.  It is not enough to speak of "doing the lesser evil", as theologians sometimes do.  What we want is to be true, to be good, and beautiful.  That is a lot to expect, but it is not too much.

Consider the position many religious people are in today.  They have been taught a whole system of ethics (or a system of thinking about what is good), all the while living in a world where they have do deny things that are plainly true:  that the universe is fantastically old, that life has slowly and gradually come to be (perhaps almost everywhere), and that things that live for a while actually die.  The universe does not show any evidence of having a designer or creator:  it does everything by itself.  There is no list anywhere in the universe of the best things to do.  Even if we human beings mess up everything, and manage to destroy every last living thing on this planet, the Milky Way will not care.  The Milky Way--our galaxy--has its own black hole.  It seems more likely that such events are common.  But the last two human beings, observing the shambles, will care.

They will wish it were not true, and call it ugly, and only ruefully call it a good thing.

We are the place where the good and the true and the beautiful come together; or at least one of the places.  Or where it might happen.  So we ought to pay attention to how it can be achieved.

I am no longer religious.  In the western European religious tradition into which I was born and bred, it was, and still is, insisted that truth and beauty and goodness all come to focus in a god; one or another, or some assortment of them.  That is nothing more or less than what we once thought to be true:  gods up there, us here, evil beings somewhere nether.  But that is nothing more nor less than an earlier worldview: how people sometimes thought before they began to think scientifically.  Goodness does not come numbered on tablets of stone.  Harp music coming from the clouds, and cobblestones of gold and rubies do not really entrance me.  I shall be happy never to hear anyone bellow, "How Great Thou Art", again.  I prefer Willy Nelson, or Sergei Rachmaninoff; George Gershwin.

I go to such places as have angels and gods and pipe organs only to celebrate someone's wedding, or to be there when a friend has died.  I have finally come to be able, sometimes, even to sing a stanza of a friend's favorite hymn, even when every word of it is absurd;  even I believe to be true about the world is denied.  It is hard to go back to such places.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy.  Those were skills to be learned and practiced.   I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop.  He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes.  He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade.  Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore.  The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up.   I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth.  I knew how to do that.  Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down.  On the second try, aimi
Post a Comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them.  Even when all they wanted to do w
Post a Comment
Read more