The problem with utilitarian man is that he believes that everything is necessarily for sale, just waiting to be negotiated. That is why he ends up, sooner or later, breaking his face when he comes up against his will against a nature that does not share his convictions. So he lashes out, wages war and sometimes insults what he does not understand; in all cases, however, whether he thinks he is triumphant or not, he is forced to swallow his own smallness.
Tag: behavior
Hypocrisy Is the Substance of Public Morality
It is now commonplace to say that hypocrisy is the substance of public morality, and that social relations are impossible without it. Fair enough, although not because of the consequent impression that it should be tolerated in its entirety. There is a limit, just as there is hypocrisies. Hypocrisy, like lies, is only justified when it prevents us from crossing the border of civility. Otherwise, what it does is differentiate men from scoundrels, and it cannot be admitted without also admitting the complete shipwreck of one’s own value.
Many Defects Are Tolerated…
Many defects are tolerated in public men, and many of them even seem derisory when moral clarity is found in them. Among his peers, this is so rare that, when it manifests itself, it seems to overshadow them all and overshadow his other qualities. In an arena dominated by falsehood and insidiousness, it is almost a miracle when we see someone who has not been contaminated.
Despite the Apparent Increase in Complexity
Modernity, despite the apparent increase in complexity that it has given to all sorts of ideologies, has simplified them to such an extent that today we can easily summarize the ideological debate into good and bad intentions. To say that it cannot be reduced to such a Manichaeism is to deny the ostensible axiological war that supports it and manifests itself in every word uttered and every line written. Everything else is secondary or irrelevant.