The Problem of Good

Dear Dialecticians and Colleagues
Across the Curriculum

IT started off with Mikel addressing SIN
& the “problem” of Good & Evil in the benign
descriptive terms with which I presented it
in the handout—a violation of the common sense..

Once upon a time: “SIN”—I.E. es, esse— was a
word for essence, for BEING—an aesthetic rather
than ethical (judgmental) determination.

(Already, tension in the gap between describe
mode and value mode.)

As “sinners” we divided our BEING into that which
we accept and that which we reject, otherwise known
as our species knowledge of what we call Good & Evil..

'Good' and 'Evil' stand for an absolute (“dry”) distinction.
But go anywhere you like and you'll see in realtime how
relative it is. Diverse. In the First World we like to let
Hitler represent evil (inhuman) and Gandhi (say) stand
for good (or Mother Teresa: whatever—we're just
quibbling over stereotypes now but it's easily possible
we could get stuck on who/what to represent Good & Evil
in realtime (so to speak) and never get ON WITH IT.

What we reject as persons (but send up the flagpole
collectively), we deny in ourselves (my Hitlerian
inhumanity, say, my evil-doing): I cover it up and,
project on others and banish to the cellar to fester
and rise up (“evil”--literally: apos: “up from below”)
to bring down my House of Usher, so to speak.

This is a sloppy “origin myth”--story, representation
for the nature of sin and the problem of good&evil
(note: we usually say “the problem of evil”—philosophers
do, anyway—rather than the Problem of GOOD'N EVIL
because we don't see GOOD as a problem, Right right
there: the great divide, division, separation at birth of
Siamese Twins—sending one to the cellar with much
weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Well, we didn't get this far in class. Somehow we got
off on that damn Cave metaphor and the difference
between FACT and FICTION. It's like telling a kid
the story of Brer Rabbit and Fox and The Briar Patch
and the kid starts claiming—look animals don't talk,
so you can never get to how-it-is Rabbit tricks Fox into
tossing him right smack into the Promised Land, know
what I mean! Fox thinking he was condemning rabbit
to hell —so to speak.

Please, Mr. Fox: whatever you do ,
don't be throwing me into that Briar Patch

This is my story of Tuesday's Session.
& I’m sticking to it. Wednesday Morning
Quarterbacking , making it all perfectly
clear in a sloppy way—a form of DIA- lectic:
talking across the talk after the talk has been
completed as opposed to the dia-lectic which
might be talking across the talk while it's going
on in realtime. (That would be awesome!)

Easier in retrospect. History.
An act of FICTION. If you buy it,
we could call it FACT.

(But it's all ME:
see me hear me touch me feed me
so to speak. It's not really about trash or
who done the dishes last, archetypes or
cave metaphors or sin or good & evil
for crying out loud.. )

Need we argue?

xxxooo, Sam