>
>Having undergone this
> exercise, General Massu announced that the pain was bearable, that the
> hideous reports published about torture were weak-kneed exaggerations. 'We
> will now put Immanuel Kant aside,' said Donald as he entered the class. To
> him, this news-story embodied the fact of absolute, transcendent evil. It
> put in question not only Kant's providentialism but the capacity of human
> reason to cope with extremities of human conduct.
Dom,
in "Dei delitti e delle pene" by Cesare Beccaria (blessed father-in -aw of
the even more blessed
Alessandro Manzoni) there are all the most important reflections ever made
about the use and abuse
of torture and why it had to be banned. His blessed son-in -law, Alessandro
Manzoni,
(this is a case of a man capable of making a reasonable choice in
marrying!), following the
steps ,.of his famous illuminated father-in-law (and those of Diderot) wrote
the even more wonderful
"Storia della colonna infame" (History of the defamatory pillar) where he
gives an account
of all the practices of torture during the Plague in Milan (1600) against
the supposed "untori" (those who would spread the plague).
These two books are masterpiece of human rights
and amazing consideration of the evil of our judgmental criteria.
............
The rest of your post, Dom, was so hard to cope with (he reminded me
of Stanley Kubrick's reflections on madness fears and obsessions in Doctor
Strangelove,
a trapped - awfully tragic-comic- situation, with no way out.) The all thing
turning into a huge mise-en-scene.
What a view.,......... It makes me want to believe in Lord Jesus again. And
recite my sweet infant prayers at night.
In full candidness of spirit and mind. Close to the Holy Virgin Mary, who I
love.
And it makes me want to turn the television off for ever (as I have already
almost totally done).
I find the subject untenable. I am not able to reply and face the point.
It would give vent to my intense pessimism about human nature.
What a loneliness are we condamned to suffer. What a pervasive ugliness.
Dom, of course I see your attitude as being one which can create the sole
ground for hoping that the world
can eventually be approached in a rational safe way. I also see why you are
(and I hope you will keep being)
in this state of mind, being un padre "di novella etade" ( a young father).
Erminia
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