All men are somewhat inexactly the same. You can say that we're the same in
respect of the all things that matter, but all this really means is that you
think the only things that matter are those things in respect of which we
are the same (to put it clumsily). From that perspective, any set of values
that includes a particular esteem for what one takes to be one's own or
others' idiosyncracies is essentially, and probably ideologically also,
skewed.
It is impious to care about individual souls: this is a divine faculty (e.g.
to forgive), not a human one. At least, only a deity can care about *every*
individual soul simultaneously. Human beings are more partial in our
attentions, which is unfair of us: the only kind of impartiality we are
capable of involves behaving as if nobody whatsoever had a soul that one
might care about; and it is a rare bureaucrat who extends this noble
principle even to his own person.
Anyone who thinks that everyone's a poet should try judging a few poetry
competitions, not that I have. There was a particularly dismal example in
the Guardian's society pages yesterday. It got third prize in a competition
for writing about drugz. The second-prize winner (in prose) was also
atrocious. Some poor sod must have had to read through the rest of the
entries, which were presumably even worse.
yrs in common mortality,
Dom
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