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edenfalling

Here is the passage from C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain that I found most striking and thought particularly apropos for today's world:

Perhaps my harping on the word "kindness" has already aroused a protest in some readers' minds. Are we not really an increasingly cruel age? Perhaps we are: but I think we have become so in the attempt to reduce all virtues to kindness. For Plato rightly taught that virtue is one. You cannot be kind unless you have all the other virtues.

If, being cowardly, conceited and slothful, you have never yet done a fellow creature great mischief, that is only because your neighbour's welfare has not yet happened to conflict with your safety, self-approval, or ease. Every vice leads to cruelty. Even a good emotion, pity, if not controlled by charity and justice, leads through anger to cruelty.

Most atrocities are stimulated by accounts of the enemy's atrocities; and pity for the oppressed classes, when separated from the moral law as a whole, leads by a very natural process to the unremitting brutalities of a reign of terror.

[Chapter 4, 'Human Wickedness,' paragraphing mine]

...

I suspect my exposure to Tumblr's vicious ~~callout~~ witch-hunting culture affected my response to this passage, though it is of course applicable to many other walks of life.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: http://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1024535.html

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From:

This...this. Well found. This is something that is not only relevant, it's poignant. Hits you right where you need it. Thank you for sharing.

From:

edenfalling

When Lewis is on-point, he is on-point.

From:

Preach. ;)

From:

cat_i_th_adage

This.

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