[lit-ideas] Re: Exercise


On 30-Jan-09, at 5:56 AM, David Ritchie wrote:
I propose a list of words or phrases that are in common parlance that you know you've never used. And possibly some meditation as to why.
To begin. I don't think I have ever used the phrase "It's only natural that." I don't like such appeals to consensus agreement, particularly when they come loaded with implicit moral judgments.
While I share with you, David, a distaste for the phrase "It's only natural that", my dislike stems from what I see as an appeal not to 'consensualist' but rather to 'essentialist' underpinning(s). I see the appeal to be *for* consensus, by appealing *to* something considered 'essential'. In the case of moral judgements, this would be an appeal to some sort of 'natural law', or 'non-contingent natural state of affairs', often with religious - or anti-religious - foundations.
[Here I skip to discussion of implicit 'essentialist' religious - and *anti*religious - fundamentalism which may lie behind statements using the 'it's only natural' phrase.]
A statement such as 'It is only natural that upon hearing the Word of God and reflecting upon it in your heart of hearts that you will accept Jesus Christ as your personal God and Saviour' entails an appeal to something considered as essential in the nature of human beings. One must be 'unnatural' (i.e. perverted from one's 'true' nature by witting or unwitting collusion with the Forces of Darkness) in order not to acquiesce. (The phrase 'heart of hearts' is of course also an 'essentialism indictor'.) Similarly, an accompanying statement such as 'Of course, it is only natural that you will at first resist such acquiescence' appeals to underlying essentialist claims about an inherent sinful component to human nature, arising from the activities of (and/or witting or unwitting collusion with) the aforementioned Forces (including perhaps some doctrine of Original Sin.)
Please note that I am not here *dismissing* all claims expressing or resting upon religious belief out of hand. If I were to do so, I would be equally guilty of some sort of 'essentialism'; in effect assenting to something like 'It's only natural that some people through social circumstance or psychological proclivity are compelled to some sort religious belief, but rigourous exercise of one's intellectual faculties will lead to the recognition of the error of such ways'. Some sort of essentialism lies behind such out-of-hand dismissals as well.
My dislike of the 'its only natural' phrase rests upon a dislike of (unthinking - or 'un-thought-out') essentialism. Perhaps the Unrepentant Atheist and the True Believer do have something to say to one another if we can avoid succumbing to some sort of 'essentialist' fundamentalism and together explore What It Means To Be Human.
(The capital lettering in 'WIMTBH' is deliberate, for I fear some sort of fundamentalism on my part, if I end there. The inquiry - and, it is hoped, possibility for fruitful discussion and debate - continues ....) 

Chris Bruce,
pondering 'repentance' etymologically
- and that little word 'only', in
Kiel, Germany
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