[lit-ideas] Re: Exercise
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- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:17:10 +0100
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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