[lit-ideas] Re: How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:34:24 -0600
JL:
>>... how can we be saddened by and cry over Mercutio's death knowing as we do
>>that when he dies no one really dies?"<<
Again, this is a question for psychology, not philosophy. Why do people cry
over abandoned puppies and ignore orphaned children? That too is a
psychological question. Should one come to the aid of an orphaned child?
That's a moral question. Should one come to the aid of abandoned puppies?
That too is a moral question. Do humans take precedence over animals? That
too is a moral question. But why we behave as we do (emotional response is a
behavior, after all) is a psychological question -- and psychological questions
can be very interesting indeed, but should not be confused with moral
questions.
>>"I'd reply. Some people cry over Mercutio's death because they have nothing
>>better or more fruitful or more moral or more virtuous in their lives to do.
>><<
Perhaps you're right. I tend to believe that we become emotionally engaged in
pretense as a psychological mechanism to relieve tensions brought on by our
awareness that chance rules our lives and will destroy us by and by. We grieve
for ourselves, not Mercutio. Hopkins said it best:
"Spring and Fall"
To a young child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins
Mike Geary
Memphis
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