Terry Pratchett and the Thing of Sin
Sep 6, 2011
Elizabeth Scalia
Having announced several years ago that he is dealing with early-onset dementia, Terry Pratchett, the celebrated author of scores of fantasy titles, most notably the marvelously wise and entertaining Disc World series, has—despite rumors to the contrary—staunchly maintained his atheist’s stance. Last year he declared that, having compared Genesis to Darwin, he found the latter to be by far the more interesting story and, taken all-in-all, he would “rather be a rising ape than a fallen angel.”
That betrays what is probably a willful misunderstanding on Pratchett’s part; Genesis tells us we are the broken consequences of Original Sin, not supernatural beings of prideful darkness (although in our brokenness we can easily trip into those shadows and seem their equal).
For all of Patchett’s puckish posturing, though, his characters have a knack for plumbing surprising depths. His book, Carpe Jugulum, gives us an excellent definition of sin in this exchange between the Omnian priest, Mightily Oats, and the rather contemplative witch, Granny Weatherwax:
There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.
“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”
“Nope.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that –”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes –”
“But they starts with thinking about people as things …”
Pratchett has long maintained his admiration for G. K. Chesterton, and his inventive worlds often owe a clear tip of the hat to The Man Who Was Thursday, particularly when such solid little gems of wisdom as that are plopped in the midst of his broad fantasy.
Weatherwax is certainly right—the impetus of our sins so often begins with converting humanness into thing-ness, and this is true in the macro and the micro: I once received an email from a woman of progressive instincts that contained the subject header, “you are not human to me”; that’s the big picture, the macro—the wholesale dehumanization of entire swaths of people who hold opinions different from one’s own, and who are therefore “dangerous” and ultimately either imprisonable or expendable. We saw the macro played out on a grand scale in the twentieth century, as both Communists and National Socialists first imprisoned and then slaughtered humans who had been thing-nified because of their race, their mental capacities, their lack of vigor, their faiths and, eventually, their simple refusals to conform.
For that correspondent, my extendability was rooted in my belief that life is better than death—that allowed to flourish, new life brings new love into the world, which (since God is love) instructs and enlarges us, particularly if the life, and the love, is embraced in its fullness, despite our fears.
In a sense, that is the micro: thing-nifying the very bud of new life within oneself, or its culmination in those who nurtured your own budded-ness, so you can more easily kill it, while maintaining an illusion of compassion and control.
Thing-nification plays out in other ways, of course. In the objectification of porn, the dismissal or exploitation of youth, the every day swindles and politicizations, large and small, perpetrated against trusting others.
Anticipating his own end, Pratchett has said, ‘I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod.” Accepting that there are people who possess a “passion for caring”, he hopes they could accept a notion that some people “have a burning passion not to need to be cared for.”
I wonder if Granny Weatherwax would agree with Pratchett, or if she would tell him he was making a thing of himself—placing his life within the context of a simple stop-start mechanism without regarding the inborn transcendence that, regardless of origin, is demonstrated so ripely in his own inventiveness. She might wonder what that ripeness might yet become—for others, if not himself—if allowed to remain on the vine rather then be plucked early. Perhaps she would warn Pratchett that he risks thing-nifying the people surrounding him and loving him, by turning them into mere markers and bystanders.
Asked if his advocacy for so-called “assisted suicide” might encourage codifying involuntary euthanasia, Pratchett pooh-pooh’ed the notion: “We are a democracy and no democratic government is going to get anywhere with a policy [of] . . . recommended euthanasia.”
Chesterton might himself pooh-pooh Pratchett’s determined complacency. Addressing this very issue, he wrote:
If we want to know how this allowance for exception ruins or replaces the rule, the best example is divorce. Those who first urged it, urged it quite honestly as an extreme exception. . . How jolly it will be when the sanctity of human life has reached the same stage as the sanctity of marriage! When men do not even remember whom they have murdered, as this gentleman could not remember whom he had married. Is it not time we reasserted the principle, known to primitive men, that the things we desire to do are the things we may be restrained in doing; and it is because we are all criminals that we had better be discouraged from crime?
Chesterton was remembering the thing Pratchett skirts—that our brokenness leads us all-too-easily into the shadows of the fallen angels, and that even the risen apes do fall.
Terry Pratchett is a deep-thinking and brilliant fellow who, no doubt, anticipates a fearsome trial. I do hope he will, at some point, consult with his practical Granny Weatherwax, and the exquisitely sensible Chesterton, a man who loved the gift of days so completely that he was moved to ask, “why am I allowed two?” and would never have surrendered one of them without a fight.
Elizabeth Scalia is the Managing Editor of the Catholic Portal at Patheos and blogs as The Anchoress. Her previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.
RESOURCES
Pratchett Wikipedia
Discworld
Pratchett on Alzheimer's
Rumors of Faith
Risen Apes
Pratchett on Euthanasia
Chesterton on Euthanasia
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Comments:
9.6.2011 | 9:34am
The Moz says:
Our culture needs more of this and less of what comes through the tube every evening. We need much much more of this. Wonderful read.
9.6.2011 | 10:17am
Randy says:
Any time that you're just one of six billion of something, interchangeable, and not "one of a kind, created for a special purpose," then, religious or not, you are in big trouble. To be interchangeable is to be disposable.
9.6.2011 | 10:54am
Dave Dutcher says:
Kind of funny that the Omnian's faith is described like this, according to the wiki:
"A powerful and oppressive theocracy until maybe a hundred years before the present. Omnians used to worship only the Great God Om. Omnia used to conquer neighbors in His name, all over the continent of Klatch. The Omnian Quisition, a state secret police run by deacons, used to torture and execute Omnian citizens in His name. Peddlers used to sell dubious religious artifacts in His name. Everything and anything done in the light or in the dark were done in His name, but He wasn't paying attention to what his worshippers were doing. This theocracy was run by the Cenobiarch (the Superior Iam) with 6 Arch Priests, 30 lesser Iams's and a numerous other clergy to assist him. "
So the "shades of gray" person is belonging to a schism of the faith that is Discworld's closest expy to Christianity. Still so wise and funny?
"A powerful and oppressive theocracy until maybe a hundred years before the present. Omnians used to worship only the Great God Om. Omnia used to conquer neighbors in His name, all over the continent of Klatch. The Omnian Quisition, a state secret police run by deacons, used to torture and execute Omnian citizens in His name. Peddlers used to sell dubious religious artifacts in His name. Everything and anything done in the light or in the dark were done in His name, but He wasn't paying attention to what his worshippers were doing. This theocracy was run by the Cenobiarch (the Superior Iam) with 6 Arch Priests, 30 lesser Iams's and a numerous other clergy to assist him. "
So the "shades of gray" person is belonging to a schism of the faith that is Discworld's closest expy to Christianity. Still so wise and funny?
9.6.2011 | 1:55pm
cjmr says:
Granny Weatherwax is no stranger to the concept of killing oneself, either--she is shown sacrificing herself FOR OTHERS several times in the series (or at least appearing to, she never actually dies).
I don't think TPratchett's characters would approve of his (planned future) actions.
I don't think TPratchett's characters would approve of his (planned future) actions.
9.6.2011 | 2:30pm
Sue Sims says:
An excellent article: my only (small, pedantic) criticism is that GKC couldn't actually have written the article from which you quote in 1937, since he died in 1936. The article was published posthumously.
9.6.2011 | 2:33pm
Craig Roberts says:
It's not uncommon for fictional characters to show the type of courage and wisdom that their author is incapable of. Any good author must imagine a broad range of characters just to keep things interesting. Personally they may resemble the villains they create more than the heroes.
9.6.2011 | 2:38pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Hi Sue -- curious; perhaps it was published posthumously? Text will be adjusted. Thanks for the heads up.
9.6.2011 | 3:04pm
Ray Ingles says:
"She might wonder what that ripeness might yet become—for others, if not himself—if allowed to remain on the vine rather then be plucked early."
And would that risk 'thingifying' him, requiring his 'ripeness' to be milked past his wishes?
"Perhaps she would warn Pratchett that he risks thing-nifying the people surrounding him and loving him, by turning them into mere markers and bystanders."
Flesh that out a bit. How exactly would he be doing this?
And would that risk 'thingifying' him, requiring his 'ripeness' to be milked past his wishes?
"Perhaps she would warn Pratchett that he risks thing-nifying the people surrounding him and loving him, by turning them into mere markers and bystanders."
Flesh that out a bit. How exactly would he be doing this?
9.6.2011 | 3:44pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
"Flesh it out?" Time doesn't permit fleshing at this instant, but I've talked about it a bit here, perhaps that will help. http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Via-Dolorosa-Not-to-Be-Missed.html
9.6.2011 | 6:14pm
Ray Ingles says:
An interesting essay, Ms. Scalia, and I'm very sorry for the suffering your brother and your family have gone through. However, I do have two points; one relatively minor, but another that's the heart of the question:
"Both women pish-posh the idea that, in suffering and death, something greater might be at work than what our limited, earthbound sensibilities can comprehend."
Wow, do I detest the idea of 'stuff forever beyond human comprehension'. In practice, that always seems to boil down to, "I give up trying to understand this." (E.g. http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/211420/the-perimeter-of-ignorance ) As I said, though, that's not central to the topic here.
"Nor do they seem to grasp what the "cult of the natural" and the "religious view" have been trying to teach: that life brings love, and love is God; that life interrupted is love interrupted, and love interrupted is God interrupted. Nor does either woman wonder what or who is served by such interruption."
The "religious view" is free to *teach* that. The question is, does the "religious view" get to *legally mandate compliance with that*?
"Both women pish-posh the idea that, in suffering and death, something greater might be at work than what our limited, earthbound sensibilities can comprehend."
Wow, do I detest the idea of 'stuff forever beyond human comprehension'. In practice, that always seems to boil down to, "I give up trying to understand this." (E.g. http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/universe/211420/the-perimeter-of-ignorance ) As I said, though, that's not central to the topic here.
"Nor do they seem to grasp what the "cult of the natural" and the "religious view" have been trying to teach: that life brings love, and love is God; that life interrupted is love interrupted, and love interrupted is God interrupted. Nor does either woman wonder what or who is served by such interruption."
The "religious view" is free to *teach* that. The question is, does the "religious view" get to *legally mandate compliance with that*?
9.6.2011 | 6:41pm
Kort says:
I really admire Pratchett and hope, before the end, that he decides not to take his life prematurely. I pray for it daily, in fact, though I know it's probably a silly thing to pray for, and probably a bit selfish. I've admired his characters and his prose so much that I hope, someday, to have 1/10th of his talent.
9.6.2011 | 6:54pm
Brian Westley says:
Wouldn't denying euthanasia to Pratchett be treating him like a thing that cannot make his own decisions?
9.6.2011 | 8:29pm
Diana Young says:
One slight quibble: to my knowledge, Terry Pratchett is not an "atheist," but a "secular humanist." To a dedicated religionist they might seem the same, but they are not. True, a secular humanist rejects blind religious belief and reliance upon the "supernatural" in favor of self discovery through reason. Yet reason is a God-given element of Humanity, one of the things that sets us apart from beasts, we might say. This, too, then, may be a path to God, though one unfettered by priesthood or religious rule.
It is my distinct impression that Mr. Pratchett knows more than he is letting on. Perhaps more than he allows himself to know he knows. But in his provocative and thoroughly delghtful way, he is witnessing to the truth of something more than merely human in Humanity.
It is my distinct impression that Mr. Pratchett knows more than he is letting on. Perhaps more than he allows himself to know he knows. But in his provocative and thoroughly delghtful way, he is witnessing to the truth of something more than merely human in Humanity.
9.6.2011 | 8:59pm
Patrick says:
"Denying euthanasia" -- that's how the issue is framed by its supporters. But (not to seem morbid)... is it that hard to kill yourself? Again I do not wish to seem morbid, but you can down a bottle of tylenol or run your car in a closed garage and go merrily on your way.
What Prachett advocates is granting the medical profession the power to administer euthanasia. That is what I have a problem with. I oppose the death penalty, I oppose abortion, and on similar grounds I oppose institutionalized suicide. No one should lawfully have that power.
>
This is what the Catholic Catechism says:
Suicide
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.
2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.
Particularly the second part of §2281 applies to your specific query: "obligations" to "family, nation, and other human societies." It may be that, however much one's pride might suffer, one is, actually, obligated to allow others to care for one.
What Prachett advocates is granting the medical profession the power to administer euthanasia. That is what I have a problem with. I oppose the death penalty, I oppose abortion, and on similar grounds I oppose institutionalized suicide. No one should lawfully have that power.
>
This is what the Catholic Catechism says:
Suicide
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.
2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.
Particularly the second part of §2281 applies to your specific query: "obligations" to "family, nation, and other human societies." It may be that, however much one's pride might suffer, one is, actually, obligated to allow others to care for one.
9.6.2011 | 10:54pm
Adam Lee says:
Since we're discussing Discworld, sin and euthanasia, I have to point out that Ms. Scalia apparently overlooked a different passage from the same book:
"Granny Weatherwax was airborne again, glad of the clean, crisp air. She was well above the trees and, to the benefit of all concerned, no one could see her face.
...There was a story under every roof, she knew. She knew all about stories. But those down there were the stories that were never to be told, the little secret stories, enacted in little rooms...
They were about those times when medicines didn't help and headology was at a loss because a mind was a rage of pain in a body that had become its own enemy, when people were simply in a prison made of flesh, and at times like this she could let them go. There was no need for desperate stuff with a pillow, or deliberate mistakes with the medicine. You didn't push them out of the world, you just stopped the world pulling them back. You just reached in, and... showed them the way."
"Granny Weatherwax was airborne again, glad of the clean, crisp air. She was well above the trees and, to the benefit of all concerned, no one could see her face.
...There was a story under every roof, she knew. She knew all about stories. But those down there were the stories that were never to be told, the little secret stories, enacted in little rooms...
They were about those times when medicines didn't help and headology was at a loss because a mind was a rage of pain in a body that had become its own enemy, when people were simply in a prison made of flesh, and at times like this she could let them go. There was no need for desperate stuff with a pillow, or deliberate mistakes with the medicine. You didn't push them out of the world, you just stopped the world pulling them back. You just reached in, and... showed them the way."
9.7.2011 | 1:45am
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Adam, I didn't miss that; "You didn't push them out of the world" seems pretty plain. I think I interpret that very differently, along the lines of both the death of JPII and my own brother's passing..."reaching in and showing them the way" through love and presence to the end.
Ray and Kort, I don't believe I can give an answer that would actually satisfy you, but I think this makes a good start:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html
Ray and Kort, I don't believe I can give an answer that would actually satisfy you, but I think this makes a good start:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html
9.7.2011 | 8:48am
Glen Tomkins says:
"That betrays what is probably a willful misunderstanding on Pratchett’s part"
Well, you are obviously an expert on willfully misunderstanding the Bible.
Well, you are obviously an expert on willfully misunderstanding the Bible.
9.7.2011 | 8:53am
Ray Ingles says:
Patrick - "is it that hard to kill yourself?"
In a more-or-less painless way that doesn't pose (at least physical) risk to others? Yeah. (Leaving aside people with paralysis or severe physical disability.)
"This is what the Catholic Catechism says:"
To reiterate my question from 9.6.2011 | 3:14pm: The "religious view" is free to *teach* that. The question is, does the "religious view" get to *legally mandate compliance with that*?
In a more-or-less painless way that doesn't pose (at least physical) risk to others? Yeah. (Leaving aside people with paralysis or severe physical disability.)
"This is what the Catholic Catechism says:"
To reiterate my question from 9.6.2011 | 3:14pm: The "religious view" is free to *teach* that. The question is, does the "religious view" get to *legally mandate compliance with that*?
9.7.2011 | 9:54am
Fiddlin Bill says:
Mr. Pratchett is in agreement pretty much with the great British philosopher Thomas Hume, who was lectured in pretty much the same way you're doing on his death bed. About your piece he would conclude, rightly, "...commit it to the flames, for it contains nothing but sophistry and illusion."
9.7.2011 | 10:16am
Atticus Dogsbody says:
One of the finest joys of living in this world is knowing that for at least every ten thousand Elizabeth Scalias there is a Terry Pratchett... a person who has earned the right to be arrogant, yet isn't.
9.7.2011 | 11:55am
Susan of Texas says:
the wholesale dehumanization of entire swaths of people who hold opinions different from one’s own, and who are therefore “dangerous” and ultimately either imprisonable or expendable.
You know what they say about the mote and beam. I dislike Obama and think he is a poor president but I am shocked at the venom you display in your attempt to portray him as evil. That is for God to judge, not you. There is a reason we are supposed to leave condemnation to God; only God know what is in others' hearts and an incredible amount of mischief has been perpetrated over time by busybody women who neglect their own duties to home and hearth for the dubious pleasure of public gossip and a good round of "what's wrong with everyone else."
Leave to politics what is politics' and leave to God what is God's. By all means act politically to elect a better president but be afraid to place yourself in judgement of his heart.
The world would be a lot better off if we spent less time on others' sins and more time on our own. If you are perfect that is another matter, but if you were perfect you would not spend so much time looking for the mote in others' eyes.
The moment of Pratchett's death is between him and God. Inserting yourself into it is just arrogant.
You know what they say about the mote and beam. I dislike Obama and think he is a poor president but I am shocked at the venom you display in your attempt to portray him as evil. That is for God to judge, not you. There is a reason we are supposed to leave condemnation to God; only God know what is in others' hearts and an incredible amount of mischief has been perpetrated over time by busybody women who neglect their own duties to home and hearth for the dubious pleasure of public gossip and a good round of "what's wrong with everyone else."
Leave to politics what is politics' and leave to God what is God's. By all means act politically to elect a better president but be afraid to place yourself in judgement of his heart.
The world would be a lot better off if we spent less time on others' sins and more time on our own. If you are perfect that is another matter, but if you were perfect you would not spend so much time looking for the mote in others' eyes.
The moment of Pratchett's death is between him and God. Inserting yourself into it is just arrogant.
9.7.2011 | 11:57am
Ray Ingles says:
Ms. Scalia - "Ray and Kort, I don't believe I can give an answer that would actually satisfy you..."
Well, when I ask if a particular religious viewpoint should be able to legally compel others to comply with it, and in response you point me to an explication of that religious viewpoint... I have to concede I *am* dissatisfied. It's just not addressing the question I asked.
Well, when I ask if a particular religious viewpoint should be able to legally compel others to comply with it, and in response you point me to an explication of that religious viewpoint... I have to concede I *am* dissatisfied. It's just not addressing the question I asked.
9.7.2011 | 1:36pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Susan of Texas: I wasn't even thinking about Barack Obama when I wrote this piece. He's mentioned nowhere within it. It is interesting that you projected him into my meaning, though.
Mr. Ingles, you and I both know that your question could run itself into a 10,000 word dialogue that will in the end prove fruitless; perhaps you have time for that, but I don't. I gave you something to read that did not directly address your question, but I hoped would give some perspective. If I MUST directly answer your question, I will give you the answer that a "particular religious view" of William Wilberforce had a great deal to do with the end of slavery, and you will pooh-pooh that, and then I will suggest that the particular religious views of many had a great deal to do with the civil rights movement and subsequent lawmaking and you will yawn. Then I will suggest that Nancy Pelosi justified Obamacare by explicitly citing scripture and you will roll your eyes and probably call me a demogogue; I will play a jig and you will not dance; I will play a dirge and you will not mourn. Once upon a time I had the energy for such drawn-out exchanges, but the battery is drained I've long-since stopped playing these unwinnable games in comboxes, where people who have no intention of being persuaded demand persuasion.
I do get it; we believers are just supposed to shut up unless we're espousing what you want to hear. The problem with Catholicism is that we are so distressingly catholic; if we must shut up about life, I suppose we should shut up about our support for laws addressing comprehensive immigration reform or laws meant to serve the poor. Would our "particular religious viewpoint" then be made welcome on those issues, and used to legally compel others to comply with those laws? Are there some Catholic viewpoints I am permitted to write about with your blessing?
Mr. Ingles, you and I both know that your question could run itself into a 10,000 word dialogue that will in the end prove fruitless; perhaps you have time for that, but I don't. I gave you something to read that did not directly address your question, but I hoped would give some perspective. If I MUST directly answer your question, I will give you the answer that a "particular religious view" of William Wilberforce had a great deal to do with the end of slavery, and you will pooh-pooh that, and then I will suggest that the particular religious views of many had a great deal to do with the civil rights movement and subsequent lawmaking and you will yawn. Then I will suggest that Nancy Pelosi justified Obamacare by explicitly citing scripture and you will roll your eyes and probably call me a demogogue; I will play a jig and you will not dance; I will play a dirge and you will not mourn. Once upon a time I had the energy for such drawn-out exchanges, but the battery is drained I've long-since stopped playing these unwinnable games in comboxes, where people who have no intention of being persuaded demand persuasion.
I do get it; we believers are just supposed to shut up unless we're espousing what you want to hear. The problem with Catholicism is that we are so distressingly catholic; if we must shut up about life, I suppose we should shut up about our support for laws addressing comprehensive immigration reform or laws meant to serve the poor. Would our "particular religious viewpoint" then be made welcome on those issues, and used to legally compel others to comply with those laws? Are there some Catholic viewpoints I am permitted to write about with your blessing?
9.7.2011 | 1:43pm
Susan of Texas says:
Mrs. Scalia, I included that quote from your post for a reason. It's interesting that you ignored it.
9.7.2011 | 2:02pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Susan, I didn't ignore it. I read what you excerpted. And I went back and re-read what I wrote, wondering what it had to do with Barack Obama. And I confess, I am still completely at a loss. I am not seeing what you are seeing?
9.7.2011 | 2:38pm
Gerald Fnord says:
Please do not shut up; you should neither give in to bullies nor fail to remind me how wrong-headed I think you to be.
Religious views can be the origins of our passions for particular public goals, but in a non-theocracy they should not be used in our arguments. M.L.K., that wonderful adulterer, quoted Scripture but rested his argument on the Constitution and the a-legal-but-significant Declaration, whos Deist "Creator" would be anathema to Rome and Jerusalem and Riyadh alike.
Granny Weatherwax does not have to resort to what would be characterised as 'active euthanasia' for the simple reason that she has access to real, working, magic. In its absence I have no doubt that she would do whatever she needed to do---from singing a comforting song to a fast poison---to be kind, because that is what Pratchett's witches _do_. They acknowledge the existence of gods, but don't think much of them and their rules, and I think their scorn would be manifest for any such declaring himself to be the one, true, such---anyone blowhard enough to announce it and ask for praise were obviously a small man at heart.
Religious views can be the origins of our passions for particular public goals, but in a non-theocracy they should not be used in our arguments. M.L.K., that wonderful adulterer, quoted Scripture but rested his argument on the Constitution and the a-legal-but-significant Declaration, whos Deist "Creator" would be anathema to Rome and Jerusalem and Riyadh alike.
Granny Weatherwax does not have to resort to what would be characterised as 'active euthanasia' for the simple reason that she has access to real, working, magic. In its absence I have no doubt that she would do whatever she needed to do---from singing a comforting song to a fast poison---to be kind, because that is what Pratchett's witches _do_. They acknowledge the existence of gods, but don't think much of them and their rules, and I think their scorn would be manifest for any such declaring himself to be the one, true, such---anyone blowhard enough to announce it and ask for praise were obviously a small man at heart.
9.7.2011 | 2:51pm
Thomas Sundaram says:
As a longtime Pratchett reader, I for one WAS shocked at this fear-driven hypocrisy coming from Terry. There is one, count it, one reason for what he is doing, and that is the belief he seems to have acquired against all his writing that people may be reduced to their function. What is the looming Caesar at the door that causes this Cato to knock over his mathematical table? Early-onset dementia. Now, my grandfather had Parkinson's, and I had to watch him get worse, sit by his hospital bed, watch this great man get unmanned by muscular spasms and incontinence. We had to clean the urine from the floor of the house in which he had lived since before I was born. Did we ever think, for an instant, that he should be put down, like a cancerous dog or a wounded horse? No! And why? Because love that depends upon usefulness, then sits back when someone decides to do something that eliminates the good, the person, from whom that "usefulness" arises or once arised, is no love at all! It's a mockery! And I don't know of whom I am more ashamed: Terry, or the "fans" who sit back and say "it's his choice!" when he decides to medicate himself into oblivion. Lord save me from such "fans" as these, who read books of mine expounding the value and the beauty of life, and then proceed to cheer me as I remove myself from it!
Robert Spaemann has argued quite capably that the basic good of being a person is constituted simply by being a member of the human species. What Terry fails to realize in his advocacy is that to argue for euthanasia is merely to cheapen the notion of the person so as to not include the sickly; which shortly thereafter becomes the elderly, to whom sickness is only a further degree of natural weakness; and then infants, who are dependent upon another in their weakness. Then what is to come of the old lady in I Shall Wear Midnight and Maskerade, accused of being a witch because of her skin problems and reclusive nature? Or what of the people forced to obey the maddening power of prejudice (the power of stories and "mirror magic", magic that comes from amplifying one's own will over reality in a self-centered way) in Maskerade by Granny's evil sister Lily? After all, Lily is "only trying to do the right thing" for the princess. Terry is "only trying to do the right thing" for himself, but here he is, using the common, mundane, moronic, and modern form of mirror magic. Just because he can't turn a frog into a man doesn't mean he can't turn an insightful and ingenious observer of nature into a babbling moron who doesn't give two farts for his fans, who love him enough to face the adversity which inevitably arises from the more "politic" when one calls a genius a fool.
So before the outcry: cjmr is wrong because Granny isn't ever "giving up", not even when she seems to be in Maskerade. She is making a more or less desperate gambit founded upon her unshakable stubbornness, the purpose of which gambit shows itself in that it inevitably succeeds. She is not committing suicide, but risking her life. One who commits suicide does not really see it as a risk, for a risk requires hope.
Ray Ingles' conversation will not go anywhere, not because he is unintelligent (he isn't) but because he genuinely thinks there is nothing we cannot explain. However, so as to not leave the important thing unsaid, a "religious" view may coerce legally when it is not held solely by "the religious" but also by the rational. Just because a Christian says not to kill someone does not mean the position against murder is solely Christian. And hey! Sometimes religion has good ideas that don't occur to people, like, I dunno, NOT keeping slaves. Hence Scalia's reference to Wilberforce.
Brian Westley: You do not get to make all your own decisions even as you are. You cannot, for example, choose to murder a judge, and indeed, if you profess that you will do so, you WILL be pursued until you are caught. And you may never get to follow through. So that line of reasoning only makes sense if somehow Terry should be legally entitled to murder himself. And that's by no means as simple as libertarians make it look.
Diana Young: Secular humanists are, generally, not believers in a God, or at least not one who means anything in terms of a binding devotion requiring action in the here-and-now. So whether Pratchett is a deist or an atheist, Scalia's point holds, since evidently the notion of a God has little to say to Terry.
Patrick: Thanks for the CCC quote, it's helpful! It is a last act of natural selflessness of the sort we so often owe to family and friends that we allow them to care for us. It is a final act of justice; or as Plato puts it, we owe a cock to Asclepius.
I think it's funny that Fiddlin' Bill goes by his name, since asking someone to believe anything just because David Hume maybe would have said it violates Hume's own epistemological strictures, and, argument-wise, is just that: "fiddlin'." As it happens, I've read Hume too. He was not as snobbish as Fiddlin' Bill, nor as wrongheaded, and he was pretty durned snobbish, not to mention wrongheaded.
Susan of Texas: Obama? What? This is about Terry Pratchett! And if anything, we are trying to ensure that the moment of Terry's death is more fully Terry's than the one he thinks he can make his. "Who can tell Lear what he is?"
Anyhow, this is all I'm gonna say, because frankly this whole situation makes me sick to my stomach. We love Terry, but clearly Terry doesn't love us, cause he doesn't give a whit about why we love him. And that's a tragedy.
Robert Spaemann has argued quite capably that the basic good of being a person is constituted simply by being a member of the human species. What Terry fails to realize in his advocacy is that to argue for euthanasia is merely to cheapen the notion of the person so as to not include the sickly; which shortly thereafter becomes the elderly, to whom sickness is only a further degree of natural weakness; and then infants, who are dependent upon another in their weakness. Then what is to come of the old lady in I Shall Wear Midnight and Maskerade, accused of being a witch because of her skin problems and reclusive nature? Or what of the people forced to obey the maddening power of prejudice (the power of stories and "mirror magic", magic that comes from amplifying one's own will over reality in a self-centered way) in Maskerade by Granny's evil sister Lily? After all, Lily is "only trying to do the right thing" for the princess. Terry is "only trying to do the right thing" for himself, but here he is, using the common, mundane, moronic, and modern form of mirror magic. Just because he can't turn a frog into a man doesn't mean he can't turn an insightful and ingenious observer of nature into a babbling moron who doesn't give two farts for his fans, who love him enough to face the adversity which inevitably arises from the more "politic" when one calls a genius a fool.
So before the outcry: cjmr is wrong because Granny isn't ever "giving up", not even when she seems to be in Maskerade. She is making a more or less desperate gambit founded upon her unshakable stubbornness, the purpose of which gambit shows itself in that it inevitably succeeds. She is not committing suicide, but risking her life. One who commits suicide does not really see it as a risk, for a risk requires hope.
Ray Ingles' conversation will not go anywhere, not because he is unintelligent (he isn't) but because he genuinely thinks there is nothing we cannot explain. However, so as to not leave the important thing unsaid, a "religious" view may coerce legally when it is not held solely by "the religious" but also by the rational. Just because a Christian says not to kill someone does not mean the position against murder is solely Christian. And hey! Sometimes religion has good ideas that don't occur to people, like, I dunno, NOT keeping slaves. Hence Scalia's reference to Wilberforce.
Brian Westley: You do not get to make all your own decisions even as you are. You cannot, for example, choose to murder a judge, and indeed, if you profess that you will do so, you WILL be pursued until you are caught. And you may never get to follow through. So that line of reasoning only makes sense if somehow Terry should be legally entitled to murder himself. And that's by no means as simple as libertarians make it look.
Diana Young: Secular humanists are, generally, not believers in a God, or at least not one who means anything in terms of a binding devotion requiring action in the here-and-now. So whether Pratchett is a deist or an atheist, Scalia's point holds, since evidently the notion of a God has little to say to Terry.
Patrick: Thanks for the CCC quote, it's helpful! It is a last act of natural selflessness of the sort we so often owe to family and friends that we allow them to care for us. It is a final act of justice; or as Plato puts it, we owe a cock to Asclepius.
I think it's funny that Fiddlin' Bill goes by his name, since asking someone to believe anything just because David Hume maybe would have said it violates Hume's own epistemological strictures, and, argument-wise, is just that: "fiddlin'." As it happens, I've read Hume too. He was not as snobbish as Fiddlin' Bill, nor as wrongheaded, and he was pretty durned snobbish, not to mention wrongheaded.
Susan of Texas: Obama? What? This is about Terry Pratchett! And if anything, we are trying to ensure that the moment of Terry's death is more fully Terry's than the one he thinks he can make his. "Who can tell Lear what he is?"
Anyhow, this is all I'm gonna say, because frankly this whole situation makes me sick to my stomach. We love Terry, but clearly Terry doesn't love us, cause he doesn't give a whit about why we love him. And that's a tragedy.
9.7.2011 | 3:31pm
alwsdad says:
Thank you for the 'Risen Ape' link (a brief interview with Mr. Pratchett). It is excellent and charming.
9.7.2011 | 3:33pm
Susan of Texas says:
Mrs. Scalia, you spoke of progressive condemning whole swaths of people while condemning whole swaths of people, namely atheists (Pratchett) and progressives (such as your emailer). You also indulge in wholesale condemning of Obama's morality, which I added to the already mentioned list of sinners. I bring it up not to defend Obama but to point out the hypocrisy of your words, and to caution you, as you caution others, to not fall into arrogance and turn your back on charity towards others.
Every time we refuse to admit fault we compound the initial sin.
Every time we refuse to admit fault we compound the initial sin.
9.7.2011 | 3:37pm
alwsdad says:
"he hopes they could accept a notion that some people “have a burning passion not to need to be cared for.”"
That's an important point and one I will respect.
That's an important point and one I will respect.
9.7.2011 | 3:57pm
Elizabeth Scalia says:
Well, Susan, I do appreciate your reminder not to fall into arrogance nor turn my back on charity toward others -- that certainly is something we all need to remember, as it is much too easily forget, and so I thank you for the reminder.
In my defense, though -- and this will be my last response -- I didn't speak of "progressives" condemning whole swaths of people. The progressive was condemning me, and I was simply using her remark -- that I was not human to her -- in order to illustrate Granny Weatherwax's point that we do, in fact, easily fall into that terrible trap. My point was not about "progressives" in particular, and I made a point to mention both communists and nazis in my condemnation of those oppressive movements which would imprison or kill humans whose humanity they've learned to overlook into thing-ness. I wrote nothing of Obama's morality in this piece and really don't know why you keep bringing it up, and I do not condemn Pratchett, or anyone, for their atheism. No reasonable person of faith can overlook the fact that doubt is part of the journey. I probably am a hypocrite sometimes -- most of us are, sometimes -- but I do not think I can accept much of what you've accused me of, here. I do appreciate the caution though, most sincerely.
In my defense, though -- and this will be my last response -- I didn't speak of "progressives" condemning whole swaths of people. The progressive was condemning me, and I was simply using her remark -- that I was not human to her -- in order to illustrate Granny Weatherwax's point that we do, in fact, easily fall into that terrible trap. My point was not about "progressives" in particular, and I made a point to mention both communists and nazis in my condemnation of those oppressive movements which would imprison or kill humans whose humanity they've learned to overlook into thing-ness. I wrote nothing of Obama's morality in this piece and really don't know why you keep bringing it up, and I do not condemn Pratchett, or anyone, for their atheism. No reasonable person of faith can overlook the fact that doubt is part of the journey. I probably am a hypocrite sometimes -- most of us are, sometimes -- but I do not think I can accept much of what you've accused me of, here. I do appreciate the caution though, most sincerely.
9.7.2011 | 4:04pm
Ray Ingles says:
Ms. Scalia - "If I MUST directly answer your question, I will give you the answer that a "particular religious view" of William Wilberforce had a great deal to do with the end of slavery, and you will pooh-pooh that, and then I will suggest that the particular religious views of many had a great deal to do with the civil rights movement and subsequent lawmaking and you will yawn. Then I will suggest that Nancy Pelosi justified Obamacare by explicitly citing scripture and you will roll your eyes and probably call me a demogogue; I will play a jig and you will not dance; I will play a dirge and you will not mourn."
As I've noted, there's a danger in thinking that things are forever unexplainable. Now I must point out there's a *different* danger in thinking you know it all already. I'm afraid I differ from your model of me in important ways.
For example, I don't "pooh-pooh" Wilberforce's passion. However, I agree with Gerald Fnord that "Religious views can be the origins of our passions for particular public goals, but in a non-theocracy they should not be used in our arguments." Which applies just as well to the civil rights movement you bring up. Religion *can* help people see the right (though it's fickle in that regard - "curse of Ham" and so forth), but that doesn't mean it *makes* things right.
I agree the strawman "Ray Ingles" you've created is easy to knock down... but what if the real Ray Ingles is neither moved by Pelosi's quoting of Scripture *nor* a fan of 'Obamacare'? We could have had a very different conversation than the one you've apparently planned out for us both, but... Oh well. A pity.
"I do get it; we believers are just supposed to shut up unless we're espousing what you want to hear."
Ack, ptui! Who put these words in my mouth?
"The problem with Catholicism is that we are so distressingly catholic; if we must shut up about life, I suppose we should shut up about our support for laws addressing comprehensive immigration reform or laws meant to serve the poor. Would our "particular religious viewpoint" then be made welcome on those issues, and used to legally compel others to comply with those laws? Are there some Catholic viewpoints I am permitted to write about with your blessing?"
Gaah, I spit out one set of words and more get shoved in!
Perhaps Catholicism motivates you to work for immigration reform or serving the poor. If you can make a rational case for them (and in many cases I think one can) then I'll be happy to support your efforts. Arguing solely based on Scripture or Papal encyclicals will not be terribly convincing though.
If you *should* ever choose to continue our conversation, I'd be very interested if you could point out where I demanded you get my permission to write. Criticizing a position, or pointing out unpersuasive aspects of it, is not the same as censorship. (At least, so I've been led to believe.)
As I've noted, there's a danger in thinking that things are forever unexplainable. Now I must point out there's a *different* danger in thinking you know it all already. I'm afraid I differ from your model of me in important ways.
For example, I don't "pooh-pooh" Wilberforce's passion. However, I agree with Gerald Fnord that "Religious views can be the origins of our passions for particular public goals, but in a non-theocracy they should not be used in our arguments." Which applies just as well to the civil rights movement you bring up. Religion *can* help people see the right (though it's fickle in that regard - "curse of Ham" and so forth), but that doesn't mean it *makes* things right.
I agree the strawman "Ray Ingles" you've created is easy to knock down... but what if the real Ray Ingles is neither moved by Pelosi's quoting of Scripture *nor* a fan of 'Obamacare'? We could have had a very different conversation than the one you've apparently planned out for us both, but... Oh well. A pity.
"I do get it; we believers are just supposed to shut up unless we're espousing what you want to hear."
Ack, ptui! Who put these words in my mouth?
"The problem with Catholicism is that we are so distressingly catholic; if we must shut up about life, I suppose we should shut up about our support for laws addressing comprehensive immigration reform or laws meant to serve the poor. Would our "particular religious viewpoint" then be made welcome on those issues, and used to legally compel others to comply with those laws? Are there some Catholic viewpoints I am permitted to write about with your blessing?"
Gaah, I spit out one set of words and more get shoved in!
Perhaps Catholicism motivates you to work for immigration reform or serving the poor. If you can make a rational case for them (and in many cases I think one can) then I'll be happy to support your efforts. Arguing solely based on Scripture or Papal encyclicals will not be terribly convincing though.
If you *should* ever choose to continue our conversation, I'd be very interested if you could point out where I demanded you get my permission to write. Criticizing a position, or pointing out unpersuasive aspects of it, is not the same as censorship. (At least, so I've been led to believe.)
9.7.2011 | 4:15pm
Ray Ingles says:
Thomas Sundaram - "Ray Ingles' conversation will not go anywhere, not because he is unintelligent (he isn't) but because he genuinely thinks there is nothing we cannot explain."
It's really fascinating how often I'm *told* what my position is in discussions on this site... regardless of what I've written. If anything I write is unclear, I don't mind being, y'know, asked to clarify. Sheesh.
I don't think "there is nothing we cannot explain." For all I know, there may well be things we can't every figure out. But you can't ever conclude that any specific thing is forever incomprehensible - maybe we just haven't figured it out *yet*.
How do you tell the difference between something we can't understand, and something we just don't grasp yet? The only thing we can ever do is try to understand it. If we succeed... it was comprehensible. If we fail, though, that doesn't mean someone else might have better luck in the future. (Historical examples here: http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance )
So there's no way to tell the difference in practice. The notion of the 'forever incomprehensible' is of zero practical utility. It's as useless a concept as any philosophical abstraction ever was.
"...a "religious" view may coerce legally when it is not held solely by "the religious" but also by the rational. Just because a Christian says not to kill someone does not mean the position against murder is solely Christian."
And as soon as Scalia can make that *rational* case, I'll give her policy recommendations due consideration.
It's really fascinating how often I'm *told* what my position is in discussions on this site... regardless of what I've written. If anything I write is unclear, I don't mind being, y'know, asked to clarify. Sheesh.
I don't think "there is nothing we cannot explain." For all I know, there may well be things we can't every figure out. But you can't ever conclude that any specific thing is forever incomprehensible - maybe we just haven't figured it out *yet*.
How do you tell the difference between something we can't understand, and something we just don't grasp yet? The only thing we can ever do is try to understand it. If we succeed... it was comprehensible. If we fail, though, that doesn't mean someone else might have better luck in the future. (Historical examples here: http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/2005/11/01/the-perimeter-of-ignorance )
So there's no way to tell the difference in practice. The notion of the 'forever incomprehensible' is of zero practical utility. It's as useless a concept as any philosophical abstraction ever was.
"...a "religious" view may coerce legally when it is not held solely by "the religious" but also by the rational. Just because a Christian says not to kill someone does not mean the position against murder is solely Christian."
And as soon as Scalia can make that *rational* case, I'll give her policy recommendations due consideration.
9.7.2011 | 4:22pm
Susan of Texas says:
Mrs. Scalia, I appreciate the response, even if it does claim both humility and lack of fault.
9.7.2011 | 4:45pm
Thomas Sundaram says:
Ray: Perhaps a clarification is in order. I am a good Aristotelian, and sometimes I forget that other people aren't, to my shame. When I say that you think there to be nothing that cannot be explained, I do not mean solely "at this moment, in the current state of existence and knowledge in which we are", or what Aristotle calls the state of things "in actuality", but also "given any possible developments in our observation of life, the universe, and everything, etc., etc.," which Aristotle calls the state of things "in potency." It seems to me, that with your analogies in astronomy, that you are describing a circumstance in which we have a "God of the gaps", which I think imprudently applied when one is describing something fundamentally beyond (not against!) the purview of science, namely the definition of what constitutes a person intrinsically rather than extrinsically. (And I feel compelled to note that it was not only Hubble who found the expansion of the universe constant, but also, as was recently discovered, Fr. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/11/25/update-lemaitre-vs-hubble/) which just goes to show that us God-people might sometimes know what we are talking about, surprise surprise.
Just to give an idea of the (natural) issue to which Scalia is referring, Peter Singer has proposed rather famously that one may not only abort fetuses, but "humanely" kill three-to-four year old children, the elderly, adults with crippling disabilities, and all the while without consulting them if they are dependents, owing to their "strain" placed upon those upon whom they are dependent. He does this precisely by assessing what a person is based on our "scientific" (that is, empirical) recognition of their "rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, autonomy, pleasure and pain, *and so on*" (emphasis in asterisks mine.) It is the conviction of the Vatican and also of many modern scientific bioethicists that this is the wrong way to think of personhood, given that (as the Pontifical Academy for Life put it so rationally in "The Human Embryo in the Pre-Implantation Stage"):
"...among the different hermeneutical proposals present in the current bioethical debate, various moments in the embryonic development of the human being have been indicated to which a moral status can be attributed to the embryo, and claims are put forward based on 'extrinsic' criteria (that is, starting from factors external to the embryo itself). However, this approach has not proved suitable for truly identifying the moral status of the embryo, since any possible judgment ends by being based on factors that are wholly conventional and arbitrary."
That is to say, that any argument for the personhood of a being based upon an external consideration of whether they evidence it in their operation is fundamentally arbitrary. What is important, to use Pratchett's (that is, Granny Weatherwax's) own words (describing no less a thing than the Chestertonian White Horse of the Tiffany Aching novels), "ain't what it looks like, it's what it IS." A person is a person when they are asleep or when they are awake, when they are locked away from the five senses or when in daylight open. Not to admit this opens the door wide open to the charge Peter Singer falsely denies, the worse-than-Nazism of the "right" to kill people simply because they cannot defend themselves from the loudspeaker, the knife or the needle. This is why I mentioned Spaemann, whom everyone should find and read, because he looks Singer square in the face and doesn't flinch.
Just to give an idea of the (natural) issue to which Scalia is referring, Peter Singer has proposed rather famously that one may not only abort fetuses, but "humanely" kill three-to-four year old children, the elderly, adults with crippling disabilities, and all the while without consulting them if they are dependents, owing to their "strain" placed upon those upon whom they are dependent. He does this precisely by assessing what a person is based on our "scientific" (that is, empirical) recognition of their "rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, autonomy, pleasure and pain, *and so on*" (emphasis in asterisks mine.) It is the conviction of the Vatican and also of many modern scientific bioethicists that this is the wrong way to think of personhood, given that (as the Pontifical Academy for Life put it so rationally in "The Human Embryo in the Pre-Implantation Stage"):
"...among the different hermeneutical proposals present in the current bioethical debate, various moments in the embryonic development of the human being have been indicated to which a moral status can be attributed to the embryo, and claims are put forward based on 'extrinsic' criteria (that is, starting from factors external to the embryo itself). However, this approach has not proved suitable for truly identifying the moral status of the embryo, since any possible judgment ends by being based on factors that are wholly conventional and arbitrary."
That is to say, that any argument for the personhood of a being based upon an external consideration of whether they evidence it in their operation is fundamentally arbitrary. What is important, to use Pratchett's (that is, Granny Weatherwax's) own words (describing no less a thing than the Chestertonian White Horse of the Tiffany Aching novels), "ain't what it looks like, it's what it IS." A person is a person when they are asleep or when they are awake, when they are locked away from the five senses or when in daylight open. Not to admit this opens the door wide open to the charge Peter Singer falsely denies, the worse-than-Nazism of the "right" to kill people simply because they cannot defend themselves from the loudspeaker, the knife or the needle. This is why I mentioned Spaemann, whom everyone should find and read, because he looks Singer square in the face and doesn't flinch.
9.7.2011 | 6:06pm
satch says:
Unlike many of the commenters here, I haven't read Terry Pratchett's work. To discuss this issue, I don't need to... all I need to know is that he's a person staring into the muzzle of early onset dementia, which is one of the most horrible diagnoses I can imagine, and that in the end, he'll have to face his decline and death, as must we all, alone. I'd be willing to bet that Pratchett is not attempting to "thing-nify" himself or anyone around him... rather, he's terrified, as are most people who receive this diagnosis, of BECOMING a thing, a lump of protoplasm that once may have been a beloved writer but is no longer, that needs to be constantly cared for on every basic level until death inevitably wins. I'm happy that Thomas Sundaram's grandfather had people to take care of him as Parkinson's Disease claimed him, but his, and Ms. Scalia's notion that Pratchett owes it to his fans to keep on living while suffering is ghoulish. His "fans" won't be there to attend to his needs as he declines, and they won't be there at the end to put him in the ground... all they'll do is think, for a moment when they hear the news of his death, "Gosh, that's too bad... I really liked his work," and go on with their lives. In the end, Mr. Pratchett's death is his own business, and the best thing his physician can do for him, absent curing him, is give him any help he asks...ASKS...for.
9.7.2011 | 6:47pm
aimai says:
Perhaps others have said it up above but I think that Ms. Scalia's determination to turn Sir Terry Pratchett's private, non religious, decisions about his own life into some kind of religious cannon fodder for her particular religious sect's beliefs is the very definition of "thingifying" him. I'm truly horrified at her arrogance and not a little sickened. Does that seem harsh? Well, Ms. Scalia prides herself, somewhat coyly and disengenously, on, as she sees it, merely being true to her faith. So am I. I belong to the "don't suffer fools gladly" school of thought. I, too, pride myself on my bluntness, my philosophy, and my morality. I put mine up against Ms. Scalia's anytime.
The world is full of people who don't share Ms. Scalia's particular sectarian beliefs. Her faith is irrelevant to Sir Terry's situation. If he were Catholic, I'd stay out of a dispute among believers about dogma. But he's not. To use him as a tool to make her arguments is cheap. As is her misreading of both history. For example the "thingification" of people--the turning of people into actual commodities, their use, abuse, and murder, long predates Communism or Progressivism. Why I believe people have been thingified quite well by Christian Slavery, by Christian rape of Slave women, by Christian diddling of altar boys in Ireland and by Christian Pogroms in Russia. Aside from Early Christian Agape every Christian State has engaged in the wholesale enslavement and slaughter of "others" of every sex, creed, and color from time to time.
aimai
The world is full of people who don't share Ms. Scalia's particular sectarian beliefs. Her faith is irrelevant to Sir Terry's situation. If he were Catholic, I'd stay out of a dispute among believers about dogma. But he's not. To use him as a tool to make her arguments is cheap. As is her misreading of both history. For example the "thingification" of people--the turning of people into actual commodities, their use, abuse, and murder, long predates Communism or Progressivism. Why I believe people have been thingified quite well by Christian Slavery, by Christian rape of Slave women, by Christian diddling of altar boys in Ireland and by Christian Pogroms in Russia. Aside from Early Christian Agape every Christian State has engaged in the wholesale enslavement and slaughter of "others" of every sex, creed, and color from time to time.
aimai
9.8.2011 | 10:05am
Ray Ingles says:
Thomas Sundaram - "When I say that you think there to be nothing that cannot be explained, I do not mean solely "at this moment, in the current state of existence and knowledge in which we are", or what Aristotle calls the state of things "in actuality", but also "given any possible developments in our observation of life, the universe, and everything, etc., etc.," which Aristotle calls the state of things "in potency.""
Of course, I just got done saying - direct quote - "For all I know, there may well be things we can't every[sic] figure out." - i.e. "in potency", to use your terminology.
My point is not that such things are *impossible*. It's that even *if* they exist, that fact makes no practical difference whatsoever. We can't ever tell the difference between "something we'll never understand" and "something we don't grasp *yet*". All we can ever do is... keep trying to understand things. The link I gave was to prominent scientists that thought they'd come to something incomprehensible... and stopped trying. But other scientists kept going... and succeeded. (My personal favorite example here: http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/haldane.html )
"It seems to me, that with your analogies in astronomy, that you are describing a circumstance in which we have a "God of the gaps", which I think imprudently applied when one is describing something fundamentally beyond (not against!) the purview of science, namely the definition of what constitutes a person intrinsically rather than extrinsically."
If we want to proceed, perhaps you should check out what I say about that here first: http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/braincase.html
If nothing else, perhaps we can avoid me having to repeatedly state that I don't agree with Singer, *or* the Vatican.
Of course, I just got done saying - direct quote - "For all I know, there may well be things we can't every[sic] figure out." - i.e. "in potency", to use your terminology.
My point is not that such things are *impossible*. It's that even *if* they exist, that fact makes no practical difference whatsoever. We can't ever tell the difference between "something we'll never understand" and "something we don't grasp *yet*". All we can ever do is... keep trying to understand things. The link I gave was to prominent scientists that thought they'd come to something incomprehensible... and stopped trying. But other scientists kept going... and succeeded. (My personal favorite example here: http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/haldane.html )
"It seems to me, that with your analogies in astronomy, that you are describing a circumstance in which we have a "God of the gaps", which I think imprudently applied when one is describing something fundamentally beyond (not against!) the purview of science, namely the definition of what constitutes a person intrinsically rather than extrinsically."
If we want to proceed, perhaps you should check out what I say about that here first: http://ingles.homeunix.net/rants/atheism/braincase.html
If nothing else, perhaps we can avoid me having to repeatedly state that I don't agree with Singer, *or* the Vatican.
9.8.2011 | 11:13am
Christopher Williams says:
I was very surprised to find one of my favorite writers in New Advent. Mr. Pratchett has indeed caused a lot of talk, which I think is a good thing. Many people sit back and judge "No,no,no- You can't do that- it's a sin."
When people do that I should point out that the Bible say DON'T JUDGE, unless YOU want to be JUDGED.
As Mr Pratchett has also pointed out, He has met Cancer survivors, accident survivors and survivors of many diseases but has yet to meet an Alzheimer's survivor- there are none. To sit back and judge a man who has been told that he must drain his family of it's resources, forget who they(his loved ones) are til he is reduced to a vegetative state waiting for his brain to forget to tell the body how to breath or the heart to beat is I think stupid- no one can who isn't in his shoes has any right to pass judgement on him. I think of Mr Pratchett as a friend and pray for a cure and secondly that he will face his end as we all must do, squarely with our minds intact.
When people do that I should point out that the Bible say DON'T JUDGE, unless YOU want to be JUDGED.
As Mr Pratchett has also pointed out, He has met Cancer survivors, accident survivors and survivors of many diseases but has yet to meet an Alzheimer's survivor- there are none. To sit back and judge a man who has been told that he must drain his family of it's resources, forget who they(his loved ones) are til he is reduced to a vegetative state waiting for his brain to forget to tell the body how to breath or the heart to beat is I think stupid- no one can who isn't in his shoes has any right to pass judgement on him. I think of Mr Pratchett as a friend and pray for a cure and secondly that he will face his end as we all must do, squarely with our minds intact.
9.8.2011 | 11:30am
Christopher Williams says:
I forgot to reply to someone who wrote above about fans cheering him on while he writes and think " oh, gee- "when he passes and then going on with our lives.
This Fan would be very happy to help in any physical way should he decide to ride this disease out- I have a background in nursing and terminal end patients.
This Fan would be very happy to help in any physical way should he decide to ride this disease out- I have a background in nursing and terminal end patients.
9.8.2011 | 2:56pm
aimai says:
I don't fear not having enough nursing care at the end of my life and obviously neither does Terry Pratchett. I should fear that if Ms. Scalia's Conservative friends have their way and gut Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and Pell Grants thus leaving me no option but to move in with my daughters who will be working their sub minimum wage jobs but that's another discussion entirely. However, it is in fact the case that no one can or should deterimine for me what is the appropriate level and type of care, or caregiver, that I should have at my own end of life time. I would be horrified to have some unwanted stranger caring for me, against my wishes, even if I could afford it. How is this different than having some stranger stick a feeding tube down my throat for the benefit of the flying spagetti monster or thor?
Ms. Scalia spoke sorrowfully of divorce and asserted, baselessly, that public acceptance of divorce led--or would lead--inevitably to mass murder. That's absurd, even if she meant that the rise of the pill and the legalization of abortion was coterminous with the rise in divorce since correlation is not causation. But lets grant her point, for argument's sake, that sometimes things lead in strange directions. Her fear, she says, is that assisted suicide could lead to euthanasia? Is that it? Forgetting that there's a difference between a negative right and a positive one, between a right held by the individual and a right held by society over the individual, between what happens between consenting adults and between murderer and victim lets examine that notion.
People live until they die. Sometimes people live until machines are brought on to do their living for them. Or round the clock nursing and medical care to take over the parts their brains and bodies can no longer do. Is the withdrawal of those things "euthanasia?" IF so this society already has euthanasia--the determined, irreversible, one way, removal of life support from people who don't want that life support to be removed. There are at least two famous cases of it. In both cases--in Texas, by the way, sentient people were removed (in one case protesting) from life support because of the costs associated with the care which the hospitals and government were not willing to bear. Where is Ms Scalia's protests that this is immoral? Where is her fear that a slippery slope of cost benefit analysis will produce more euthanasia?
Underlying Ms. Scalia's discomfort with Terry Pratchett's decision and her apparent comfort with the kind of cost/benefit analysis that routinely produces highway fatalities, starving children, and unplugged or unserviced old and poor people lies something that is far more disturbing to me than mere religious bigotry. Its a comfort with the notion of unfettered free market capitalism and its choices for particular people. Its a determination that other people's autonomy, their right to make moral decisions for themselves about their lives, must be trumped by Ms. Scalia's sectarian beliefs. While something much scarier and more pernicious, the grinding boot of financial necessity, poverty, and corporate interests is allowed free reign over the poor and needy.
aimai**
** Many thanks to the moderators at First Things for not moderating my posts out of existence.
Ms. Scalia spoke sorrowfully of divorce and asserted, baselessly, that public acceptance of divorce led--or would lead--inevitably to mass murder. That's absurd, even if she meant that the rise of the pill and the legalization of abortion was coterminous with the rise in divorce since correlation is not causation. But lets grant her point, for argument's sake, that sometimes things lead in strange directions. Her fear, she says, is that assisted suicide could lead to euthanasia? Is that it? Forgetting that there's a difference between a negative right and a positive one, between a right held by the individual and a right held by society over the individual, between what happens between consenting adults and between murderer and victim lets examine that notion.
People live until they die. Sometimes people live until machines are brought on to do their living for them. Or round the clock nursing and medical care to take over the parts their brains and bodies can no longer do. Is the withdrawal of those things "euthanasia?" IF so this society already has euthanasia--the determined, irreversible, one way, removal of life support from people who don't want that life support to be removed. There are at least two famous cases of it. In both cases--in Texas, by the way, sentient people were removed (in one case protesting) from life support because of the costs associated with the care which the hospitals and government were not willing to bear. Where is Ms Scalia's protests that this is immoral? Where is her fear that a slippery slope of cost benefit analysis will produce more euthanasia?
Underlying Ms. Scalia's discomfort with Terry Pratchett's decision and her apparent comfort with the kind of cost/benefit analysis that routinely produces highway fatalities, starving children, and unplugged or unserviced old and poor people lies something that is far more disturbing to me than mere religious bigotry. Its a comfort with the notion of unfettered free market capitalism and its choices for particular people. Its a determination that other people's autonomy, their right to make moral decisions for themselves about their lives, must be trumped by Ms. Scalia's sectarian beliefs. While something much scarier and more pernicious, the grinding boot of financial necessity, poverty, and corporate interests is allowed free reign over the poor and needy.
aimai**
** Many thanks to the moderators at First Things for not moderating my posts out of existence.
9.10.2011 | 2:06am
Alan Fahnestock says:
One difference between Ms Scalia and Mr Pratchett is that Pratchett would not arrogate to himself the right to condemn another for such a deeply personal decision. Another is that, while Pratchett amused himself and millions of others by creating a fantasy world in which, ultimately, some things make sense, albeit in a whimsical sort of way, Ms Scalia arguably has chosen to inhabit a fantasy world where nothing does. My intent is not to attack religion --- faith is a wonderful thing, and there's a small but significant chance that I am NOT an atheist --- but any hint of narrative, or any other, consistency within Christian doctrine, as it has developed over the millenia, is almost certainly coincidental.
Gods, to Pratchett, exist, but they exist only as functions of belief, aggregations of the hopes and fears and wishes of the faithful, made manifest, presumably, "because of quantum". As Pratchett, in all likelihood, is not "one of the faithful", or, at any rate, not a subscriber to Ms Scalia's particular brand of faith, her God does not exist for him and, therefore, is more or less immaterial, except as an occasionally annoying externality, shoved in his face by some meddlesome person who ought to know better.
It will always be curious to me, why anyone would deny release to one who WANTS to die. I suppose it fits in reasonably well with religious torture and forced conversion of "the heathen", but rather less well with the alacrity with which nominally Christian folk kill off non-Christians who, probably, would just as soon continue living.
Gods, to Pratchett, exist, but they exist only as functions of belief, aggregations of the hopes and fears and wishes of the faithful, made manifest, presumably, "because of quantum". As Pratchett, in all likelihood, is not "one of the faithful", or, at any rate, not a subscriber to Ms Scalia's particular brand of faith, her God does not exist for him and, therefore, is more or less immaterial, except as an occasionally annoying externality, shoved in his face by some meddlesome person who ought to know better.
It will always be curious to me, why anyone would deny release to one who WANTS to die. I suppose it fits in reasonably well with religious torture and forced conversion of "the heathen", but rather less well with the alacrity with which nominally Christian folk kill off non-Christians who, probably, would just as soon continue living.
9.12.2011 | 4:15pm
Thomas Sundaram says:
I think aimai a rather funny person. Scalia argues that Terry shouldn't kill himself because he's a person, with dignity. Then aimai claims that she is doing something that leads to "unplugged or unserviced old and poor people." Actually, you kind of have to deny precisely what Scalia argues to gain the ability to unplug old people. You have to say that age can overwhelm the right to life, a purely efficiency-based argument which Scalia would never make. So that's very odd. Then she claimed that Scalia has a "comfort with the notion of unfettered free market capitalism and its choices for particular people." I don't know where one sees this in her writings but I would hazard a guess that it is not there; it is certainly not HERE. And not hearing Scalia protest every single injustice in a hospital does not make her the one who accepts injustice. (There are horrible abuses in some Indian hospitals, but I haven't seen aimai say anything about THOSE, so she must be in favor of them.)
9.17.2011 | 1:03pm
Wednesday says:
Pratchett has made it _quite_ clear in interviews and essays on the subject that when Granny Weatherwax "helps along" the dying, he's speaking of assisted death, and not being at the bedside until the bodies are finally dead by will of God or vagaries of nature. Sure, it may be a bit mystical with the witches -- there's the door, and the desert full of black sand, and playing Cripple Mr. Onion with Death-- but they're not the only ones helping along the dying. In Night Watch, Sam Vimes helped along dying victims of torture -- people in even _much_ less of a position to give meaningful consent -- with a much more worldly and explicit knife to the throat. And Sam Vimes is a Lawful Good character if there ever was one.
9.20.2011 | 8:03pm
Richard says:
In reply to Dave Dutcher about Omnians as Discworld-Christians:
The Omnians first appear in the book Small Gods, where they clearly have more in common with the "old" (i.e. pre-9/11) Muslims than with Christians. After this they appear in most books, where the Earth religious group they correspond to is somewhat fluid, if most often Christianity.
It should also be noted that Samuel Vimes actually advises the Borogravians (who seem to correspond to American-occupied Iraq) at the end of Monstrous Regiment that they should take up Omnianism (probably represnting Christianity in that book) as a religion. As Sam Vimes has always been a pseudo-atheist (full atheists get hit by lightning), this is probably not a in-character statement.
It is also worth noting that Mightily Oats (the Omnian priest who debates Granny) eventually abandons most of the trappings of his religion and sets off into vampire territory to spread the "core" elements. It seems that it is not religion (or Christianity) in general that Terry Pratchett is condemning so much as highly-organized-religion-that-actually-seperates-people-from-God.
The Omnians first appear in the book Small Gods, where they clearly have more in common with the "old" (i.e. pre-9/11) Muslims than with Christians. After this they appear in most books, where the Earth religious group they correspond to is somewhat fluid, if most often Christianity.
It should also be noted that Samuel Vimes actually advises the Borogravians (who seem to correspond to American-occupied Iraq) at the end of Monstrous Regiment that they should take up Omnianism (probably represnting Christianity in that book) as a religion. As Sam Vimes has always been a pseudo-atheist (full atheists get hit by lightning), this is probably not a in-character statement.
It is also worth noting that Mightily Oats (the Omnian priest who debates Granny) eventually abandons most of the trappings of his religion and sets off into vampire territory to spread the "core" elements. It seems that it is not religion (or Christianity) in general that Terry Pratchett is condemning so much as highly-organized-religion-that-actually-seperates-people-from-God.
