"[Heim's] bewilderment didn't last long, because he was the least self-analytical of men. He shoved his questions aside for later examination and, with them, most of the associated emotions." (pp. 92-93)
In other words, he is an Andersonian hero or, more generally, a hard sf problem-solver. This is where people differ most. When I spoke to a gym instructor about sitting with whatever comes up, including guilt, in meditation, he replied that that did not sound good and that his way of coping with his past wrong actions was just not to think about them. Can he control his own thought processes as easily as that?
A friend whom I have quoted on this blog said that there was only one past action of his for which he felt guilt and that was a "sin of omission," not of commission. Only one! If we were all to be judged, then, first, each individual would have to be judged on his own terms but, secondly, each would also have to be made aware of issues that had passed him by. A criminal character in a film years ago said, "I'm in a bad f---ing way!" That was as close as that character could come to saying anything like "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..." He was acknowledging the consequences of his own actions and not blaming anyone else for them.
Sometimes a passage in a novel can be a peg on which to hang general reflections on life.
17 comments:
I've never felt guilt, myself. Regret, yes; guilt, no.
No guilt? We are all different.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Sometimes we should feel guilt, if we do really bad things! Abortionists who serially massacre the unborn have dead consciences.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: some people are just born without the capacity.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Too true! One of the scariest books I ever read was Taylor Caldwell's WICKED ANGEL, an alarmingly convincing depiction of what a psychopath/sociopath is like. The smart ones are charming on the surface but are monsters under that surface.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean:
So you don't think it is possible for someone who performs an abortions to consider it the lesser evil under those circumstances? I know you would consider them to be mistaken, but think it possible that is their belief. Also that if you convinced them that they had been mistaken, they would feel guilt for their actions.
Kaor, Paul!
No, because some things are always and forever objectively evil, such as deliberate, cold blooded murder. And that is what all direct abortions are, murders.
I will concede some abortionists have repented of the horrible things they used to perpetrate.
Ad astra! Sean
A lot of horrific deaths are considered morally acceptable to wagers of war, however.
Paul: well, death is usually horrific. Better to be blown to bits than die of cancer, for example.
Kaor, Paul!
Except soldiers, esp. long service professionals, voluntarily accepted the risk of such a fate.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Sure. There is still the question of civilian casualties.
Paul.
Paul: if you get over-squeamish about collateral damage, you're handing a decisive advantage to those who don't.
Take a look at a photo of what Berlin looked like in 1945, or Seoul in 1952; then fill in the stench of all the rotting bodies under the rubble.
9 civilian casualties to 1 combatant is about normal for intensive combat in a built-up area, for example.
That's why there's no 'rule' against killing civilians; there's only a rule against -targeting- them.
If they get in the way... too bad, so sad, c'est la guerre.
Sean,
When Israelis kill, the onus is on them. They have killed far greater numbers if numbers matter - which they shouldn't.
Please stop saying "Hamas scum." This is not normal discourse. I could say "Zionist scum" but I think that it is inappropriate.
Does your disdain for Palestinians become a mirror image of anti-semitism?
The British did not bomb and flatten Catholic areas in N. Ireland to eliminate the IRA.
Paul.
Sean,
I do not have to deny anything about Hamas. I think that some of the stories are exaggerated but I do not deny that they killed a lot of people. You have denied that Israel has oppressed Palestinians.
"The Palestinians deserve their bad reputation..." That indeed sounds like a mirror image of anti-semitism. This is all one-sided. Fanaticism and brutality are hardly specific to any one group. I know Palestinians who do not answer to that description just as I know Jews who are pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist.
Do you mean that, if the IRA had committed a 10/7, then the British would have been right to flatten Catholic areas?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I deny Israel is "oppressing" the Palestinians, because what is going on in Gaza is Israel fighting a war against Hamas. They started the war, the consequences are on them!
I have no sympathy for the Palestinians. The fanaticism, bigotry, rabid Jew hating, obstinate rejection of every compromise offered since the 1930's (including Israel's own offers and concessions), of so many of them has forfeited whatever sympathy I might have had for them. Also, I am not forgetting how they have become the tools and cat paws of outsiders like the theocracy in Iran.
Yes, if the IRA had ever waged a 10/7 style war/atrocity the UK would have every right to strike back as fiercely as it needed to break the IRA. A similar thing happened in America, when the US fought a long, brutal civil war to destroy the Confederacy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have emailed you a video about what the settlers and Israeli authorities are currently doing in the West Bank.
Paul.
Gaza has been an open air prison. That is why Hamas broke out and - wrongly - murdered so many civilians.
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