I cam across two quotes today, both of which appealed, partly for the message, but also for the neatness of the phraseology. The first is from Martin Luther King Jr., the second from Don Marquis.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.Of course neither are fully true, but they make their points well and have a common theme. If I loosely take spiritual power as a reference to the need for ethics and integrity in respect of our social obligations, then I can link the King quote to its companion, which suggests a lack of integrity in our willingness to be disturbed. Of course a failure of the second, could lead to the first.If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
Comments (3)
Dave,
Interesting coincidence. On a flight today from San Diego home to DC I was reading a Karl Popper essay from later in his life, 1991. He mentioned Bertrand Russell's view that "our development has been too fast intellectually and too slow morally." In Popper's words, Russell thought "we are too clever - but morally we are too bad". Popper disagreed, suggesting that "we are too good and too stupid. We are too easily swayed by theories that appeal directly or indirectly to our moral sense, and our attitude to these theories is not sufficiently critical."
Although Popper can get on my nerves sometimes, I tend to agree with some reasonable amount of what he says. It is not that the conservative Christian's here in the US are not spiritual. If anything they are too spiritual. But this seems to provide a block to critical thinking.
Wayne
Posted by Wayne Zandbergen | July 20, 2007 4:04 AM
Posted on July 20, 2007 04:04
Hi --
I came up with this little ditty yesterday to try and describe the 110th Congress (the lowest rated, w/a 14% approval, in the history of the USA):
"We have done so little for so long with so much, that we are now qualified to do nothing with anything."
-j
Posted by John T. Maloney | July 20, 2007 12:54 PM
Posted on July 20, 2007 12:54
The quote, irresponsibly ascribed to Mother Theresa on the Internet Tubes, is interesting in its fullness:
"We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing."
Larry Wall deconstructed it in 2003 during his State of the Perl Onion speech. (http://www.perl.com/lpt/a/760)
Thanks for the reminder, you've used it well!
jb
Posted by JB | July 20, 2007 1:33 PM
Posted on July 20, 2007 13:33