Modern heresies

There’s a theme that’s been cropping up in things I’ve read or heard recently, and it reminds me of a short passage in For the Time Being, an Annie Dillard book I read about six or seven years ago:

“Karl Rahner echoes this idea: it is a modern heresy to think that if we do right always, we will avoid situations for which there is no earthly solution.”(87)

I went to a reading the other week to hear part of an unpublished novel with pretty much this theme at its core, though it was specifically about the idea that modern science can explain and solve everything. And this morning on WBUR, there was a report on end-of-life care (part of a series) that mentioned Americans’ general attitude that death is always to be avoided, and that medicine will always help them do that. Last week, I finished watching Six Feet Under, which is sort of the antithesis to that attitude.

Finally, after taking a break to read an interlibrary-loaned copy of Stephen Colbert’s book, I’ve resumed reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded. I have a couple of bones to pick with the book, starting with the fact that Friedman doesn’t cite the sources (besides interviews) of any of the facts he presents. That’s a red flag I haul in front of students all the time. One of his main points, though, is that coasting along on our current way of life and energy consumption model won’t just turn out okay. It won’t just cause us setbacks. It will be devastating. “Incremental breakthroughs are all we’ve had,” he writes, “but exponential is what we desperately need.” (243) And while that may sound alarmist, he also makes a really excellent point (which I think I’ll use in arguing): even if global warming is a “hoax,” think about the worst that could happen if we try to combat it, and think about the worst that could happen if we don’t.

Anyway, I've just been thinking about that idea lately. So, you know, gather ye rosebuds.

Books:
Dillard, Annie. For the Time Being. New York: Knopf, 1999.

Friedman, Thomas L. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution, and How it Can Renew America. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2008.