Mechanics of Virtue A Cynic's Guide to Righteous Behavior

A BOOK OF APHORISMS There is more ape in man to deny the relation than there is more than ape with which to accept it. *** Our conscience must serve out its sentence as convicted, until habituation succeeds in its appeal. *** Beyond Habituation: Living a normal life is not compatible with living life as correctly as possible -- which is to say that to live a life as correctly as possible is deviant behavior. *** On the Necessity of Sin: I would not undo what I did ... for only by that act do I know what I know now. I would not undo that act therefore even though in this new knowledge I vow -- cursing myself -- never to repeat the error. *** Street Morality: He confesses to a sin he did not commit in order to avoid appearing too timid and weak for its commission. In the street, he holds to a moral standard where the evil is not sinning and the good, sinning, but he fails to live up to it. *** If he remained completely honest about his vices, an otherwise completely vicious creature would at least not be a hypocrite. In fact, a completely vicious creature is impossible, for he either pays tribute to virtue through his hypocrisy, as La Rochefoucauld said -- or he maintains a fearless honesty and is at least incapable of hypocrisy. Therefore, he is to the sharp eye neither dangerous to morality nor without educational benefit. On the contrary, it is through him that we see virtue''s invincibility. *** We lend something instead of making a gift of it because we desire it in our possession ... but lending something that we want back really ought to go by name of "borrowing." The desire itself inverts the transaction so that the other has lent us our dignity. Then of course he refuses to return the item. He had lent us our dignity, and now he wants it back .... *** It is not that our friendship does not extend "this far," but that the concept of friendship suddenly found itself beyond its own causes. Certain conditions that were present at the formation of our friendship no longer exist. Demanding adherence to the concept is not one of these original conditions. Demanding adherence is a new condition. We once shook hands in peace and friendship, and we must continue. We work together under the same conceptual heading ... but colder ... as love becomes duty. *** A maxim is an exaggeration of truth. It is not a truth in the same way that a doctor''s photograph is actual. That sort of truth nauseates. The maxim is more of a rallying cry ... a stimulus ... a pose not very different from that of a comic book superhero. *** One of the animal behaviorist''s tricks is to take something from or add something to the harmony of a creature. He leaves one creature alone, throws the other out of harmony, and then compares the two. He can then calculate what this missing or added thing does or does not do. After such an experiment, the scientist is in a better position to describe the parts that contribute to its normal state. I consider an ethologist the desirable model for an individual''s quest for truth. If the reader can accept this premise, then it follows that an introspective truth seeker is neither himself capable of permanent happiness nor of honestly proposing the discovery of truth as a means toward happiness. For truth, the seeker constantly throws himself out of balance, recording the push out of and the return toward equilibrium, comparing states and securing knowledge -- whose method entails a cycle from order to chaos to order. Again and again, he experiments with harmony and does not fail to observe the return toward it. This is not a method whose goal is contentment, but truth. And although one''s peaks are indeed euphoric, the subsequent depths of self-contempt are greater than complacency can ever imagine. Who was it that first suggested truth and contentment to be a causal relationship and not an exclusive choice? *** A Personal Morality: A machine has been handed a manual which is said to be the function and said in such a way that we are to ignore the existence of the machine and its actual function. The machine, its function, and its manual are separate perspectives ... upon one reality. We do not bother to sort these out in order to put together a strategy for reality, but mix and match elements from each perspective as a human consequence. We do not plan but rather find a behavioral harmony already in place through a natural force which might best be called, "the law of convenience." What will get us through the day without upsetting our imagined rank and without rasping against the inertia of our habits? That is our "method." Those unfortunate truth-seekers are those whose manual is the most incongruous with the visible function. This incongruity can result from a poorly crafted machine, a poorly written manual, or a function whose capacity exceeds that of the technical writer. This incongruity results in an ongoing inconvenience which then forces the individual to sort out the various perspectives. Truth is not revealed to him from above or from the beyond -- but from within -- or so he feels it (and with some truth, for he has been cracked open under the boot of his circumstance). The most he can do with this otherwise impossible situation is claim, "I am a truth seeker" ... the "truth is within me." But to see what he is talking about, others now look beyond themselves ...Berry, Matt is the author of 'Mechanics of Virtue A Cynic's Guide to Righteous Behavior' with ISBN 9780971930117 and ISBN 0971930112.