A Call for a Revival of the Absolute: 

My optimism takes a hit each time I try to browse the Internet in search of arguments regarding anything of transcendental value. If I want to know the Metacritic score for some generic horror game, then I can find it in mere minutes. Yet if I aspire to find anything regarding what is Beautiful or Good or True, then instantly I’m met with a barrage of falsehood.
Two examples that stand out most clearly both regard the gap between “subjective” and “objective” thought. Such crucial aspects such as feeling and morality, which ordinarily one would refer to as an absolute reality, (in practice even more so than in “thought”) have been reduced to “subjectivity” by therapists… and people actually follow this prescription without any indication of remorse or indignation. (Note how it’s “prescription”, not “description”, which we’ll get to later.)


That this trend explains some of the more ridiculous assertions made by otherwise soft-spoken, sober people on the Internet would offer comfort only if it solved the problem. Yet apparently a conversation with such people is a futile misadventure, one for which they will take little in the way of personal responsibility, according to their own “philosophy”. For those who pride themselves in being rational *instead* of being passionate, (another strange dichotomy) emotional responses are irrelevant to argument. It may be crucial, on the one hand, that we act *as though* we care about the feelings of one’s fellows when delivering critiques and “hearing out” opinions, yet, on the other hand, the feelings of the people we debate with (by their estimation) somehow must be independent of the “facts” we are debating. Least of all am I responsible for those who choose to agonize over the things I *actually said* in disconfirming their immediate experience.
Actual Person: Left. Piece of Wet Slate: Right.
While this assertion may be valid in the case that an immediate experience is clouded by oppressive bias, none of that applies within the realm of an *appropriate emotional response* to *actual, objective moral facts*. A good example of a *stupid* argument is that whenever someone sees a villain and responds with absolute disgust to what that villain does then it is *always, in each case*, a matter of projection *on the part of the observer*.


Now, perhaps that line of “thinking” does not make you cringe when read with optimism, nor does it make blood run cold when read with pessimism. Yet that isn’t to suggest it shouldn’t. Clearly, it is in the very nature *of a villain* to embody an *objective evil*. An *objective evil* is a tendency or action which a *righteous agent would not do*. Disgust is the *appropriate emotional response* to such atrocious *acts*, and so one might “infer” (to put it as pretentiously as possible without indecency) the nature of the act and agent from the *feeling* that this action would produce in someone of *good character*.
Perhaps a person who is weak, immoral, or inhibited by neural blockage would not feel disgust in witnessing atrocity, just as a hypocrite would feel disgust but only by projecting one’s own tendencies upon the Other. Yet we must *assume*, as *human beings* who are members of *Society*, that any *decent person* (pardon the profuse italics, but I feel as though I’m lecturing to children) would respond with the *appropriate response*, which is that *feeling* which describes the *nature of the thing itself* as being either Good or Evil, in what way, to what extent, et cetera. The privilege of being “individual” in modern life does *not* absolve each individual of a collective life and a collective obligation. When we criticize, we do not merely hope to redirect attention *from* the feelings *to* the facts, as if to say, “I know this hurts you, but you must accept it anyway.” It’s rather that we mean to *change* the feelings of the Other to reflect the *nature* of the thing as we perceive it, and the reciprocity within this correspondence utterly depends upon the willingness to change one’s *own* affective attitudes if proven *wrong to feel that way*.
This all implies that feelings, most of all where things as crucial as morality become involved, are *meant to be objective*. Given whether something is *inherently* an Evil or a Good we might “infer” how someone who is good *would feel about it*. What is more: the person who exhibits *good* behaviour has *authority* in judging not just what the nature of the Other is but also how all people *ought to feel* about this Other. Chuck McGill is right in judging Jimmy and insisting that their fellows in the legal field judge Jimmy just as well. It may be so that, by and large, the viewers of this program have reacted with contempt for Chuck. Yet that is not the *true* reaction. It is an evaluation which lacks merit not *because* it’s an evaluation but because it understates the *moral facts* of what it means to be a decent lawyer, which can hardly be contested in the merit of this character; the very nature of the conflict between brothers lies in that the weaker man can’t “get ahead in life” precisely since he *is* the lesser lawyer and a lifelong criminal. That we would *like* for him to get ahead because he’s the protagonist does not mean that he *should*, and, so, if we should end up hating him instead for all his crimes we would be *right* to do so, given that morality is more important than material success.


Morality affects all people on a level that’s collective, so it has to be objective; there can be no science without ethics. Feeling, like opinion, is a position with regards to an objective fact. A feeling can be every bit as “wrong” as an opinion; it also can be every bit as right.
Nice quote. Would be a shame if someone actually *knew the context* of this summary. (A hint: the author knows [and proves] this attitude is **wrong.**)
In recognizing this, we also can dispel attempts to psychoanalyze those people we perceive as “hateful”, “vengeful”, “bigoted”, or “crazy”. Yes: some people will exhibit many of these traits, and often it takes one to know one. Yet if you confess that you possess these traits then you must dispossess yourself of claiming this of everyone. The nature of *the act* and how it makes a decent, uncorrupted person feel reveals whether a hatred is legitimate, a vengeance proper, bigotry deserved, or madness sympathetic and inspired. You can’t simply state that every villain is the same nor that all people are a villain nor that any person who’s disgusted by a villain must be biased, even villainous beneath the mere “veneer” of goodness.


Why does this atrocious line of thinking make me feel disgust? It is because it’s wrong and any decent person knows it. We *should* feel disgust in witnessing atrocity. Corruption is the *failure* to experience this feeling where it is appropriate. It is an act of treachery against the tribe, whose very life depends upon a commonality of feeling that’s unmitigated by what Hamlet christened the “pale cast of thought”. This basic understanding can’t be bargained by negotiation without turning evil. Science without ethics is oppressive. When a man has lost his friend, his wife, his child or brother, and he takes the sword up to *avenge* the dead, only the most depraved of minds would say that it’s *his* fault for *choosing* to remember and “imposing” this upon his fellows, even the aggressors. No. The man has simply recognized the value of the fallen, the injustice of the felling, and his obligation to have justice done on the behalf of those who’ve died. All three are absolutes. One can’t subjectify them without lending credence to corruption.
If this quotation does not utterly disprove that Gus might be a "villain", I don't know what does.
(I can't imagine any hero who'd not go this far to prove a point about his views on Justice.)
MacIntyre wrote of therapists that they are unequipped to handle moral problems, since their function is to change the patient’s feelings to a standard they deem to be “healthy” (no citation necessary; read the book already). Genuine psychology, especially the works of Jung (who is appropriated by the aforementioned upstarts who would claim that moral indignation is “projection” in each case) has always strived to *honour* feeling as a source of *knowledge* and to think of Good and Evil as *realities* we must confront *within the World*. (How sad are we that Peterson appears to be the last psychologist to state the obvious!!) There can be nothing “healthy” in “accepting” evil, since the obligation of each man in a society (and every woman, now) is to oppose it *in the World*. It’s from the *thing itself* that genuine oppression comes, and *feeling* horror at the sheer injustice and the cruelty of this inhuman evil is the only badge of honour that concerns us. Tragedy must silence all apologists; when scientists begin to treat oppression as a “clinical neurosis”, it is *they* who’ve overstepped the thin red line between a moral black and white, a line they do not see if their perspective has been “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”.
It may be so that people disagree about the nature of the Good. If anything has yet been proven by my case, it is that the majority of them are fools and cowards, though we were not always so. To call them this is hardly insult when they claim that all of us are villains and there are no heroes in Reality. The simple fact that we cannot agree implies we *must* agree, and I feel no recrimination when diplomacy has failed to force my viewpoint in the off-chance I am right, nor do I feel a gram of sympathy for anyone who lacks the nerve to fight me. Simply put: the Good is too important, and, if we can’t figure out its nature by the principles of Reason, then so be it; Reason is but one of *many* passions we possess.


At any rate, the most enlightened scholars I have read, whose arguments ring truest on all octaves — cognitive, affective, and discursive — entertain no fools by trying to *ignore* the Good as though its nature could be utterly democratized to every individual with an opinion. They note the problems and the inconsistencies when individuals and cultures squabble; they do not preclude the possibility of either peace by rational consensus (that is: absolute agreement, not some pluralism that “agrees to disagree” at the expense of certainty and justice) nor of a legitimate crusade. (Again, read *After Virtue*, **now.**)
This man will change your life, whether you are aware of it or not.
We don’t agree about the nature of the Good, and that is but one of the many evils which we must contend with. Even if we can’t eradicate this evil absolutely, I find comfort only in the hope that all my friends are seeking that same moral knowledge which we’ve lost in modern life. If that is not your goal, there is no conversation; there can be no friendship, only enmity, between us, and I feel all right about that fact.
Now *there's* more like it.
**[({R.G.)}]**

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