Crossposted from Not Frillyshirt.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others’ let me shine;
And when, alas ! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine ?
Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth’s embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
From Lord Byron,
Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull (1808)
Well. If I may wax rhetorical. What does classical science believe in? Positivism; the unyeilding march of progress; the perfectibility of humankind. What does this usually amount to? “If only everyone could be me.” When Aristotle describes his ideal, rational, virtuous human, he’s basically just describing Aristotle. This sort of thinking is no longer widely popular – colonialism, hierarchy, countless lives destroyed. What is a distressingly common replacement for progress? ‘Humanity is imperfect, so, I shall set out to be as imperfect as humanly possible: I shall loot, I shall savage, I shall deny any responsibility for the consequences’.
Yes, it is impossible to know for sure we are doing good; all truly is relative. Yes, we die, and our works are lost – and there’s a sense of rightness to be taken from that, even to the most optimistic temperament. Yes, two vast and trunkless legs of stone DO stand in the desert. Humanity is imperfect and imperfectible. But do we just surrender? How about the Pretty-Good-ibility of humankind? There will always be suffering, pain and death – but can we not work to lessen the sorrow of the worst afflicted? Abolish the most tragic problems? Even, heaven forebid, lift the lowest up to the same level as the comfortable, that all may have a real chance at happiness, beauty and excellence?
Perhaps, perhaps. Until then I don’t feel we’ll be ready to face any Future, any noble goal. Perhaps we should just drink until we’re dead – Byron certainly didn’t, he died while fighting for his ideals. Perhaps we’ll live and die wondering what the best way to live and die is. At least we will have cared.