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April 21, 2010

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Hi Churchless,

If you're interested in the topic of morality, I'd most heartily recommend a book called "The Moral Fool". In all honesty, I think you'd enjoy it much more than I did, based on what I know of your intellectual predilections.

I especially appreciated the earliest couple of chapters, where the author (a German academic at an Irish university) manages in short order to invoke both Aristotle and championship wrestling. I'd encourage you to check it out, if you're at all curious.

Brian from Colorado, thanks for the book recommendation. I've ordered it. I found an interview with the author and learned what he means by "the moral fool." Interesting. See:
http://cup.columbia.edu/static/interview-moeller-the-moral-fool
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The “Moral Fool” is a figure that I take from Asian philosophy, from Daoism and Zen Buddhism in particular. As opposed to the moral heroes from Greek antiquity up to today’s Hollywood films, the Moral Fool is an entirely average person. He or she, like most of us most of the time, simply does not immediately conceive of the people he or she meets or the situation he or she encounters in moral terms.

Hi Blogger Brian, I had a hunch that one might draw you! I really do think you'll enjoy it.

It's funny, because parts of that book led me to a series of minor illuminations, while at other times, I couldn't help but feel somewhat discomfited when I felt the author wasn't trying with much sincerity to "walk the walk" himself. Yet even at those moments, such was his overall theme and message that I couldn't help but feel a bit of chagrin as I caught those little smoldering seeds of moral resentment rising in my own mind. And so, even when the book didn't seem to be working for me, it seemed to be working for me. Ha!

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