Reading the documents of criminal charges filed against Blagojevich, I began to feel sorry for him. He is operating exactly the way any shrewd person within a corrupt system does. I am reminded always by news stories of this kind, of Nietzsche's assertion that lying, corruption, and all forms of insanity are almost unheard of as isolated individualized phenomenum, but as standards of society and institutions, are more or less the norm. Blago may be less of a scoundrel or idiot than a mirror held up to the political system. In any case, I feel pity for him, and I take my feeling seriously. In philosophy, feelings are viewed as beliefs, statements; they are rightly perceived as symptom, consequence and incident of thinking, the mechanism of a transubstantiation of valuation. And after a certain amount of years of academic study, reading, and refelcting, I have come to trust my own thinking process. And when that thinking process translates gives rise to pity, sympathy, empathy, I am inclined to take it seriously. We first make scoundrels, and then punish them. 
Saturday, December 13, 2008
DEFIANT BLAGOJEVICH IGNORES CALLS FOR RESIGNATION ; Even as this author begins to feel sorry for him
Reading the documents of criminal charges filed against Blagojevich, I began to feel sorry for him. He is operating exactly the way any shrewd person within a corrupt system does. I am reminded always by news stories of this kind, of Nietzsche's assertion that lying, corruption, and all forms of insanity are almost unheard of as isolated individualized phenomenum, but as standards of society and institutions, are more or less the norm. Blago may be less of a scoundrel or idiot than a mirror held up to the political system. In any case, I feel pity for him, and I take my feeling seriously. In philosophy, feelings are viewed as beliefs, statements; they are rightly perceived as symptom, consequence and incident of thinking, the mechanism of a transubstantiation of valuation. And after a certain amount of years of academic study, reading, and refelcting, I have come to trust my own thinking process. And when that thinking process translates gives rise to pity, sympathy, empathy, I am inclined to take it seriously. We first make scoundrels, and then punish them. 
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2 comments:
Susan: While I think its clear that you are correct in a real sense about this being a mirror up to society (hope you saw Frank Rich's piece in the Sun. Times) and we know the GOP hypocritically points fingers now, ignoring the Scooter Libby fiasco which was far worse, I still think it is equally clear that Blagojevich took things to extreme lengths and must resign asap.
Sarah: Yes, I agree, despite my seeing him as a victim of a rampantly corrupt and materialistic society, he is spoiling a beautiful moment for Obama and America, and has not thought of the good of the Party or society. He should resign.
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