Dec 16– From On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) by Edmund Burke
Summary: Some people are men, and some are brutes.
Commentary:
The second head to which the passions are referred with relation to their final cause, is society. There are two sorts of societies. The first is, the society of sex. The passion belonging to this is called love, and it contains a mixture of lust; its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great society with man and all other animals. The passion subservient to this is called likewise love, but it has no mixture of lust, and its object is beauty; which is a name I shall apply to all such qualities in things as induce in us a sense of affection and tenderness, or some other passion the most nearly resembling these.
One of the more batshit-ranty takes I've read this year. Burke spends a lot of time on the difference between "men" and "brutes" but it mostly comes down to, "Brutes are too horny." The rest is vague and largely agreeable (people like being in society, but sometimes like being alone.) and of course some necessary shoehorning of Christianity.
No comments:
Post a Comment