Blogitis 02/27/2008
 

Not sure why my blog has been fading in and out of being lately, but I'll check with the good folks at Weebly.  Maybe it's just imitating me, as I flicker in and out of life with this bothersome sinus infection.

I was counting on today being the day that I was back in the world of the living but it looks like it might be tomorrow.  I was so ansty yesterday I shudder to think about today!  I may send Dan to buy me a movie while he's out.

I did finish Confessor yesterday.  *Spoiler Alert*

I was more pleased with this final novel in the series than I've been with the last three or four.  The issue I've taken with the past four novels is that the author, Terry Goodkind, pretty much gave up all pretense of illustrating his philosophy through his characters.  Instead, he gave them long speeches in which we were treated to Goodkind's convictions on the nature of life and religion without the messy trappings of plot or character.

This novel was still quite preachy but I was prepared for that.  He wrapped up all of the series' plot lines in a reasonable, workman-like fashion.  Nothing startling.  Not even J.K. Rowlings-level startling.  The good guys win.  The guy gets the girl.  Various cute semi-dangerous animals are heard from and go off to live their magical lives.

I was struck by two things in the novel that made the sort of predictable wrap-up worth reading the 603 pages worthwhile, if only for ruminative value.

The first comes from the heroine of the series, Kahlan.  A man who has attempted to have his way with her (among other bad deeds in other novels) asks her for mercy.  She denies him mercy and says, "Mercy is a contingency plan devised by the guilty in the eventuality that they are caught.  Justice is the domain of the just.  This is about justice."

Words like that could only ever be spoken by a person who has lived a perfect life.  I came to a different conclusion than Kahlan's years ago when wishing for justice to come to someone else.  The words of the Lord's prayer flashed in my mind--"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us."  And it occured to me that we all want justice for the other guy.  For ourselves?  We prefer mercy.

The second tidbit of the novel that got me thinking was the way the hero of the novel dispatches the bad guys in the end.  He sends them off to a world of their own where they will live without magic and in a corrupt system without access to their prior world.  He seals up his own world as well, retaining magic and proclaiming free will to be the highest good.

(It's ironic that by giving the bad guys their own world, Richard showed mercy, eh?)

Goodkind holds that free will and faith are opposites.  On the "good" side of free will we have action, self-determination, responsibility and reason.  On the "bad" side of faith we have unreasoning belief, self-sacrifice and futile hope for an afterlife and mercy.

I've thought that what Goodkind never sold me on was the idea that free will is the ultimate good.  But I realized in writing this that what doesn't hold is his assumption about oppositional truths.

I know people who value reason and still have deep faith.  I know others who value reason and free will, yet use them both as a bludgeon for self-interest.  As I have come to see time and time again, the Truth is not an "either/or" proposition but a paradox.

Free will.  Faith.  Sacrifice.  Reason.  Responsibility.  Hope.  We need all of these qualities.  Even, and perhaps especially, Mercy.

 


Comments

Erik

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:29:00

Interesting blog topic. I think my problem with the discussion of truth is the assumption that there final, flawless truths that just need to be discovered, then revered as eternal. The truth in 1215 was that the Earth was the center of the Universe. Not so true in 1815. The truth in 1990 was that it would take a century to finish the Human Genome Project - and it was sheer lunacy to think anything else. Not so true in 1999.

The truth is that abortion is never OK, under any circumstances. However, once the baby is born, those some truthholders tend to fade away, ignoring the truth that a great deal comes after the baby is born that makes for even marginal life and living. The truth is that homosexuals choose to deliberately abandon normal relationships with people of the opposite gender to live in sinful ones with folks of their same gender. Except that those truthholders give almost no thought to the reality that they did no such choosing to be with folks of the opposite gender - the truth is they are normal and homosexuals are not.

The truth is... the truth is like anything else in life. It is a complex result of the participants, their training and experience, their ignorance and their education, their fears and their hopes. So much of what we label the truth is really the story we tell ourselves about the world around us. The truth of the monster in the closet story is that the closet is dark, and we're alone, and something creaks, and we supply the rest of the story.

There is, in truth, good and evil. And sometimes it is blindingly apparent. And sometimes we're dead wrong about which is which. And sometimes we're wrong about it even being there at all.

 

Laura

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:17:31

Hi Erik,

"The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine." Eh?

I love the last paragraph of your response. Eloquently and, if I may, truthfully stated.

 

Laura

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:19:04

Hi Erik,

Tried to post this earlier but sometimes the comments here get glitchy. At any rate, I completely agree with your observations on the nature of "Truth."

And I adore your last paragraph.

 



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