In The Road niceness - empathy - is a luxury most can't afford. It's a world in which meaning (the ability to imagine) has broken down, and we are left with the single imperative; to survive. So perhaps our ability to imagine something better, and to act out this image is what takes us away from the default.
The boy in The Road is the one who can seem to afford to imagine, despite the fact that he is in the same situation as everyone else. But maybe he will come to see his imagination, and the act that it urges upon him, as costly, and abandon it in time.
In this analogy, virtue is never a non-behaviour. It is the birth of behaviour, of the imagination. And when we lack imagination is when we revert to the default, when we slip towards the non-imagination of animals.
Perhaps the world - the eco-system - needs wishy-washy as part of its balance. In this case when we're in the "asshole" mode we would do well to remember the balance, and respect the necessity of those in the wishy-washy mode.
no subject
The boy in The Road is the one who can seem to afford to imagine, despite the fact that he is in the same situation as everyone else. But maybe he will come to see his imagination, and the act that it urges upon him, as costly, and abandon it in time.
In this analogy, virtue is never a non-behaviour. It is the birth of behaviour, of the imagination. And when we lack imagination is when we revert to the default, when we slip towards the non-imagination of animals.
Perhaps the world - the eco-system - needs wishy-washy as part of its balance. In this case when we're in the "asshole" mode we would do well to remember the balance, and respect the necessity of those in the wishy-washy mode.