08.24.06
This I Believe: Eighteenth Post (Truth and Virtue)
Arnold Toynbee’s essay was really interesting. He talked about believing in right and wrong and a variety of what are generally considered “Christian” virtues, but that he can’t consider himself a Christian because believing oneself to be the chosen people is as wrong as believing onself to be a god. It’s such a fascinating way of viewing things. Few would see it that way. He quotes from Symmachus, a pagan philosopher, who said it first. It’s such an interesting way of thinking. I can’t stop thinking about it! How arrogant it is to think Heaven is made only for people like oneself? I may have to play with this idea some.
John Updike believes that fiction is more true than factual reporting or analysis. I kind of agree with him. Fiction is certainly more real - it makes emotions and sensory responses to things more vivid. Dorothy Gale is certainly far more real to me than Hilary Clinton and when I am remembering great stories Twain is more likely to come to mind than anything I ever read in the newspaper.
Rebecca West wrote a great piece about the uniqueness of each person, while Jody Williams hopes that people change the world by helping do extraordinary things. Both women have a great faith in people and in the power of love and working together, but I respond to Rebecca West’s much more. Perhaps because it asked more of me, but in a less specific way. She asked for the kind of awareness that, built up, would change everything, while Williams asked for people to try and do specific things. It’s hard to explain, but it felt different.
This section of the book also contained some history on This I Believe. It was interesting. I’d love to track down the books from the fifies and read those. It sounds like there were several. I find it interesting that a show that was evidently so popular fell apart so fast after the loss of one single man. What made him so vital to the show? Why didn’t someone else step in? Why did it just quietly disappear after he was lost in the Bermuda Triangle? It seems very odd to me.