Review: Night Thoughts
Nov. 20th, 2017 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebThe librarians had Wallace Shawn's tiny new book, Night Thoughts on display, so I picked it up. Flipping through it, an essay called "Civilization" grabbed my attention. He talked about a rough bohemian apartment, the alluring woman who lived there, Egyptians, whether it's the kings who build cities or the builders who build them, schoolyard horrors, luck, and power. So I checked it out.
At first glance, it looks like a collection of interesting essays on different topics. For example:
Morality
But I've actually lived long enough now to have figured out what the word "morality" really refers to. I do know what it means, although it's pretty outrageous. It refers to a very simple thought: we shouldn't accept this principle that strong inevitably triumphs over weak. Luck has distributed strength in an arbitrary way: this lion is stronger, this elk is stronger, this group of people lives closer to the river, this group of people lives farther away. Luck has given the person with the penis, the people with the guns, a bit more strength, and so they've trampled over everyone else. Morality says we shouldn't accept that. For the bigger kid to take the smaller kid's candy bar is not right; it's wrong. And if the bigger kid gives that candy bar to me, the process by which I received it was wrong, and it's wrong for me to have it, and it's wrong for me to eat it.
But really the essays are all connected. As a Publisher's Weekly reviewer explains: "With impeccable logic, [Shawn] gently, but lethally, skewers the complacency of the lucky while highlighting the plight of the less fortunate, including the Muslims living in the slums of European cities, the maid of a wealthy friend, and a boy at a dance who shoots someone flirting with his girlfriend." He also addresses how we fit into all this (or really, how he fits into all this). It's quite thought-provoking. I recommend it.
I'm not a religious person, but there are a few books that speak to me on spiritual issues, and this one just got added to the list.
At first glance, it looks like a collection of interesting essays on different topics. For example:
Morality
But I've actually lived long enough now to have figured out what the word "morality" really refers to. I do know what it means, although it's pretty outrageous. It refers to a very simple thought: we shouldn't accept this principle that strong inevitably triumphs over weak. Luck has distributed strength in an arbitrary way: this lion is stronger, this elk is stronger, this group of people lives closer to the river, this group of people lives farther away. Luck has given the person with the penis, the people with the guns, a bit more strength, and so they've trampled over everyone else. Morality says we shouldn't accept that. For the bigger kid to take the smaller kid's candy bar is not right; it's wrong. And if the bigger kid gives that candy bar to me, the process by which I received it was wrong, and it's wrong for me to have it, and it's wrong for me to eat it.
But really the essays are all connected. As a Publisher's Weekly reviewer explains: "With impeccable logic, [Shawn] gently, but lethally, skewers the complacency of the lucky while highlighting the plight of the less fortunate, including the Muslims living in the slums of European cities, the maid of a wealthy friend, and a boy at a dance who shoots someone flirting with his girlfriend." He also addresses how we fit into all this (or really, how he fits into all this). It's quite thought-provoking. I recommend it.
I'm not a religious person, but there are a few books that speak to me on spiritual issues, and this one just got added to the list.