A Dark Age after History

 

Went downtown for a medical appointment on Thursday. I rarely go downtown. 

At Spadina and College, there is a Project Bookmark plaque on the sidewalk with a poem by Milton Acorn.

Knowing I live in a dark age before history,

I watch my wallet and

am less struck by gunfights in the avenues

than by the newsie with his dirty pink chapped face

calling a shabby poet back for his change…

And I see it has been defaced with green paint.

You know a civilization is dying when it defaces art, when it torches religious buildings and pulls down statues. This is a culture committing suicide.

Why do cultures commit suicide? For the same reason, no doubt, that people do. Because of a loss of meaning. Because people feel there is no point to anything. Except perhaps the moment’s gross physical pleasure: eat, drink, and be merry, for there is no tomorrow.

Downtown Toronto these days feels like the Cities of the Plain. 

A Few Matters on My Brain

 

Dine in? Entree at the zombie cafe

Our school textbooks generally reinforce a foolish materialism and hedonism. This goes on in the background, in their assumptions, as much as explicitly. One wonders if the indoctrination is intentional, or if the authors just don’t themselves know any better.

A text I’m currently using to tutor high school students includes in passing the example sentence

“Before we continue the discussion that was interrupted yesterday, let me begin by explaining that pain is something that is felt in your brain.”

Pain is something felt in your arm or other body part, or, more accurately, in your mind. One does not have pain receptors in the brain. 

The problem is, of course, the confusion of the brain, a lump of meat, with the mind or spirit.

“On hearing the word vacation, most people react positively.”

Webster’s 1913 dictionary, or the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), offer for “positive” a variety of meanings: definite, legislated, existing in reality, greater than zero, optimistic, and so forth. For this reason, the term should be avoided. It is ambiguous. But even then, no traditional meaning of “positive” applies here. 

Why this now widespread misuse of the term? 

My sense is that it is an effort to obscure or erase the distinction between “desired” and “good.” Either is vaguely glossed with the term “positive.” Confusing moral issues; seeking to deny morality.

We all just do what we want… and that is good.

I’m not positive that is right.