Take some time today and read Dennis Prager's Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) sermon on why it is so hard to become a better person. An excerpt:
3. Goodness is not about intentions.
Very few people have bad intentions. Even many people who commit real evil — such as true-believing Nazis, Communists, and Islamists — have good intentions. But as an ancient Jewish dictum put it, “It is not the thought that counts, but the action.” Good intentions alone produce good people about as often as good intentions alone produce good surgeons.
4 comments:
I have recently been facinated by middle ages philosophy and theology, lead by Aquineas. In his thinking, good only comes when the right thing is done for the right reasons in the right circumstances.
Replace any of these three elements with "wrong" and even if the outcome is good, or the intention is noble, or any other standard is met, it is the wrong thing.
This is yet another example I have found where the modern age has forgotten more profound truths than it has discovered.
Dan,
That's an excellent observation. Tom Wolfe noted several years back that this is a period in which people are discovering truths that everyone knew years ago.
Michael
Michael, so what you are saying is that even my observation that we need to relearn what we once knew has been observed before? Truly, there is no new thing under the sun :)
Dan,
When you're in the same area as Tom Wolfe, you're in good company!
Michael
Post a Comment