Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Patrick Lynch <padraig AT well.com>]

Pain and discomfort, it seems, without any what one might call "mindfulness" or perceptive thought can bring to fore that darker self. It's somewhat similar to what a friend told me about his being questioned on his Conscientious Objector status and was given the situation where a person was about to rape his sister and there was a gun between him and that person. The representative said, "Would you not shoot the rapist?" He answered, "Yes," but if he could, he would try to avoid the gun or even putting his sister in harm's way in the first place.

Perhaps the higher self, and I hope I can be forgiven a sidestep away from Percy here, is like the one advocated by Rene Girard. One must look at violence (and by association from within the highest self) and choose to have it stop. Rather than look for the scapegoat, become the scapegoat. choose to suffer. Sort of like Tom in the Second Coming who has to deal with the toothache and come out from his cave.

I must say, Karl and Dave, you bring up fascinating ideas.

Patrick

On Aug 31, 2005, at 8:35 PM, Karl M. Terrell wrote:

There is something about these awful occurences that brings up a dark

side of our authenic selves.  I'm not sure we can wholly control this.

We can only hope, on balance, that the search will proceed toward a

light.