tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post4212997543608218831..comments2024-03-28T00:01:43.037-04:00Comments on Grim's Hall: Virtue Loses its LovelinessGrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-53541922967180512472014-11-05T22:39:18.150-05:002014-11-05T22:39:18.150-05:00It struck me because I just saw something -- from ...It struck me because I just saw something -- from a very thoughtful, left-leaning friend -- on a similar subject. He was talking about how the good life just wasn't compatible with commuting several hours a day, working many hours a week, for forty years: that's not what a human life is or ought to be about, given evolved nature.<br /><br />Now that's not a modern stance, though it is very much a "progressive" stance! Wonder, then, where he thinks we're progressing? And what to make of all the progress -- in life spans, in health outcomes -- that has occurred among those living just that unnatural life?<br /><br />And yet, of course, he's not wrong. There's something there that's really important, and really true.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-40276897494525671992014-11-05T20:11:38.301-05:002014-11-05T20:11:38.301-05:00Unfortunately, it is some what muddled by (despite...Unfortunately, it is some what muddled by (despite a lot of quotes) a distinct lack of historical awareness. <br /><br />Kristol, and to some extent, the baby boomers have to be understood in the context of the upheavals of the 20th century. I don't think that either Kristol or most people, understood both the disillusionment of pretty much everybody with how things had gone, coupled with the ongoing cold war of ideas where the great tyranny of the 20th century, Communism, (or whatever you want to call it) had infiltrated the intelligentsia (Notice that Kristol himself was a Trotskyite at one point), and that is, frankly still there today, and nobody really even realizes it, because the old "political" Communism is pretty much gone. It's like some sort of undead spectre haunting civilization in general, not just "Western" civilization. People are unhappy, but they don't know why exactly. <br /><br />In someways Kristol was part of the problem that he himself was describing. <br /><br />But one can not go back to the past, you can only try to learn from it, and move on. Eric Blairnoreply@blogger.com