William Zinsser writes on drafting and revising his On Writing Well over the past 35 years.
HT: Justin Taylor
Not by me, but so well done I can’t help but link to it. Coraline: Visually Stunning, Morally Complex, Spooky Tale
Walker Percy received the Laetare Medal at Notre Dame in 1989, and in his acceptance speech he said:
The motto of the Laetare Medal is, I understand, ‘Magna est veritas et prevalebit,’ ‘Truth is mighty and shall prevail.’ I like to think that it applies even to the humble vocation of a novelist.
In my last novel, The Thanatos Syndrome, I tried to show how, while truth should prevail, it is a disaster when only one kind of truth prevails at the expense of another. If only one kind of truth prevails, the abstract and technical truth of science, then nothing stands in the way of a demeaning of and a destruction of human life for what would appear to be reasonable short-term goals.
It’s no accident that I think that German science, as great as it was, ended in the destruction of the Holocaust.
The novelist likes to irritate people by pointing this out. It’s his pleasure and vocation to reveal, with his own elusive and indirect way, man’s need of and openings to other than scientific propositions.
The novelist, I think, has a special calling to truth these days. The world into which you are graduating is a deranged world. It is his task to show the derangement.
This is a much needed perspective in current conversations regarding ethics and (or vs.) science.
Percy’s entire speech is available on YouTube.
From The Gazette (Montreal), “The push for euthanasia could be the death of us all:”
Imagine carrying around with you at all times a sort of get-out-of-hospital-alive card, sometimes called a sanctuary card. Its message: I do not want to be killed even though my quality of life seems to you to be unbearable.
Hard to imagine? In Holland and Belgium right now such cards are in demand. They may become essential in the not too distant future for seniors in Quebec and other parts of Canada and the U.S. who do not want to die before their time because other people believe that killing you is in your best interest, or that you should be assisted to kill yourself.
I know the decision is a couple of weeks old at this point, but a ton of articles have recently come to my attention.
John Kass in the Chicago Tribune, Stem cell policy shift brings a sinking feeling
Christianity Today, In Over His Pay Grade: When science is made ‘apolitical’ and ‘unencumbered by religion,’ it’s usually to hyper-politicize and hyper-sacralize it.
Rep. Mike Pence in Christianity Today, The Empty Promise of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Ross Douthat, Stem Cells and Moral Seriousness
Kurt Perry is a 26-year-old man suffering from a neurological condition (Charcot-Marie-Tooth, or CMT) that leads to weakness in the extremities.
For three years, Perry had come to rely on these Final Exit “guides” for emotional support. He also counted on them being present, but not participating, on the Thursday he planned to “hasten his death”—a phrase the group prefers to euthanasia.
“In a way, Final Exit Network is another family,” Perry explained. “They listen to me and give me advice about how to go through my life . . . until my decision is made and I’ve suffered enough.”
Later in the article one of the Final Exit volunteers asserts, “It’s compassionate. It’s one human being with another human being as they pass from living to dying.”
No, that’s what hospice is. This is the intentional killing (the suicide) of a person who needs true compassion.
This one has slipped my notice. Thanks to MercatorNet for catching it.
Was Clinton’s language deliberate or grossly uninformed?
BTW, MercatorNet.com is definetly something you should be reading. Thoughtful, well-reasoned, winsome — bookmark it and/or subscribe to their updates immediately.
Clearly, I don’t agree with everything Krauthammer has to say:
I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science, and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn.
But his overall point is sound
Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama’s pretense that he will “restore science to its rightful place” and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand—this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically “scientific.”
Another link from Christianity Today: Sci-Fi’s Brave New World: How the genre draws us to its own views of redemption
Which stories will guide us as we make our way through the perilous 21st century with its stunning technologies and burgeoning data about our bodies, minds, and universe? As science holds out to us possibilities previously only imagined, which myths will shape the imaginations of our decision makers? Which narratives will form our religious sensibilities, provide our spiritual values, and craft our view of the supernatural—indeed, of God? Only the true myth at the heart of Christianity is powerful enough to prevent excesses and avert atrocities. How can the church respond?
