The illusions and fictions encouraged by the appetite for self-affirmation in certain restricted groups, have much to be said for them and much to be said against them. They do in practice free a man from his individual limitations and help him, in some measure, to transcend himself. And if every society were ideal, then every society would help its members only to a fruitful and productive self-transcendence. But in fact societies tend to lift a man above himself only far enough to make him a useful and submissive instrument in whom the aspirations, lusts and needs of the group can function unhindered by too delicate a personal conscience. Social life tends to form and educate a man, but generally at the price of a simultaneous deformation and perversion. This is because civil society is never ideal, always a mixture of good and evil, and always tending to present the evil in itself as a form of good.
Thomas Merton
Disputed Questions
Humility: remember when?
“I’d rather not.”
Right–but there was a time when athletes ,of all ages and levels, would play the game–,
execute at their position– without screaming,dancing and pounding their chests simple because the did what was required.
“Yes there was such a time. But isn’t it grand when you see one, the player ,who knows what
humility means and acts accordingly?”
Yes its true, it happens –thank God.
“Now–watch the game.”