Jonathan Bennett of Syracuse University wrote an outstanding article over the value and use of sympathy in relation to our cultural morals called "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn". In it he compared three different persons of, according to him, different levels of morality or righteousness.
Huck Finn being the first, who is under the morality that black men are inferior and, during his attempt to help free Jim, is what he struggles with in contrast with his sympathy, of which is begging him to let the man go. And we know the story goes that he does.
Heinrich Himmler was second - believe it or not - and this was so because, though he had horrendous moral implications he held to until the bitter end - that being the mass murder of Jews and claimed 'inferiorities' during WWII -, he was known to have a positive outlook on compassion and sympathy and how wrong it felt to do such acts as he did, even though he suppressed them for what was, in his eyes, a greater mission. Bennett writes, "He is saying that only the weak take the easy way out and just squelch their sympathies, and is praising the stronger and more glorious course of retaining one's sympathies while acting in violation of them." Bennett would go on to say that he "did bear his hideous burden, and even pained a price for it. He suffered a variety of nervous and physical disabilities, including nausea and stomach-convulsions...these were 'the expression of a psychic division which extended over his whole life.'" What is so very interesting about Bennett's critique is that he is absolutely right: it is a sign of a 'better' person if one does indeed feel the weight the burdens that his actions may cause, even as far as to respect them. This is striking that Himmler is second precisely because of who Bennet (quite rightly) labeled as last:
Jonathan Edwards - the great 18th century philosopher, theologian, and minister - appeared as last, precisely because of his views on eternal, literal fire, extrinsically imposed on the condemned, and even, in his words, loathed and detested by God "much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire." He would go on to say that God "abhors [the condemned], and is dreadfully provoked." Not only is this extremely immoral in itself, it is also contrary to God's love in scripture, which states He desires all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), and has no pleasure regarding the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), as well as the fact that Edwards had a faulty, mechanical view of human free will. He was a hard determinist who believed (note this) that for an agent to even produce an act, God must give him the desire to do so. This, of course, is absolutely irrational, for it would mean that not only does God give the anti-Christs and terrorists to human civilization and decency the desires to contradict and oppose Him, but, in the beginning, God even gave Satan the desire to rebel against Him, which would mean that God contradicts Himself, and is nothing more than a puppet-master, sick in ambition, bored in His omnipotence, and evil in His actions. All this combined and the fact that Edwards didn't seem to have a single hint of sympathy for those who were condemned. Hear this:
"When the saints in glory, therefore, shall see the doleful state of the condemned, how will this heighten their sense of the blessedness of their own state...When they shall see how miserable others of their fellow-creatures are...; when they shall see the smoke of their torment,...and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the mean time are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity; how they will rejoice!"
Cleary we see, in perhaps a paradoxical state of recognition of Edwards' religion, how wrong this man was, and how much he desired the torment of his fellow man, who, according to his theology, was just as helpless and depraved as he, though God chose Edwards rather than the condemned, with nothing for either party to accept or reject in the capacity of their own freedom. This man's theology makes me sick, in the highest level of repugnance, though I do get a feeling that he didn't recognize half the things he said. But I may certainly be wrong; though I do hope I am not.
Bennett concludes by saying that we should keep our sympathies as sharpened as we possibly can, for they help determine our own accepted morality, though he did warn that neither extreme - morality or emotion, compassion or sympathy - should be taken at full face value, for in so doing you endanger yourself as Edwards did, or as any seething romantic without a touch of realism in his system; the likes of we can probably name off in accordance with our own fields of society. "...I must try to keep my morality open to revision, exposing it to whatever valid pressures there are -- including pressures from my sympathies...In a conflict between principle and sympathy, principles ought sometimes to win."
In all, this is an excellent article I recommend to everyone, as it brings to light the opinions of great characters in our history - whether fictional or real - and shows the value and urgency of sympathy in relationship to our learned and accepted cultural morals.
Huck Finn being the first, who is under the morality that black men are inferior and, during his attempt to help free Jim, is what he struggles with in contrast with his sympathy, of which is begging him to let the man go. And we know the story goes that he does.
Heinrich Himmler was second - believe it or not - and this was so because, though he had horrendous moral implications he held to until the bitter end - that being the mass murder of Jews and claimed 'inferiorities' during WWII -, he was known to have a positive outlook on compassion and sympathy and how wrong it felt to do such acts as he did, even though he suppressed them for what was, in his eyes, a greater mission. Bennett writes, "He is saying that only the weak take the easy way out and just squelch their sympathies, and is praising the stronger and more glorious course of retaining one's sympathies while acting in violation of them." Bennett would go on to say that he "did bear his hideous burden, and even pained a price for it. He suffered a variety of nervous and physical disabilities, including nausea and stomach-convulsions...these were 'the expression of a psychic division which extended over his whole life.'" What is so very interesting about Bennett's critique is that he is absolutely right: it is a sign of a 'better' person if one does indeed feel the weight the burdens that his actions may cause, even as far as to respect them. This is striking that Himmler is second precisely because of who Bennet (quite rightly) labeled as last:
Jonathan Edwards - the great 18th century philosopher, theologian, and minister - appeared as last, precisely because of his views on eternal, literal fire, extrinsically imposed on the condemned, and even, in his words, loathed and detested by God "much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire." He would go on to say that God "abhors [the condemned], and is dreadfully provoked." Not only is this extremely immoral in itself, it is also contrary to God's love in scripture, which states He desires all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), and has no pleasure regarding the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), as well as the fact that Edwards had a faulty, mechanical view of human free will. He was a hard determinist who believed (note this) that for an agent to even produce an act, God must give him the desire to do so. This, of course, is absolutely irrational, for it would mean that not only does God give the anti-Christs and terrorists to human civilization and decency the desires to contradict and oppose Him, but, in the beginning, God even gave Satan the desire to rebel against Him, which would mean that God contradicts Himself, and is nothing more than a puppet-master, sick in ambition, bored in His omnipotence, and evil in His actions. All this combined and the fact that Edwards didn't seem to have a single hint of sympathy for those who were condemned. Hear this:
"When the saints in glory, therefore, shall see the doleful state of the condemned, how will this heighten their sense of the blessedness of their own state...When they shall see how miserable others of their fellow-creatures are...; when they shall see the smoke of their torment,...and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the mean time are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity; how they will rejoice!"
Cleary we see, in perhaps a paradoxical state of recognition of Edwards' religion, how wrong this man was, and how much he desired the torment of his fellow man, who, according to his theology, was just as helpless and depraved as he, though God chose Edwards rather than the condemned, with nothing for either party to accept or reject in the capacity of their own freedom. This man's theology makes me sick, in the highest level of repugnance, though I do get a feeling that he didn't recognize half the things he said. But I may certainly be wrong; though I do hope I am not.
Bennett concludes by saying that we should keep our sympathies as sharpened as we possibly can, for they help determine our own accepted morality, though he did warn that neither extreme - morality or emotion, compassion or sympathy - should be taken at full face value, for in so doing you endanger yourself as Edwards did, or as any seething romantic without a touch of realism in his system; the likes of we can probably name off in accordance with our own fields of society. "...I must try to keep my morality open to revision, exposing it to whatever valid pressures there are -- including pressures from my sympathies...In a conflict between principle and sympathy, principles ought sometimes to win."
In all, this is an excellent article I recommend to everyone, as it brings to light the opinions of great characters in our history - whether fictional or real - and shows the value and urgency of sympathy in relationship to our learned and accepted cultural morals.
