Moulton Lava

Moultonic Musings

My Photo
Name:
Location: New England, United States

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

DC Comics has rebooted its collection of Superhero comics.  This event would normally be of passing note in the annals of popular culture, but it presents us with a timely opportunity to remind ourselves of the enduring themes of these otherwise fictional characters.

Week after week, Superman fights "the never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

A lifetime of academic study offers us a little perspective on "Truth, Justice, and the American Way."

We learn from Mathematics, Philosophy, and Science that Truth is not only elusive, it's remarkably difficult to sort fact from fiction.  It's not enough to value Truth as a worthwhile objective; one must learn how to divine the Truth from amongst all the competing conjectures, hypotheses, and opinions.

Similarly, we learn that Justice is a complex and controversial concept.  Are we pursuing Retributive Justice or Restorative Justice?  One can spend a career exploring the subtleties of John Rawls' Theory of Justice.

As to the American Way, God only knows what that means.  Certainly the Republicans and the Democrats can't agree on what it means.  The Tao of Pooh seems to have little or nothing to do with the American Way.

I'm not convinced that we have an adequate understanding of Truth or Justice, and I despair of us ever coming to an agreement on what is meant by the American Way.

5 Comments:

Blogger Philip Verghese 'Ariel' said...

Hi Barry,
Good to be back again, Hey you need to add more elements in the blog, share button, followers button etc etc Promotion is much needed to such blogs, hope you add few such things so that people can follow your blog and will get intimation about you new posts
Best regards
Hope your knol migration process is going on,
Best Regards
Phil

1:16 PM  
Blogger jay said...

The blog problem reports (0ct 6) says there is an issue with IE8 that prevents posting comments. One "fix" is to change the BLOG settings so that the editor is in a pop-up window.

9:54 AM  
Blogger Higs; said...

Right. The American way is a myth--and not in the legit Joe Campbell sense. In the generalized, misconceived full of crap sense.

The American Way is the one that someone mangages to get somehere on and not have to explain how he did it or ever look back.

My family motto in the 1630s, when our line first came to the New World was, "I cut my way through" (in particular referring to the refusal to stay in Massachusetts Bay Colony and choping through the brambles to found what would eventually be Connecticut).

My direct line ancestory was neither a Tory nor a Continental Establishmentist--he went west and lived with the Indians throughout the Revolution and then ended up at the Shaker commune in upstate New York. I descend, of course, through the courtesy of one of his younger sons who didn't much like the call to celibacy.

In any case, from my geniological, lineal, and even historical perspective, the United States is more or less a blip on the radar. A chuckhole in the road.

5:00 PM  
Blogger jay said...

Higs -- I wonder if Moulton has abandoned the blog... or taken a long hiatus in warmer climates.

1:33 PM  
Blogger jay said...

Moulton... you need o make a swing by Bela's 'hood ...

http://forum.ableminds.com/go?14@@.894321c5

2:24 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home