Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.
Catholic and Enjoying It : Strange Times Ahead
November 11, 2016 by Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2016/11/strange-times-ahead.html
Uncannily, the post was the one after a farewell to Leonard Cohen. A man who said "the shit is going to hit the fan". And "when the shit hits the fan, duck."
Strange times might indeed be ahead. You know the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times"? We are living in interesting times./HGL
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