Reflection

In all honesty I got a little bored with our Messiah discussion. It seemed to become more about semantics than anything else. This may be a personal bias of mine, I don't really like the idea of Messiahs. It bothers me when oppressed peoples come to the conclusion that only a destined person with superhuman abilities is capable of saving them when, in fact, all they have is a collective action problem. A good story would be about how the freemen recognized their own potential, stopped waiting for the Lisan and overthrew the Harkonnens themselves.

On to Weber.

I was a little hesitant to admit this in my substantive piece, but I loved Weber's lecture. While it does get a little boring in the middle I thought it was perfectly designed to break the spirit of the idealist little students he was giving it to. Oh how I wish some well known politician who AU students adore would come to campus and give a similar speech. I may be putting my own spin on this, but the end of the lecture lays out a Philosophy that I have been preaching for a while now in contrast to Chris' "practice vs. theory" I believe it is better described as, Idealism vs. Realism.

Here's a clip of the West Wing to explain. Here Leo acts with an ethic of responsibility while the President an ethic of conviction. The President is forced to either Kill a murderer or follow the law.



It's about considering the result of what any given decision will have and recognizing that the more ethical more moral decision is not the one that is "right" or "just" in the immediate sense, but in the long run.