This time from the great philosopher’s book On Human Conduct (ht MS):
“Religious faith is the evocation of a sentiment (the love, the glory, or the honor of God, for example, or even a humble caritas), to be added to all others as the motive of all motives in terms of which the fugitive adventures of human conduct, without being released from their mortal and moral conditions, are graced with an intimation of immortality: the sharpness of death and the deadliness of doing overcome, and the transitory sweetness of a mortal affection, the tumult of a grief and the passing beauty of a May [Saturday] morning recognized neither as merely evanescent adventures nor as emblems of better things to come, but as aventures, themselves encounters with eternity.”
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4 comments
manwithoutqualities says:
Sep 2, 2010
Yes, I think this must rate as one of Oakeshott's most poetic passages, despite it, or perhaps because of it, appearing in his most brittle work.
bls says:
Sep 3, 2010
I don't think "doing" has to be deadly – although it can be if it's an escape from something else. But work, for example, is quite pleasurable when it's done for itself, simply for the doing of it without any expectation – and can be a form of meditation itself anyway. Ora et labora, baby.
It's like playing tennis simply for the beauty of making the shot, without worrying about the score. And we don't have to forget about/suppress our emotions when we're "doing" things; we can work them out as we do them, sort of as processes in the background that bubble up to the surface. And since we all have to work to stay alive, it's just as well this is possible and in fact helpful.
But perhaps I've misunderstood the reference here; I'm not completely sure why that phrase is in bold….
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Another Week Ends: Prayer Shaming, Gracious Sermons, Magical Libraries, St. Bill of Murray, | Mockingbird says:
Dec 4, 2015
[…] Anyway, having just written about the Bill Maher-levels of anti-religious hostility that bubbled up during the mudslinging, today I’m more interested in what the issue reveals about the popular understanding of the relationship between faith and works. Because all of a sudden, a massive amount of people are weighing in on that precise dichotomy. It might be amusing, I suppose, if the content were different. Alas, the tune is all too recognizable: The online peanut gallery–even/especially those who recognize the value of prayer–seems to be embracing a message that amounts to “stop (just) believing and start doing”, i.e. “be the church (dammit)!”. The second chapter of James is getting quoted left, right and center–I’ve even read a piece or two about how Jesus prayer-shamed the Pharisees! Sheesh. Read enough of these tweets and it starts to sound as if the comfort of grace is a distraction (maybe even a liability), rather than the only basis for hope in a world done in by doing. […]
Lay Down Your Smartphone and Follow Me? (Just a Second) | Mockingbird says:
Sep 22, 2016
[…] are never fully satisfied. The late British philosopher Michael Oakeshott starkly called this truth “the deadliness of doing.” There seems no end to this paradox of practical life, and no way out, just an infinite succession […]