Thomas Merton on "sanity" and Christianity in the modern world


	Thomas Merton on "sanity" and Christianity in the modern world

enbar

2-23-2008 12:36 PM

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christianity, violence, war, politics, religion, primary_source, history, roman_catholicism, post:tumblr

enbar says:

Merton's thoughts on the finding that Eichmann was legally "sane": "sanity" is overrated in a world where mass destruction is considered an acceptable way of waging war. Given the modern situation, no Christian should aspire to sanity or realism.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/7b766c1a-09f1-433a-bf77-3749c2f1a1e3/46025D38-811D-410D-B603-3B289F0B077B/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.tomjoad.org/eichmann.htm" href="http://www.tomjoad.org/eichmann.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.tomjoad.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomjoad.org/eichmann.htm">It is 
    the sane ones, the well-adapted ones, who can without qualms and without 
    nausea aim the missile, and press the buttons that will initiate the great 
    festival of destruction that they, the sane ones, have prepared What makes 
    us so sure, after all, that the danger comes from a psychotic getting into a 
    position to fire the first shot in a nuclear war? Psychotics will he 
    suspect. The sane ones will keep them far from the button. No one suspects 
    the sane, and the sane ones will have perfectly good reasons, logical, 
    well-adjusted reasons, for firing the shot.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomjoad.org/eichmann.htm">And 
    so I ask myself: what is the meaning of a concept of sanity that excludes 
    love, considers it irrelevant, and destroys our capacity to love other human 
    beings, to respond to their needs and their sufferings, to recognize them 
    also as persons, to apprehend their pain as one's own? Evidently this is not 
    necessary for "sanity" at all.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomjoad.org/eichmann.htm">in a society like ours the worst insanity is to 
    be totally without anxiety, totally "sane."</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/46025D38-811D-410D-B603-3B289F0B077B/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>