"The idea that down in our foundations there lie grubby creatures like desires, or passions, or needs, or culture, is like some nightmarish madwoman in the attic, and induces the same kind of reaction that met Darwin when he too drew attention to our proximity to animals rather than to angels."
— Blackburn, Simon (b. 1944)
Author
Work Title
Date
December 11, 2011
Metaphor
"The idea that down in our foundations there lie grubby creatures like desires, or passions, or needs, or culture, is like some nightmarish madwoman in the attic, and induces the same kind of reaction that met Darwin when he too drew attention to our proximity to animals rather than to angels."
Metaphor in Context
Perhaps the cultural situation of the West is sufficiently insecure, like that of Athens after the war with Sparta, for us to need the same defenses against the skeptical quote marks that were provided by Socrates and Plato.They taught us that we can respond to an eternal independent beacon, the heavenly structures of reason itself. The idea that down in our foundations there lie grubby creatures like desires, or passions, or needs, or culture, is like some nightmarish madwoman in the attic, and induces the same kind of reaction that met Darwin when he too drew attention to our proximity to animals rather than to angels. Surely we, the creatures of reason, are not in bondage to the horrible contingencies that go with being an animal? From their professorial eyries the mandarins fight back, reassuring each other that the Holy Grail is there to be seen, spilling into tomes and journals and conferences, e-mails, blogs and tweets, the torrents of what Wittgenstein nicely called the "slightly hysterical style of university talk."
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Simon Blackburn, "Of Hume and Bondage," New York Times (December 11, 2011). <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
02/19/2013
