Thursday, January 07, 2016

On amoral codes of conduct

Of all things I have been reading and watching: The Camomile Lawn, why not? - I prefer the excuisitely acted series, but the novel is rather curious: not great writing, unfortunately, but a sharp, extremely odd vignette of an era.

I was thinking about that breezy, self-confident attitude combined with the various liaisons and came first up with the word "libertine" - and then thought it completely wrong, misleading, and also that "amoral" would only work in a very particular (and unfortunate and hurtful) context of "moral".

Though there surely must be a moral framework for our actions or else they will be void of any significance and responsibility: but that framework must be individually, genuinely wrought and thought out, shaped to be real - and it is unreal, dishonest and fundamentally libertine (shamelessly indulging in one's narrowness and meanness), and thus completely immoral to opt for Victorian puritanism devoid of the philosophical-religious principles of that puritanism (that do not save that anti-morality from shallowness and cruelty but who at least provide it with some intellectual foundations).

I also thought that my values have actually been rather close (though not identical) to those mores so interestingly and strangely portrayed by Mary Wesley. That I do have individually wrought a moral code of conduct totally and satisfyingly anti-victorian and unlibertine. At times it didn't feel this way, but there really was a serious code of conduct there, and is, I do believe.

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