i. From Czeslaw Milosz, The Captive Mind, which I am re-reading to discuss in class tomorrow:
In reality, such Christians (even omitting men like Marina) perpetuate one of the greatest lies of all centuries. They renounce their faith but are ashamed to admit it. The contradiction between Christianity and Stalinist philosophy cannot be overcome. Christianity is based on a concept of individual merit and guilt; the New Faith, on historical merit and guilt. The Christian who rejects individual merit and guilt denies the work of Jesus, and the God he calls upon slowly transforms himself in History. If he admits that only individual merit and guilt exist, now can he gaze indifferently at the suffering of people whose only sin was that they blocked the path of "historical processes"? To lull his conscience he resorts to the thesis that a reactionary cannot be a good man.
ii. From Kierkegaard (as Anti-Climacus), The Sickness Unto Death:
And finitude's despair is just so. A man in this kind of despair can very well live on in temporality; indeed he can do so all the more easily, be to all appearances a human being, praised by others, honoured and esteemed, occupied with all the goals of temporal life. Yes, what we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world. They use their abilities, amass wealth, carry out worldly enterprises, make prudent calculations, etc., and perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not themselves. In a spiritual sense they have no self, no self for whose sake they could venture everything, no self for God--however selfish they are otherwise.
iii. I have my doubts as to whether this one belongs, but I think it does. There's a question in Gatsby as to whether Nick has any judgments of his own, and this is the passage where it becomes clear he does, and he's had those judgments all along. It's the moment when he announces his individuality, that he is not of the group to which he has attached himself (not surprisingly, he realizes it in action, first, and his urge to pull away from Jordan, though he knows not quite why initially). It also seems to matter that he both criticizes and withholds judgment: there is the thing said and the thing left unsaid, from a motive of charity, perhaps. From The Great Gatsby:
We shook hands and I started away. Just before I reached the hedge I remembered something and turned around.
"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch of them put together."
I've always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end...
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