raghu wrote: > more than 90% of messages on PEN-L *are* moralistic > attacks on the "American" lifestyle. The only point of disagreement is > over whether it is all the fault of a tiny capitalist elite, or does > the "working class" have its issues as well.
90%? what do you mean by "moralistic"? "narrowly and conventionally moral," as one web definition puts it? (see http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=moralistic) "Characteristic of or relating to a narrow-minded concern of the morals of others; self-righteous," as the Wiktionary puts it? Though no definition of a complicated idea is hard-and-fast without any appeal to convention, it's good to try to distinguish between "moral" critiques and "moralistic" ones. I'd distinguish them this way: "moral" simply means ethical, normative, and the like. Someone's moral position, for example, is "abortion is bad." "moralistic," on the other hand, means "self-righteous" or "holier-than-thou." This is normally seen when people make moral judgments with absolutely no understanding of others' situation and the constraints they live under. The moral ideal is applied to messy reality without any modification: someone might say "abortion is bad even if the woman got pregnant by being raped and cannot afford to bring up a child in anything like a normal way." But of course, the moralistic person would leave out all the words after "bad," since they're irrelevant. "moral" is talking about an ideal, while "moralistic" is trying force the square peg of real life into a round hole of that ideal. I think this fits general usage. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
