Here's a good example of a moralistic statement (as opposed to a moral one):
"Whenever Americans ask me 'What can I do?,' I think, 'Eat less,
motherfucker.'"
- Arundhati Roy, in a private conversation with a mutual acquaintance
On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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.
>
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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