Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 00:30:00 -0500 (EST)
From: TMB <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com>
Subject: Re:  God help us, back to tropes


On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, Michael Rooney wrote:

> 
> 
> On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, TMB wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Every action is "ethical". That is what you don't understand.
> 
> Actions have ethical significance, I 
> understand that truism perfectly well.
> But not every action is ethical -- there
> are unethical acts (insert "duh" here).

No, here I have to disagree. I think that *every* action has an ethical
gravity, no matter how small or how removed from seriousness or the
precious. Every single and multiple action. 

> 
> Of course, if your scare quotes above
> indicate your peculiar sense of the 
> "ethical" -- you're right, I don't know
> what your private system of self-important
> auto-flagellation means.

Huh? Oh, that is how you would read ethical, I guess. I simply think that
every action has a definite, however miniscule, gravity of potential
violence and an inherent preciousness. Like dust on the floor, of course,
it have very little weight. But the phrase "an ethical action" strikes me
as a little silly and the conflation of some category or other.

With irritation,

TMB