Manliness,Religion, and Our Manly Scientists

The source of the manly exaggerations characteristic of members of our species is our abstract and idealistic ability to imagine ourselves as more than we really are. Our scientists are right that religious cruelty has often been the product of our manly inclination to exaggerate our personal importance. Our scientists, however, characteristically forget that we also have the abstract and idealistic ability to imagine ourselves as less than we really are. Surely their theoretical manliness or proud self-transcendence is also unrealistically self-confident, and it can even produce its own forms of “dehumanizing” cruelty. In spite of our scientists’ criticisms, the truth will always be known by a particular person, and any realistic account of all we can know must include room for persons.

Peter Augustine LawlerEmail: