The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate Utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there will be no more sins because all the sinners will have been wiped out.
Interpretation
This quote warns against the dangers of pursuing a perfect society by eliminating all who do wrong, which can result in tyranny.
Thomas Merton's quote reflects on the perils of striving for a utopian society that seeks to eradicate all sins by removing those who commit them. In this pursuit, the focus shifts from understanding and redemption to oppression and control, suggesting that the quest for absolute perfection can lead to an even greater moral decay, where the true essence of humanity is lost in the process of purification.
In practice
During a lecture on ethics, one might use this quote to highlight the dangers of totalitarianism in the name of moral purity.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
The mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with that-which-is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place.
Adult life is dealing with an enormous amount of questions that don't have answers. So I let the mystery settle into my music. I don't deny anything, I don't advocate anything, I just live with it.
My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love.
A saint is a person who behaves decently in a shockingly indecent society.
[about tabloid magazines] Just because you read it in a magazine or see it on a TV screen doesn't make it factual. To buy it is to feed it.
Laissez faire does not mean: let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: let individuals choose how they want to cooperate in the social division of labor and let them determine what the entrepreneurs should produce.
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