Word: moralizes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...haunting orchestral score, composed by Andrew Hopson, was also been added to the production, and effectively complemented the action. The set, featuring a background of metal scaffolds, similarly emphasized the bleak moral and political situation of the play. In this production's most overt addition to the text, a series of disturbing images, both modern and ancient, were projected across the stage, to demonstrate that societal ills are certainly not restricted to Corionlanus' time. This attempt to broaden the context of the play seemed too labored and obvious, and was less effective than the more subtle innovations...
...exercise lends a kind of credence to what some Christians see as the upshot of their doctrine of original sin: that people are born in need of a salvation gained through repentance. To put it in secular terms: so deeply hidden from natural introspection is our badness that moral reform requires a solid jolt of enlightenment, sharp and persistent awareness of our inherent baseness...
...Moral reform may or may not come as Christians prefer--in the course of accepting Jesus as savior. But certainly Jesus said some things that could lead even an agnostic toward it. He asked us to doubt the moral basis of all hatreds--even of our enemies--and to doubt our frequent feelings of moral superiority, our illusion of clarity. ("You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye; and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.") Other religions also preach universal love and harsh self-scrutiny. Buddha said...
...biting people but chatting with them. Only when man fell to temptation did the natural world receive a coating of evil. But according to Darwinism, the evil in nature lies at its very roots, instilled by its creator, natural selection. After all, natural selection is chronic competition untrammeled by moral rules. Heedless selfishness and wanton predation are traits likely to endure. If these things are sins, then the roots of sin lie at the origin--not just of humankind but of life...
Still, there's something hopeful about a hideous past. Though our great intelligence and our elaborate "moral" sentiments were created solely for the purpose of genetic proliferation and not for true edification, they now interact in strange and unpredicted ways, and the occasional burst of moral progress breaks through. People like Jesus and Buddha come along and say radical things that somehow stick in the world's consciousness. And the most animal of institutions--such as slavery--do seem slowly to die out. Who knows where this could lead? Personally, I'd rather see Eden on the horizon--however dimly...