immaculate kant-ception.

So, this is going to sound really geeky, like 99.5% of the things I write about on this blog, but I've been thinking about Kant on-and-off since I graduated from undergrad.

Not, like, in a teen-crush "who do u think is hotter, tom felton or rupert grint?" kind of way (I save that kind of thing for Wheelock textbooks) but in my usual preoccupied "I can't be bothered to consult the original texts because I'm a lazy ass, but I'll think about things I learned in class through lectures and secondary sources."

After five years of thinking about what drove me nuts about Kant, I finally realized that his theological ambivalence is probably somewhat tied to the predicament brought on by his insistence on both Enlightenment rationalism on one hand and his commitment to his staunchly Protestant heritage on the other. And, in some ways, even though I'd have to say I have no idea what he's talking about 95% of the time on any given subject, I think there's something revealing about his ambivalence toward theology and rationalism, and I think this "something" is also present in some form in the attempts made by contemporary religious thinkers when dealing with their own set of theological conundrums.

I don't know if Kant is right about the conclusions he makes about radical evil or reason or theology, because I don't pretend to understand I have any clue what he meant about any of it. I often wished I had latched on to a more accessible writer/thinker; one who could have spoken directly to the subjects I'm interested in without me having to do hermaneutic gymnastics to make it relevant to my thoughts and interests, but that would require more reading, and as we all know, I'm practically illiterate.

But I will say that the more time that passes between me and reading Big Books and writing Long Papers About Stuff, the more I realize that we modern day beings have lost a great deal of meaningful vocubulary to deal with "bad things and bad situations." Our conceptions of "good," and "evil" of "moral" and "immoral" have been so politicized and elasticized that they have become meaningless, and fall on jaded ears (including my own).

I'm trying to figure out what kind of currency, if any, "moral" language has in contemporary parlance. How do we talk about ethics and ethical behavior if these terms no longer lay a common framework for discussion?

We've come a long way in this meandering discussion, but why does this lack of moral language other me? It bothers me precisely because I see things in my every day work world that are utterly, soul-crushingly horrible, and there doesn't seem to be a way to talk about them in a meaningful way, and there is still less of a way to fit these incidences and problems into a framework that validates human experience and worth, let alone incorporate some divinity into the fray.

Maybe there isn't any.

Any way, that's why I like school. Because ultimately, you aren't responsible for the answers. You have textbooks and teachers for answers and verification. You have the delete key and pencil erasers. You can change your mind about your answer. You're supposed to change your mind, or at least entertain the possibility of doing so. And you have time. Time to make mistakes and learn from them.

Working in the healthcare, I no longer have those luxuries. Textbooks are still there, and, if you're very lucky, you might find a mentor along the way, but you own every decision you make; you take responsibility for everything you do and say. Time is gone; mistakes, on the other hand...

Most of the time, you make good decisions, you hope. But some times, you don't, or someone else doesn't, and no matter the outcome, you have to learn to live with it.

And that's where it gets hard, because the answers really do stop there. No one can tell you how to learn to live with death, or bad outcomes, or bad stuff in general.

And then you wonder, "Who the hell has the answers now?"