29 March 2011

Three by three

  1. The law of the land, the law of god, the law of the people: these we call authority, dogma, honor. They denote the three manners in which power gets wielded. 
  2. The other side of the coin, the leftist side, the corresponding values of the revolution, of the isolate outside of an institutional structure, the state of grace for the individual, are liberty, equality, fraternity. 
  3. The third side of the coin, the rightist side, the corresponding values of the reaction, of the rulers outside of an institutional structure, the state of terror for the society, are the leader, the pure, the loyal. 
The question is how do the cardinal virtues fit into these schemes of power exercise and power allocation as between the institution and the individual? If authority instills, promotes and encourages prudence and temperance, and honor brings to the fore fortitude, then dogma emphasizes distributive and retributive justice. 

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