The Thin Grey Line between the Feasible and the Unfeasible

Happiness has long been considered a gift of the afterlife. In the Middle Ages, ordinary life was so tough that happiness could never be part of it. Happiness remained limited to catching an occasional big fish, or just not being killed by the next plundering army or the black plague. Otherwise, it was always wise to supplicate God for his mercy in this valley of tears, and to do his will so as to be worthy of his forgiveness in the afterlife. The world of the feasible was extremely small. Most of the world was the reign of the unfeasible and it was the sole competence of God.

The time of Enlightenment has gradually moved the thin grey line between the feasible and the unfeasible away from us, out into the universe. We see miracles happening in university hospitals, where hundreds of people are getting new limbs and new organs every day. Other people are being cured from the most recent plague. This is real progress. The downside of this is that our world creates the impression that everything is feasible. God has been chased away from daily life. We live in a Harry Potter world where you can conjure up a therapist for every little pain you feel. If you live in pain today, it is not because you are in disgrace with God but because you simply haven’t visited the right therapist yet. You still haven’t done what is doable, and the implication is that you deserve the misery you are living in. We tend to judge other people as being lazy or incapable, in case they are struck by miseries we don’t need to suffer ourselves. Even in misery, meritocracy prevails.

Therefore, let us not judge the misery of others. Just like prosperity and misery are unequally divided, feasibility is also unequally divided. What may be feasible for the strong, may not be feasible for the weak. This is another facet of the Matthew effect. We could do more for the weak. We could also expect more from the strong. Yet the unfeasible always has a place in our life whether we like it or not.

Interesting hearing this contribution of Roger Scruton, although I see the problem of ‘Potterism’ as a more general society paradigm rather than a by-product of left wing thinking.

I also refer to my earlier blog: "The Delusion of Immanent Justice".