Chesterton on Borgmann

This is my first attempt at blogging, so I hope I get this right :)

I have found that despite his bouts of sesquipedalian loquaciousness, I am agreeing with Mr. Borgmann. I found page 93 in Chapter 14 (Technology and Democracy) particularly intriguing:

"...a question of whether we can establish a just society without a commitment to a good society in a strong sense."

"To make divorces, abortions, and entry into the labor market easy...is of course to withdraw formal social support form the traditional family, from the reverence for emerging human life..."

"The law can conform to matters of ultimate concern or morality only when there is something like unanimity. There are probably more shared views on morality in this country than we realize."

There were also many more passages regarding the impartiality of a liberal democracy in realms such as morality. I am an avid reader of the great apologist/philosopher/writer/drunken master/all around cool guy G.K. Chesterton. I have found many quotes from his various works comment nicely on the ideas in this chapter. I thus present Chesterton's commentary on Borgmann (bracketed comments are my own):

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

This provides a good comparison with Borgmann's idea of shared views on morality. A good commentary on the idea of being pluralistic or broad-minded is this:

"Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else."

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance."

Borgmann also writes:

"It [liberal democracy] needs technology because the latter promises to furnish the neutral opportunities necessary to establish a just society...It fears technology because technology may in fact deliver more than it had promised, namely, a definite version of the good society and, more important yet, on which is "good" in a dubious sense."

Chesterton writes:

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we [or rather technology] are always changing the vision."

Borgmann, then, I think, would have got along with Chesterton quite well. He seems worried about what he writes (or rather, what other people have proposed). Some closing remarks from Chesterton that I found quite relevant to this chapter and the class in general:

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man."

"None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them."