Baby Krishna

c. David Grim (taken 8/27/09)

I'm in the middle of reading Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's "Truth", which to be completely honest, is a bit of a slog. Armesto's operating assumption is that such a thing as truth does exist external to individual human beings.

It's been a long time since I've made my way through a philosophical treatise, and I wouldn't have initiated such a task if I knew what it would entail. The author is a historian by trade and habit, but he seems to be stepping a bit out of his depth on this one.

More than anything else, the book seems to be an attack piece on postmodern relativism. But instead of presenting a reasoned argument against it, he seems rather to revel in his nostalgia for a lost time when things were more clear-cut. His professed affiliation with the Catholic Church seems to weigh heavily with him. He is clearly lamenting the erosion of moral authority in our society.

On the plus side, he also argues against a pro-Western bias that suggests the cultural superiority of Europe and its legacy. Still I have a hard time when he insists that it is folly to measure the maturity of a society, while simultaneously decrying a widespread absence of a moral anchor.

Anyway, it's in that spirit that I offer today's image.