day no. 15,786: hitting a triple

“We are fond of talking about 'liberty'; but the way we end up actually talking of it is an attempt to avoid discussing what is 'good.' We are fond of talking about 'progress'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about 'education'; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, 'Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace unadulterated liberty.' This is, logically rendered, 'Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.' He says, 'Away with your old moral standard; I am for progress.' This, logically stated, means, 'Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.'  He says, 'Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.' This, clearly expressed, means, 'We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.'" ― G.K. Chesterton, Heretics

The ignored presupposition and malady behind the modern mind is the failure to ask, "by what standard?"

Liberty is asserted without asking, "free from what?
Progress is assumed without asking, "progressing toward what?"
Education is embraced without asking, "knowing what?"

We want to be free; but without knowing from or for what, we find ourselves enslaved. Feelings promise freedom, but make for cruel, unrelenting taskmasters in the end. We want to advance; but without knowing from or to what, we find ourselves on repeat. Aiming all our creative energies at solving problems instead of acknowledging trade-offs leads to inventing the old problems all over again. We want to be intelligent; but without knowing up from down, we find ourselves ignorant. Abandoning objectivity is imagined to open up the picture, but in reality, deleting the frame abandons the picture. Without borders and boundaries, it is impossible to know where the picture begins or ends. Without definition, it ceases to be.

Yet liberty, progress, and education are inescapable. The world can redefine them, but they cannot graduate beyond them. It is compelled to justify itself as right, free, advanced, and educated; but without objective mechanisms it is left merely to redefine the terms in order to achieve them -- as though renaming first base "third" made hitting a triple easier.