…goodness what is meek." - e.e. cummings
Once more,
“Badness not being felt as bad,
itself thinks goodness what is meek.”
This line has been rummaging round my mind for a few months now – and I still cannot figure it out. Please, philosophers, demonstrate the power of reason, and with it unravel a poem. Explain what this could possibly mean. I would like a rational understaning of these words, perhaps a concrete example. The student is ready, now, will the teacher please, appear?
The poem is about conformity to a superficial set of values - that which we are left with without God - for how bad can bad be if eternity is only a five-year plan? Goodness is merely the meek submittal to our shallow, secular society - a much lower standard than obeying God.
In other words, the upside stakes are a lot lower after the death of god - it’s not worth “being a man” because the downside is steeper (here on earth - the price of nonconfromity) than the upside - which used to be eternal paradise - which no longer exists. There’s no reward in the afterlife for “being good” here, so this meek sublimation passes for goodness.
Strange how humans would ever think themselves to need or be “reason”.
Thank you, Faust. That was very insightful, I really appreciate your reply - the line makes a lot more sense now. Very interesting.
Any time.
To me, what this line is speaking of is the notion of “Badness” being a universally recognizable quality that when not experienced as what it is–namely, the state of being bad, perceives goodness, another quality here assumed to be universally recognizable, as instead “meekness” or perhaps “weakness”.
A more “normal” line might be written thusly: A bad man who fancies himself a decent person finds people who are good, (saints nuns, whatever) simply meek. (or weak, or mild, or impotent)
I think it deals with people’s perceptions of themselves, and how those perceptions relate to how they see other qualities.