Words&Dirt

“This rich man had hired Jack and arranged for him to get something called a Plague Pass: a large document in that Gothickal German script with occasional excursions into something that looked like either Latin (when it was desirable to invoke the mercy and grace of God) or French (for sucking up to King Looie, only one rung below God at this point).  By flourishing this at the right times, Jack was able to carry out his mission, which was to go into Strasbourg; proceed to the rich man’s dwelling; wash off the red chalk crosses that marked it as a plague-house; pry off the deals he’d nailed over the doors and windows; chase out any squatters; fend off any looters; and live in it for a while.  If, after a few weeks, Jack hadn’t died of the plague, he was to send word to this rich man in the country that it was safe to move back in.

Jack had accomplished the first parts of this errand in about May, but by the beginning of June had somehow forgotten about the last.  In about mid-June, another Vagabond-looking fellow arrived.  The rich man had hired him to go to the house and remove Jack’s body so that it wouldn’t draw vermin and then live in it for a while and, after a few weeks, if he hadn’t died of the plague, send word.  Jack, who was occupying the master bedchamber, had accommodated this new fellow in one of the children’s rooms, showed him around the kitchen and wine-cellar, and invited him to make himself at home.  Late in July, another Vagabond had showed up, and explained he’d been hired to cart away the bodies of the first two, et cetera, et cetera.”

––Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 352

“All we have, and all we have ever had, is the best argument we can muster, within the community of our interlocutors, for the reasonableness of our values and proposed ends (and the means for realizing them).  Some of these ‘arguments’ are not stated in words, but are rather revealed in the experiential outcomes of various experiments in social arrangements, approved practices, and visions of human flourishing.”

––Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science, by Mark Johnson, pg. 135