Not that I have any power here, but I shall bang my gavel anyway and insist that we completely eliminate the term “moral failure” from our vocabulary. That term has always been a huge red flag for me. It’s a lie wrapped in another lie. For example, whatever happened was not “moral” and it was not a “failure.” By an act of your own will you happened to achieve the precise opposite, an immoral success.
I also wish to eradicate the notion that one can be “suffering” from a moral failure. For example, “we knew he had suffered from a moral failure,” as if someone had just been happily walking down the street and accidentally fell into an open manhole and are now suffering, through no fault of their own.
Generally those who leave to, “spend more time with their families” take with them a golden parachute of some sort, generally somewhere in the millions. Mission accomplished, apparently. You ain’t suffering, that wasn’t moral, and you succeeded in your mission.
It’s language you really only hear used by the rich and powerful, con artists, pedophiles, politicians……and for some weird reason, the church. Why in the world would anybody in the church adopt this kind of language?
On a lighter note, we did once have a local late stage chronic alcoholic who has since passed away. I was fond of him on account of the fact that he had a great sense of humor, at least when I crossed paths with him. He used to say that very thing, “Last night I suffered from a powerful moral failure and I’m now prepared to do it again.” That’s honest, that’s genuine, and it stands in stark contrast to the superficiality of all the fancy people.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
I resemble his remark.
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Absolutely, Doug. We all do. It’s human nature.
Big difference however, between stealing a few office supplies and stealing the life savings of elderly folks. That’s another thing that is deceptive and misleading about this phrase.
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A tad off topic, but then again, everything seems on topic these days. Here’s something you’re sure to find of interest. In fact, I passed this on to Rudy as well.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/22/us/stoic-philosophers-election-anxiety-cec/index.html
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Thank you for the link.
LOL, I can’t help myself. I always liked Diogenes. He made poverty a virtue and slept in a ceramic jar which is exactly where we are all headed if our politics don’t change.
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In our case it likely won’t be use resting in a ceramic jar but rather a cremation urn.
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I think you’re being a bit optimistic about the cremation urn? Most of us will be lucky if we get a tacky cardboard Chinese take out box with a free advertising pen from the funeral home taped to the side of it.
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Having been in the funeral business in my lurid past I can say that we can even go so far as to take the funeral home out of that loop.
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You’ve probably heard that in our State, we can choose to be turned into compost. Washington and a few others are already doing that with unclaimed or unidentified remains and there’s a Bill in Rhode Island to extend that option for everybody. I’ve heard in Canada where they have Euthanasia (allegedly also on a voluntary basis for the time being), they part out the healthier bodies and sell the organs.
These Elites, who care about us so much, think of us as livestock while we’re in our productive years and like fertilizer and junk-cars afterwards. We can certainly trust them to plan our futures because they have only the interests of humanity at heart.
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Liar formulae. It’s an anagram and explains why you wish to eliminate the term ‘moral failure’.
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Oh, good one! How interesting that the anagrams can be so on target. That’s it exactly, it’s a formula for liars.
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A couple of my NON-favorites: “Mistakes were made” (by whom?) and “I’m sorry you were offended” (but apparently not sorry I said it to begin with).
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Oh, good ones! “Mistakes were made,” is such a vague statement.
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