Out of the mouths of Baums

In the usual link to link to link way that my mind, and the internet, works, I thought of Gregory Baum, an old prof of mine at the University of Toronto. Very liberal, wrote a book I was very influenced by in the 70's, Man Becoming, ...although when I actually had a seminar with him, his nastiness and dictatorial style --not uncommon among professors, liberals especially-- required that I make a big distinction between the book and its author.

In an interview, he says:

I am a person of the left, I am surrounded by left-wing social and political scientists, and I am in touch with active members of left-wing political parties in Canada and Quebec. What amazes me is the profound ethical commitment of my friends, their selflessness, their concern for others, their generosity and their compassion with the disadvantaged and marginalized. Yet when I ask them where their values come from, they don’t know.

It is the groundlessness of so much of this that amazes me of late. These people would cringe at the notion of apolitical "nature" or "reason", or even more at the idea of traditional or revealed values...but when it comes to saying where their grand plans for the rectification of the universe come from...silence.

Why? Because....