Merton: "The Best, Imposed As A Norm, Becomes Evil”

"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  

"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

Merton Quotations

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/12/thomas-merton-quotations.html

Belligerent Christians 

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/thomas-merton-belligerent-christians.html

The Blinding Besottedness of Consumerism

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/thomas-merton-blinding-besottedness-of.html

Only Love Without Judgment Makes Us Worthy

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/12/thomas-merton-only-love-without.html

Telling the poor what’s good for them

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/merton-it-is-easy-enough-to-tell-poor.html

The Breakdown of America
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-addresses-breakdown-of-america.html

Thomas Merton: Adolf Eichmann, Sanity and Normality
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/07/thomas-merton-adolf-eichmann-sanity-and.html

The Sane Are More Dangerous Than The Insane

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/01/thomas-merton-it-is-sane-ones-well.html

"Dread Is A Form Of Infidelity"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/03/thomas-merton-dread-as-form-of.html