My favorite inadvertently creepy photography convention from Victorian times actually is the “hidden mother” photograph. As we know, taking pictures of wiggly babies is hard, especially if their mothers aren’t holding them. But for some reason people keep insisting on having baby photos taken with only the babies.
The Victorian solution to this…was to just throw a blanket over the mother and pretend she wasn’t there.
why is religious Christmas imagery all so joyful and pleasant? where is the inherent horror of the birth of Christ? A mother is handed her newborn child, wailing and innocent. Her hands come away sticky. Red. Simply by giving her son life she has already killed him. He is doomed from the beginning. Her love will not save him from suffering. Because the thing cradled in her arms is not a baby, it is a sacrifice: born amongst the other bleating animals whose blood will one day be spilled in the name of what demands it. the night is silent with anticipation. Mary, did you know? That your womb was also a grave?
In considering how open-mindedness can be learned, I find the concept of intellectual virtues helpful. It’s not enough to be good at solving intellectual problems and thinking logically. One must also have a degree of humility, and a degree of courage—and be motivated to find the truth. No matter how much brainpower a person has, she is unlikely to be open-minded if she is primarily concerned with appeasing those around her, showing off or avoiding the pain of admitting a mistake—or if she simply doesn’t care about truth and knowledge.
The more a person cares about truth, the more she will be motivated to work past a privileged conclusion—indeed the fewer and weaker her privileged conclusions are likely to be in the first place. This suggests that any attempt to become more open-minded should begin with a reflection on why you want to know what the truth is—what it is worth to you.
