In digging up the old journals and writings of the last 10-13 years I've found so far that I was once smarter than I am now - or at least I appeared so. I've also found things that struck me as funny back then, don't strike me as funny now or the opposite. But, there are a few things that were funny to me then and funny to me now. This is one of them. In rewriting the notes on Tolstoy I found a funny little quip about how Tolstoy was bemoaning the state of affairs and the current lack of morality in the present age.
"Half a century ago no explanation would have been neeeded of the words 'important', 'good' and 'moral, but in our time nine out of ten educated people, at these words, will ask with a triumphant air: 'What is important, good or moral?' assuming that these words express something conditional and not admitting of definition, and therefore I must answer this anticipated objection" (Maude, 55).
I can't think how many times I've heard somebody say on the news that the world is going to hell in a hand basket because of the decaying morals of today's youth. Tolstoy thought the same thing - in 1895. I picture him sitting on his porch, yelling at the neighborhood children to get off his lawn and bemoaning the lack of discipline in today's society. (Not to say he isn't right, just that it's funny every generation thinks the upcoming one is so much morally reprehensible).
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