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Paradise is a Lack of Conflict

Submitted by One Student on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 9:04pm.

"Suffering ... is the means by which we exist, because it is the only means by which we become conscious of existing; and the remembrance of suffering in the past is necessary to us as the warrant, the evidence, of our continued identity."

-Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Heaven (and utopia) require the negation of the self. Which can be spiritualized quite easily since there are religions which aim to subsume the self into the world. And wouldn't that be an end to conflict? And isn't paradise a lack of conflict?

I'd rather keep my sense of self, thankyouverymuch.

I don't much like how Uncle Tom's Cabin ends. So many characters become subsumed into The Christian. I miss Topsy and Cassy. They interested me, and it's as if they died.

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