“Decent” is one of those interesting words with multiple meanings.  It can mean “honest and moral,” it can mean “good, though not the best,” and it can mean “fitting to be shown or talked about in public.”

Decent folk find it uncomfortable to hear mention of unseemly things.  Their response to what is morally offensive is the same as their approach to bad manners:  The frozen smile that ignores it into oblivion.

In general, this response is a good thing.  It is one of a decent society’s ways of preserving purity and defending against indecency.

Picking up the thread from Saturday’s post and concluding the eight-part series

Although Mondays are normally reserved for lightly edited questions from students, today I’m fudging a little.  This is a question from a teacher about what his student had said.

Query:

“The mystery genre is moral in itself, for in it that which was hidden is made plain, justice is achieved, and events often turn on a simple dispensation of grace.”

-- Fred Baue, "Mystery and Morality"

Yet another wavelength in which supernature illuminates the natural realities is narrative: We learn more about natural law by thinking about the story.

Picking up the thread from Saturday’s post:

Mondays are reserved for letters from students.

Dear Professor Theophilus,