As such, our readings, writings, and text selections would be more informed in a gnostic versus canonical tradition, and we would be more knowing and, thus, closer to truth. The idea of editors not being able to select materials seems to be a non sequitor fallacy. It does not follow that this chaos necessarily leads us to hell of the negative world Pechter describes. They are the very stuff from which heaven and hell are made. We make choices along the way, and we can use the first materials to create journals that focus on the topics of our choice.
Discourse communities can exist without the canon.
Pechter may choose to retain his rigid rules and hierarchies as does Milton s Satan, but he needs to realize that hell he describes is willful. In a neo-gnostic tradition, he can instead choose a more lighted path out of chaos, one that is happy for humans, one in which he comes to know both good and evil in order to achieve fuller realizations and then fuller realizations still. Happiness and virtue for humans are not the ends, they are the process of coming to know, and knowing, as we see with Milton s Adam and Eve, involves a fortunate fall, one Pechter would be the wiser to take. Works Cited Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics .