क्षुद्रता (en. Pettiness)

Under the pressure of some task which meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness, endangered his happiness.

Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness.

In an earlier piece in this series I wrote about how today’s often intractable partisan pettiness can make effective governance nearly impossible.

One memory illustrates our pettiness, another our generosity, and our task is to face and ultimately find a way to accept all that we are and have been.

c Present, according to the facts and law, materials and opinions proving the innocence of the defendant, the pettiness of his crime and the need for a mitigated punishment or exemption from criminal responsibility.

In the previous article that noted the obstacle to effective governance presented by partisan pettiness, I observed that there is no reason to assume that our current chapter in government’s evolution is some ideal and end-point.

In fact we commonly turn all sorts of questions into moral debates that might initially seem not to be about morality at all - witness partisan pettiness in the political arena.