The Sovereignty of Good

"The book appeals to me because it is fundamentally about trust, because it says that the presiding fact about the universe is goodness. She is making the case that, whereas there are many reasons not to trust people, we should have an active sense of whether we can trust people or not. We should not have a blind trust, but if we have a presumption of mistrust we will find two things: we will make people mistrusting too and we will find that people are unworthy of our trust. How we treat people, so we find them and so they are. And her book is re-emphasising that underneath all else there is goodness. And she is also talking about the fact that creativity comes when we allow the goodness to flow through us, when we let it come through our pen or through our voice or, if we are a violinist or a pianist, through our fingers. And that this is the prevailing fact of the universe, this sense of harmony, goodness and oneness for which we become the vessel. It is mystical and it is true. Peter Shaffer was making a similar point in Amadeus about Mozart, that he was a vessel, someone who didn’t really even understand fully what was flowing through him. And you either have that mystical sense about the universe or not, but for me in this book Iris Murdoch is saying that it is a much better position to be actively trusting of people. That doesn’t mean that you don’t pay attention as you walk down a dark street at night, and it doesn’t mean to say that you trust everyone you come across. But the prominent colour with which you view the universe should be trust."