"What July Fourth Means to Me" --Ronald Reagan (1981)
"For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July.
Somewhere in our [youth], we began to be aware of the meaning of [important national] days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.
The day of our nation's birth in that little hall in Philadelphia, [was] a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.
[On that day] 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.
What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.
John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.
But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, three million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.
It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.
We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should."
Ronald Reagan's thoughts on the Fourth of July are from the Federalist Patriot No. 05-26, dated 30 June 2005. The Federalist Patriot is really a superb conservative thought publication. Big Bubba's Big Recommendation is that you follow the links to get your own free subscription via e-mail. I also love these three other quotes that are in this edition,
"Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" --George Washington (1779)
"We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient." --Samuel Adams, reflecting on the original Independence Day
"One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle." --James Otis (1761)
John Winthrop, aboard the ship Arabella lying off the shore of Massachusetts, wrote in 1630: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going. ... Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live, by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity." (Ronald Reagan often cited Winthrop's image of a "city upon a hill" as inspiration for his revival of fidelity to our Founding beliefs 350 years later.)
Somewhere in our [youth], we began to be aware of the meaning of [important national] days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth.
The day of our nation's birth in that little hall in Philadelphia, [was] a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt.
[On that day] 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor.
What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.
John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.
But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, three million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.
It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.
Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.
We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should."
Ronald Reagan's thoughts on the Fourth of July are from the Federalist Patriot No. 05-26, dated 30 June 2005. The Federalist Patriot is really a superb conservative thought publication. Big Bubba's Big Recommendation is that you follow the links to get your own free subscription via e-mail. I also love these three other quotes that are in this edition,
"Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" --George Washington (1779)
"We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient." --Samuel Adams, reflecting on the original Independence Day
"One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle." --James Otis (1761)
John Winthrop, aboard the ship Arabella lying off the shore of Massachusetts, wrote in 1630: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going. ... Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live, by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity." (Ronald Reagan often cited Winthrop's image of a "city upon a hill" as inspiration for his revival of fidelity to our Founding beliefs 350 years later.)
posted by BigBubba at 8:28 AM
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49 Comments:
Over 100 congressmen have introduced a constitutional amendment to protect religious expression on public property. The amendment would reverse the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Ten Commandments
You need to ask yourself, Duck, why your lack of patriotism is so embarrassing to you. I know from experience that you may expect your fellow soldiers to hold political beliefs that reflect a cross section of our society. The problem is that when the bullets are flying, and someone would like to kill you, politics become irrelevant compared to survival.
Ducky
Talk about your legacy in SE Asia.
Killing Fields, Boat People, Re education camps and thirty plus years of repression way to go.
Whats up Duck ? Certainly not your IQ are you lamenting the Sandanistas again. Viva Reagan!!!!
BB,
I just love this particular Reagan speech! I distributed a copy to each of my American Government students on the first day of class last September.
I almost put Reagan's July Fourth Speech up on my blog for the 4th, but opted for The American's Creed as many are not familiar with it. I am glad, however, to see that you posted RR's speech.
Always on Watch, I am surprised that you are able to pull off such a blatantly subversive act like giving impressionable young school children a copy of Ronald Reagan's Fourth of July Speech. What’s next? Veiled references to the historical context of the Bible?
In the interest of free speech rights I have a classic video that you can show the little dears.
I don't know if I feel like a "whitened sepuchre" or the owner of patriotism, Duck. Most days I just feel like a sentient human being capable of exercising a modest level of logic and reason. You should try logic and reason.
Both of my grandfathers were staunch union men. One was a yankee so it came naturally, but the other was a Southerner and unionism was usually out of the question. He was a railroad man and they called it a “brotherhood.” That made it slightly acceptable.
Make sure you properly conserve family photos and documents. Acid free material and protect from UV rays, etc.
You can "say" that it is August, Duck, but it is still July. May I suggest that you move beyond "say" to some proof based on logic and reason? Forget about numbers they seem to be confusing you. Let's just address the thought that you claim makes a woman the chattel property of a man in the bogey man Protestant's Bible. Personally I don't think that we bogey man Protestants have changed our interpretation of the "covet thought" in more than 300 years. Consider this bogey man Protestant interpretation from 1706,
Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible
The tenth commandment strikes at the root: Thou shalt not covet, v. 17. The foregoing commands implicitly forbid all desire of doing that which will be an injury to our neighbour; this forbids all inordinate desire of having that which will be a gratification to ourselves. "O that such a man’s house were mine! Such a man’s wife mine! Such a man’s estate mine!’’ This is certainly the language of discontent at our own lot, and envy at our neighbour’s; and these are the sins principally forbidden here. St. Paul, when the grace of God caused the scales to fall from his eyes, perceived that this law, Thou shalt not covet, forbade all those irregular appetites and desires which are the first-born of the corrupt nature, the first risings of the sin that dwelleth in us, and the beginnings of all the sin that is committed by us: this is that lust which, he says, he had not known the evil of, if this commandment, when it came to his conscience in the power of it, had not shown it to him, Rom. 7:7. God give us all to see our face in the glass of this law, and to lay our hearts under the government of it!
BB,
I work with Christian homeschoolers, so I can get away with distributing the speech. We revel in political incorrectness. In these classes we don't veil "references to the historical context of the Bible."
I will check your video in just a minute.
Mr. Ducky,
You would, no doubt, hate my classes.
BB,
I just checked the site, and I have a surprise for you. An excerpt from Chandler Harris is in our American Literature textbook. Need I tell you that the book is published in the South?
I have a file saved of quotes from Song of the South. I used to throw 'em at FPM racists when appropriate. I also have my valuable file of Simpson quotes. Did you know that the Simpsons have been used as teaching materials by some religious organizations?
Here's another great classic for you, Ebony Showcase Theater. I have always loved the Amos n' Andy Show and its crew of zany characters. Song of the South and Amos n' Andy are, in my estimation, important pieces of our cultural heritage. The political correctness police do not approve. It is one thing for them to attempt to deny my personal joy quite another to financially harm people like Nick Stewart, other cast members, and their families. Gangster rap and misogynism are ok, but not Amos n' Andy? There's something wrong with that picture.
BB,
I grew up watching "Amos 'n Andy," the television version. My favorite show is the one about a record of sound effects and the misinterpretations on the part of the neighbors. Much of it would've fit in very well on "I Love Lucy," and not have been deemed as politically incorrect.
Humor is humor, as far as I'm concerned. On BET, I have seen some funny shows which satirize us "white folks." Those satires don't bother me.
BTW, have you ever seen the South African film "The Gods Must Be Crazy"? It always makes me laugh.
Have a safe 4th. I'll be offline for the afternoon and evening, and will check back sometime tomorrow. I'll also check the Ebony Showcase Theater.
I love BET Comic View. I do cringe at some of the language. My favorite is Bruce Spruce. I was always telling folks that he would make a great spokesperson for Golden Corral or some other buffet. He recently started appearing in commercials for Popeye's Fried Chicken. He is a sharp dressed man and HUGE. I love Bruce Spruce.
“Amos n' Andy” was in the same genre as “I Love Lucy.” Many of the story lines could have been exchanged between the two shows and nobody would have been the wiser. I just think that it is a shame the black folks of “Amos n' Andy” never had a chance for lasting adulation like the “I Love Lucy” crew.
My favorite white folks satire is by Dave Barry's roommate. He has Northern Europeans' culture and religion dead on. I can't stand his politics, but his humor is great.
N!xau (Gcao Coma), the star of “The Gods Must Be Crazy” and “The Gods Must Be Crazy II” was an actual South African tribesman of the San people. His story is very interesting .
Neptune, if that's the same documentary that aired on PBS a few years ago, it is outstanding.
Maybe not so ironically, writers in English are taught to favor the Anglo-Saxon word over the latinate (French). Where once that polysyllabic vocabulary was a sign of sophistication, the Anglo-Saxon is considered less pretentious and more succinct.
This preference was something of a modernist development, and (maybe) a distinctly American one. Think Ernest Hemingway. It was another way to distinguish the American vernacular from the English--the "commoner" from the "aristocrat." However preference for the succinctness of Anglo-Saxon has a history in English literature as well. This of course has its roots in wanting to be separate from the French!
BB,
Thanks for the link to the bio of N!xau. I knew that he had died, but didn't know most of the other details.
Neptune,
In reference to your comment "Other scholars believe that the primary factor is cultural. They say that the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures don't encourage free expression of thoughts."
I have taught ESL to both adults and to high-school students. The writing of linear-reasoning essays (topic sentence, development, conclusion) has been problematic for both the Middle Easterners and the Asians. A colleague, fluent in both Korean and English, said that all Asian cultures promote "spiral reasoning"; according to my colleague, the Asians are just not used to stating a thesis and then proving it with specifics.
On my own, I also noted that the Asians had a penchant for writing prose in a poetic manner (strong imagery, metaphors, etc.); they did best when using development by personal anecdote, and even then wandered "off the track."
The Middle Easterners didn't seem to enjoy any type of original writing, prose or poetry. One of my Muslim neighbors said that true Muslims accepted no literature other than that of the Koran.
I tend to believe, based on the above, that George Santayana was correct in his assessment.
English is the premier world language because of the willingness, if not downright eagerness, of its speakers to adopt words from other languages. Germans prefer complex constructs of combining existing words into a longer, bigger word to describe something. The French hyperventilate over the mere thought of a foreign word creeping into their language. We Americans drag our kicking, screaming British cousins along in this endeavor. We are much more willing to enlarge the mother tongue than the Englanders.
Sometimes it is problematic where exactly a word originated that is in common usage in the English language. Remember the underlying language is an ancient Indo-European tongue that was the root of all the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. There are about 500-1000 root words in our languages that have obvious connections from one language to another. The obvious root words are numbers from one to ten, bodily functions, bodily parts, and familial relationships for a few examples. The word for Father: English - father, German - vater, French - pere, Spanish - padre, Latin - pater, Greek - pateras, Indo-European - pœter, etc. There are predictable changes from one Indo European language to another of the core words. One early observation was Grimm's Law (Jakob Grimm, 1822), Grimm being one of the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame.
One clue to the closeness of the Indo European languages is the frequency of discoveries by average people that one word or another is the same in their language as in the other. Unfortunately they come up with simple explanations for that which scholars find to be quite complex. Another common error of discovery is noticing a similarity between languages that is actually because of sound and how humans produce sound rather than an actual word relationship. This phenomenon is easily understood by considering "baby talk." Most human babies worldwide, in every culture, make similar sounds, like "dada, mama" for their mother and father. This is because of how human babies make sounds, not because of a relationaship of some words in the languages.
You remove France from the realm of great literature because of a paucity of great literature compared to other cultures. Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Voltaire and you are done. Of the lot my all time favorite, Candide.
"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden."
Norm, I am not sure of your assertion “taught to favor the Anglo-Saxon word over.....” Surviving Anglo-Saxon words are succinct and basic because they comprised the everyday language of a conquered people. You do not have to label a word “French” or “English” to discern the succinct from the complex. That difference is obvious to the educated speaker.
The Korean language has something like seven or eight different possible declensions based on who is talking to who, parent to child, child to parent, teacher to student, royal person to non-nobility, and so forth. With us it is far simpler. We tend to speak on only a very few different levels, common, educated, child. I have long believed the gold standard of proper English usage and vocabulary is Winston Churchill and William F. Buckley Jr.
The sad truth is that the average American adult reads at Grade Seven level. That is why the Army Standard for military publications is Grade Five (level). Drill Sergeant Big Bubba understood the joys of the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid. Literature is another matter, but if you want to be widely understood by your target audience you need to communicate at the Grade Seven, or less, level.
Neptune, like you I only know about Ayn Rand through Mr. Ducky's rants. He seems to be totally fascinated with her much like his fascination with Ann Coulter. My best guess is that the women in his life beat him mercilessly and don't let him speak without being spoken to first. So, he hangs around Blogs taking out his pent up aggressiveness on Rand and Coulter rants seeking the release of tension that he cannot get at home without being hurt.
Ducko
Cut the crap the bombing of Cambodia had everything to do with Communists violating the territory of a nuetral country. The killing feilds are your legacy as well as that of the antiwar procommunist subversive left. Why not take credit for your handiwork in SE Asia.
Tangential to our discussion of language, music, and celebrating Independence:
There is a book called [i]Yesterdays[/i] by Charles Hamm that traces the many threads that became popular music, with particular attention paid to Irish/Scots/English folk music, African music/slave hollers, and interestingly, German lieder and Jewish song. It covers a period from the 18th century through the 1970s, with stops in New Orleans, Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, Nashville, Liverpool and Haight Ashbury, but leaves virtually no area of popular music untouched. Written by a scholar with a popular audience in mind, it's basically a mirror to the melting pot; I'd go so far as to say it is as close to a literal representation of that metaphoric melting pot as you can get. Maybe some would take it as a vindication for multiculturalism. But not all cultures are equal in this case: Anglo and African cultures dominate our popular music, as they do to this day (though the new melting pot, the internet, is changing this, too). I'd rather think of it as hurly-burly "uni-culturalism." For all intents and purposes, it is who "we" are.
True, Ducky, there's still plenty of stuff to ponder in the old time music.
But it's not true there's been no new developments in American music in 20 years (though I do think we're at a point where "American" music itself MAY be a moot point). Along with iPods and file sharing, making records has never been easier. Recording at home at ridiculous levels of quality is within any kids' grasp (with all the good and bad that implies). It is now in effect possible to have a "band" whose mebers live in different countries who swap .wav files to build mixes.
Independent labels are going strong in spite of the doofi running the major labels who refuse to develop talent anymore (though in rare cases the indies act as farm leagues for the majors). And the availability of the technologies with which to realize your sonic visions is a democratizing force. And most major developments in popular music are concurrent with leaps in technology.
I absolutely have to find a threaded forum. I want to respond to Neptune, Norm has some great points, but the damn Duck and his unique brand of illogic makes me lose focus and start talking to myself. Thumpers, potty training and viagra have me wanting to beat my head against the wall hoping I can refocus.
Mr. Ducky,
I hardly think that the Ten Commandments qualifies as a graven image since Jehovah God ordered them placed into the Ark of the Covenant. Graven words are not the same as graven images, to which pagans prayed and made offerings, sometimes human ones. The commandment forbidding the worship of a graven image derives from the larger concept that God is a spirit and, thus, invisible.
Bowing can be a gesture of respect and does not necessarily entail worship.
Big Bubba,
Stop thinking about banging your head on the wall. Instead, access a concordance, and check out all the Bible verses (mostly in Proverbs) which address how to deal with a fool.
God has no pleasure in fools (Eccl. 5:4)
Worship God. 1. The first commandment concerns the object of our worship, Jehovah, and him only (v. 3): Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The Egyptians, and other neighbouring nations, had many gods, the creatures of their own fancy, strange gods, new gods; this law was prefixed because of that transgression, and, Jehovah being the God of Israel, they must entirely cleave to him, and not be for any other, either of their own invention or borrowed from their neighbours. This was the sin they were most in danger of now that the world was so overspread with polytheism, which yet could not be rooted out effectually but by the gospel of Christ. The sin against this commandment which we are most in danger of is giving the glory and honour to any creature which are due to God only. Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of. This prohibition includes a precept which is the foundation of the whole law, that we take the Lord for our God, acknowledge that he is God, accept him for ours, adore him with admiration and humble reverence, and set our affections entirely upon him. In the last words, before me, it is intimated, (1.) That we cannot have any other God but he will certainly know it. There is none besides him but what is before him. Idolaters covet secresy; but shall not God search this out? (2.) That it is very provoking to him; it is a sin that dares him to his face, which he cannot, which he will not, overlook, nor connive at. See Ps. 44:20, 21. 2.
The second commandment concerns the ordinances of worship, or the way in which God will be worshipped, which it is fit that he himself should have the appointing of. Here is, (1.) The prohibition: we are here forbidden to worship even the true God by images, v. 4, 5. [1.] The Jews (at least after the captivity) thought themselves forbidden by this commandment to make any image or picture whatsoever. Hence the very images which the Roman armies had in their ensigns are called an abomination to them (Mt. 24:15), especially when they were set up in the holy place. It is certain that it forbids making any image of God (for to whom can we liken him? Isa. 40:18, 15), or the image of any creature for a religious use. It is called the changing of the truth of God into a lie (Rom. 1:25), for an image is a teacher of lies; it insinuates to us that God has a body, whereas he is an infinite spirit, Hab. 2:18. It also forbids us to make images of God in our fancies, as if he were a man as we are. Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith, not by the power of imagination. They must not make such images or pictures as the heathen worshipped, lest they also should be tempted to worship them. Those who would be kept from sin must keep themselves from the occasions of it. [2.] They must not bow down to them occasionally, that is, show any sign of respect or honour to them, much less serve them constantly, by sacrifice or incense, or any other act of religious worship. When they paid their devotion to the true God, they must not have any image before them, for the directing, exciting, or assisting of their devotion. Though the worship was designed to terminate in God, it would not please him if it came to him through an image. The best and most ancient lawgivers among the heathen forbade the setting up of images in their temples. This practice was forbidden in Rome by Numa, a pagan prince; yet commanded in Rome by the pope, a Christian bishop, but, in this, anti-christian. The use of images in the church of Rome, at this day, is so plainly contrary to the letter of this command, and so impossible to be reconciled to it, that in all their catechisms and books of devotion, which they put into the hands of the people, they leave out this commandment, joining the reason of it to the first; and so the third commandment they call the second, the fourth the third, etc.; only, to make up the number ten, they divide the tenth into two. Thus have they committed two great evils, in which they persist, and from which they hate to be reformed; they take away from God’s word, and add to his worship. (2.) The reasons to enforce this prohibition (v. 5, 6), which are, [1.] God’s jealousy in the matters of his worship: "I am the Lord Jehovah, and thy God, am a jealous God, especially in things of this nature.’’ This intimates the care he has of his own institutions, his hatred of idolatry and all false worship, his displeasure against idolaters, and that he resents every thing in his worship that looks like, or leads to, idolatry. Jealousy is quicksighted. Idolatry being spiritual adultery, as it is very often represented in scripture, the displeasure of God against it is fitly called jealousy. If God is jealous herein, we should be so, afraid of offering any worship to God otherwise than as he has appointed in his word. [2.] The punishment of idolaters. God looks upon them as haters of him, though they perhaps pretend love to him; he will visit their iniquity, that is, he will very severely punish it, not only as a breach of his law, but as an affront to his majesty, a violation of the covenant, and a blow at the root of all religion. He will visit it upon the children, that is, this being a sin for which churches shall be unchurched and a bill of divorce given them, the children shall be cast out of covenant and communion together with the parents, as with the parents the children were at first taken in. Or he will bring such judgments upon a people as shall be the total ruin of families. If idolaters live to be old, so as to see their children of the third or fourth generation, it shall be the vexation of their eyes, and the breaking of their hearts, to see them fall by the sword, carried captive, and enslaved. Nor is it an unrighteous thing with God (if the parents died in their iniquity, and the children tread in their steps, and keep up false worships, because they received them by tradition from their fathers), when the measure is full, and God comes by his judgments to reckon with them, to bring into the account the idolatries their fathers were guilty of. Though he bear long with an idolatrous people, he will not bear always, but by the fourth generation, at furthest, he will begin to visit. Children are dear to their parents; therefore, to deter men from idolatry, and to show how much God is displeased with it, not only a brand of infamy is by it entailed upon families, but the judgments of God may for it be executed upon the poor children when the parents are dead and gone. [3.] The favour God would show to his faithful worshippers: Keeping mercy for thousands of persons, thousands of generations of those that love me, and keep my commandments. This intimates that the second commandment, though, in the letter of it, it is only a prohibition of false worships, yet includes a precept of worshipping God in all those ordinances which he has instituted. As the first commandment requires the inward worship of love, desire, joy, hope, and admiration, so the second requires the outward worship of prayer and praise, and solemn attendance on God’s word. Note, First, Those that truly love God will make it their constant care and endeavour to keep his commandments, particularly those that relate to his worship. Those that love God, and keep those commandments, shall receive grace to keep his other commandments. Gospel worship will have a good influence upon all manner of gospel obedience. Secondly, God has mercy in store for such. Even they need mercy, and cannot plead merit; and mercy they shall find with God, merciful protection in their obedience and a merciful recompence of it. Thirdly, This mercy shall extend to thousands, much further than the wrath threatened to those that hate him, for that reaches but to the third or fourth generation. The streams of mercy run now as full, as free, and as fresh, as ever.
Matthew Henry Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible
Speaking of fools Big Bubba will be spending most of the day helping the little ex Miss Bubbette repair computer problems for about the zillionth time. If they want to divorce you why don’t they leave you alone?
Mr. Ducky, you foolish fowl, why would Big Bubba ban you? I actively sought out your presence on this Blog. I have never even called you a mindless twit since your arrival. I think I cautioned you, once, that "mindless twit" may be imminent. OK, I called you a dumb duck, was it once? Go have Horowitz get one of his buddies to ban you from their Blog. Big Bubba doesn't do bans for petty differences of opinion.
neptune,
You brought up a number of very interesting subjects and cases as they relate to language and culture, and pointed out a few of “apparent” paradoxes…like “why” the English, Germans, and Russians seem to have produced the “greatest” works of historical literature…why coarser Anglo-Saxon terms prevailed in describing the “common” articles and personal and social functions and why Norman terms prevailed among the aristocratic and “higher” English society…why “Eastern” cultures haven’t quite developed in the same way and apply more of a “spiral” form of logic to their literature and arguments.
I state that they are only “apparent” paradoxes because I do believe that much of the “mystery” was explained as soon as Friedrich Nietzsche finished applying Darwin’s evolutionary theories to cultures and societies themselves, and began to view them more as living organisms, as opposed to dead and static ones. And once you realize that many western sub-cultures are influenced and respond not only to the physical and geographical environments they occupy, but also by the “life-stage” of political-cultural life they occupy (which follows an ordered and known spiral “cyclical” pattern) and those occupied by their neighbors…and that they are at times “out-of-synch” with one another, then I think that much of the paradoxical nature and mystery, disappears. And it is also important to draw the old (now defunct) distinctions between “high” and “low” cultures, for each preaches a DIFFERENT set of moral values (One of Master/ one of Slave)(See Nietzsche, “Genealogy of Morals”).
Now, I started first trying to explain these stages, but that meant trying to explain too much complicated philosophically based political theory. Another route to understanding what’s going on is to study a culture and civilization, like that of the Greeks or Romans, that has been completely through one of these lifecycles, and examine how we compare to them, rather than trying to compare other “contemporary” cultures and civilizations with our own.
Using the latter approach, I think one can reach into ancient literature itself and pull out an example of a similar paradox being examined by a great thinker and writer. And so, having just read the two following works, I thought I might recommend them to you.
The first is thought to be the most whimsical of the plays by Aristophanes entitled “The Birds”. The second is thought to be “unrelated”, but I think it speaks volumes in terms of understanding our current civilizational crises. It is entitled “The Frogs”.
Aristophanes was an Athenian patrician and “critic” (aka comic) (for all you Post-Modernists that think you invented “critical theory”…) who spent his time pointing out the trends in Athenian society (at a time which seems contemporary with our own). The “Birds” illustrates the nature of some of the problems inherent in “modernism” and the "Socratic" view of life, while the “Frogs” contrasts what was then the “modern” literature of Euripides with the “pre-modern” literature of Aeschylus. Here’s the intro to the main argument of “Frogs”…
EURIPIDES
Don't talk to me; I won't give up the chair,
I say I am better in the art than he.
DIONYSUS
You hear him, Aeschylus: why don't you speak?
EURIPIDES
He'll do the grand at first, the juggling trick
He used to play in all his tragedies.
DIONYSUS
Come, my fine fellow, pray don't talk to big.
EURIPIDES
I know the man, I've scanned him through and through,
A savage-creating stubborn-pulling fellow,
Uncurbed, unfettered, uncontrolled of speech,
Unperiphrastic, bombastiloquent.
AESCHYLUS
Hah! sayest thou so, child of the garden quean
And this to me, thou chattery-babble-collector,
Thou pauper-creating rags-and-patches-stitcher?
Thou shalt abye it dearly!
DIONYSUS
Pray, be still;
Nor heat thy soul to fury, Aeschylus.
AESCHYLUS
Not till I've made you see the sort of man
This cripple-maker is who crows so loudly.
DIONYSUS
Bring out a ewe, a black-fleeced ewe, my boys:
Here's a typhoon about to burst upon us.
AESCHYLUS
Thou picker-up of Cretan monodies,
Foisting thy tales of incest on the stage-
DIONYSUS
Forbear, forbear, most honoured Aeschylus;
And you, my poor Euripides, begone
If you are wise, out of this pitiless hail,
Lest with some heady word he crack your scull
And batter out your brain-less Telephus.
And not with passion, Aeschylus, but calmly
Test and be tested. 'Tis not meet for poets
To scold each other, like two baking-girls.
But you go roaring like an oak on fire.
EURIPIDES
I'm ready, I don't draw back one bit.
I'll lash or, if he will, let him lash first
The talk, the lays, the sinews of a play:
Aye and my Peleus, aye and Aeolus.
And Meleager, aye and Telephus.
DIONYSUS
And what do you propose? Speak, Aeschylus.
AESCHYLUS
I could have wished to meet him otherwhere.
We fight not here on equal terms.
DIONYSUS
Why not?
AESCHYLUS
My poetry survived me: his died with him:
He's got it here, all handy to recite.
Howbeit, if so you wish it, so we'll have it….
And so we see, perhaps why today we refer to our educated Euripideans as the “chattering class”… as did Aristophanes in his.
-FJ
neptune,
Just another observation, if you will. You'll note that names you compare... Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tolstoy, Chaucer, author of "Tales of Roland" are really "oranges and apples" due to the stage/period of cultural/cvilizational development each author writes in.
For example, "Tales of Roland", and Homer's "Illiad" represent stories that mark the "beginning" of (high) culture and men of rank and "uncommon/divine" origin. Chaucer and Cervantes mark periods of civilizational growth and rising "low culture" and presents heroes of "common" origin. Plato, Goethe, Tolstoy, Shakespeare mark near-high (but declining) points in culture and high points in civilization where high and low culture (now rising) begin to cross (but all of the authors are products of high culture)(btw - I'm of the opinion that the "bard" was not the "Bard"). The author of "Les Miserables" marks a high-point for "low" culture in a declining civilization. And finally, the post-modern exalts the very dregs of society and revels in the vulgar and criminal elements, thus allowing mankind to escape the "psychic" bonds of civilization that leads to the repeating of the cultural-cvilization cycle...the wheel of Ixion returns to its starting point in the "cycle", yet continues its "spin".
And so I find it nearly imossible to compare Plato and Aristotle, although one was the direct-line student of the other. I find Plato a tremendously more effective and instructive writer, just as Aristophanes found Aeschylus to be superior to Euripides in "Frogs".
And, as Aeschylus remaks in the snippet from "Frogs"... "my poetry survives me, while his died with him" (it is a post-mortem discussion being held in the underworld), it is the "instructive nature" of a work of literature that makes it "great" and results in its' preservation. A "renaissance" is the result of it's re-discovery at some propitious point in history and time.
Moderns may still read and enjoy an author such as Euripides today, but his work originates in the "ether" of the modern mind, not in the "swamp" from which it originated. The swamp folk tell of lessons "hard-learned"... the ether folk of "future possibilities". The "frogs" mark a "rising-peaking" civilization, the "birds" a transition to a declining one.
And so a "modern" author begins to impart "errors" to his audience based upon what he "believes" to be true. The post-modern author compounds the "moderns" errors and drags down his audience. Moderns "entertain" rather than instruct. His stories have false-happy or false-sad endings. They are sophistry-cated.
-FJ
neptune,
Believe me, you didn't strike a nerve in your comparison of Russian, Germanic, and Greek cultures and literature. Nietzsche had made similar observations, only he was able to point out "where" in the cultural/civlizational life-cycle different men wrote, and so, could compare and "value" similar works by Dante, Goethe, and Aristophanes.
And so I find it more commensurable to place Euripides, Virgil, or Ovid against Shakespeare, and not compare them to Homer, for Homer's verse retains too much of the swamp and "pure" Master values. Euripides, Virgil, Ovid, and Shakespeare's works haved been "aired out" and "perfumed" although all still frequently address more "noble" subjects. And I recognize that Cervantes is parody of the "Song of Roland" and "noble values" and as such, is completely incommensurable with it.
And so yes, the aesthetics, style, and subtlety of modern writing appears vastly superior to that of of pre-modern authors. Only I find that the moral values presented therein are of a completely different nature than the pre-moderns, making them more accessible to the modern reader, and therefore more "appealing".
Whereas the modern author has greater "style", the pre-modern (and I mean by such Aeschylus as well as Goethe and the author of the song of Roland or Machiavelli) combines a less sophisticated style with a greater "substance", the ethos of nobility. The modern "vulgar" subject devalues the worth of the work to mankind and trivializes it, it makes it "entertaining" (usually by appealing to baser and more common instincts and values).
Many "modern" philosophers prefer "Aristotle" to "Plato". They like things "explained" to them so that they can "take them or leave them", whereas Plato forces you to "learn" them, and "take them to heart". Whereas Aeschylus teaches by "osmosis"... Euripides ended his career teaching "false", but "wishful" results". He gave the "happy ending" to "tragedy".
And there are authors, who cannot be easily catalogued. Nietzsche, appears much closer in "content" and "subject" to Aeschylus than Goethe, even though he wrote many years after him. Yet in "subject", Goethe is much closer to the swamp. For if you really "grasp" Nietzsche, you'll find that Nietzsche's proximity of "subject" is an "illusion", and therefore, more "modern", closer to "Plato" than "Aeschylus".
And finally, although most people don't like to hear this, Christianity had a very "stultifying" effect on the Roman Empire, and created a near 800 year "intermission" in western civilization, until a "Renaissance", caused by the re-discovery and spread of "noble" values, shook us out of our long sleep. I argue that those re-discovered "noble" "values" have recently be completely "overturned" by the post-modern left, and we're headed back to sleep... or worse. Nature hates a modern moralist.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
What's your opinion of the G8 anarchists who are providing a "distraction" which is being exploited by our real terrorist enemies to accomplish their goals?
Do you liken then to dupes, fellow travellers, or open allies?
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Who's being naive?
Excerpted for a 7/4/05 Washington Post article on G-8 Security...
"About 10,000 officers drafted from across the United Kingdom are available to deal with G-8 protesters _ from peaceful environmental and anti-poverty campaigners to hardcore anarchists. Some 3,000 police are assigned to Gleneagles itself, including a specialist firearms team, officers mounted on horseback and a guard-dog unit."
You can get the whole security scoop at
wp article
And after actual attempts to infiltrate and break into Gleneagles were made, who knows how many "more" UK assets got diverted. The security team was even calling in military CH-47 Chinooks to "ferry in" cops to help deal will the problem.
This only goes to prove, that the left has no "sense", for if they did they would have never pulled the Gleneagles stunt when they did. Talk about co-ordinated timing. This was something al Quaeda could depend on. Useful idiots.
And please, stop with the "mission accomplished" beef. Administration officials have been called on the carpet and asked to explain "mounting casualties" to Congress and the public for months now. No one in the administration has been "conning" anyone about having "neutralized" al Quaeda, thanks to the "progressive movement's" ad nauseum verbal encouragement to throw in the towel.
And yes, mr. ducky, please encourage whatever leftist friends you have not to pull another G-8 "action" until Iraq has calmed down and we actually are, for the most part, out of harm's way. Otherwise you open the doors for Homeland Security to ask for stricter scrutiny. If that's what you want, by all means, don't talk to them.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
You are absolutely correct when you state that the right believes in the efficacy of overwhelming force. That is only because if there is the "will" to consistently back it, it works with "near" 100% efficacy. How do you think Saddam stayed in power, because his people loved him and he was a good Moslem? Stalin? Hitler?
Now how do you make almost unlimited military power use-less? Don't use it. Throw yourself upon the "mercy" of your enemy... an enemy who targets and murders innocents. Is that your solution for an enemy that actually DOES respect force, and is actually out to crush Liberalism in ALL its' forms?
You need to wake up and smell the coffee. Offers of peace and goodwill will raise more jihadi's than any 1,000 Gitmos. And Islam is really targetting you, the lover of freedom and the ideals of liberalism, not me. I'll convert and for all practical appearances, faithfully practice the tennants of Islam. For I respect law and order, even when it's "un-fair". You won't.
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Did you hear Prime Minister Tony Blair's statement that the London attack was coordinated to occur during the G-8 Summit? The Summit drew so much security because it had to both contend with the possibility of a "real" attack, and defend against a bunch of idiot rich-kids AND know when to distinguish in "response" between them. I wonder what the anarchists would have done if the police force openned up with machine guns after they tore down that fence, and started hurling rocks and bottles. Because if they had been REAL terrorists, THAT is what the security forces SHOULD have done.
And al Quaeda could count on the need for all this "extra" G-8 security, which would drain resources from other potential targets... like London's subway and transportation system. Which after the "infiltration" attempt, probably had Gleneagles calling in "reserves" and further taxing limited security in London.
Al Quaeda goals are not to hit "specific" targets, but to "bankrupt" us into having to defend "everywhere". They took advantage of the fact that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And they could COUNT on the G-8 enemies to provide a distraction. And a very "helpful" distraction it was.
Yes Bush claims to have killed 75% of al Quaeda's "old" leadership. But isn't it the left who is better than anyone aware of the fact that they've received "new" recruits. And with every dimunation of American and British resolve NOT to use force, grows another 1,000 jihadi's to the cause who think..."this is working, look he's giving up and pulling out!" For all those who end up on the "winning" side, will be handsomely rewarded. And what starts as a "trickle", becomes a "flood".
-FJ
Welcome Superman, while we have been hoping to attract some mindless twit trolls we were actually hoping that they would be a tad more verbose.
I am not sure who stated, or implied, that Christianity had a stultifying effect on European civilization. I am just in from my stepdaughter’s barbeque and I have to get to bed so I will be short and to the point. In my estimation "Christianity saved European Civilization." What do you suppose all those monks were busy doing during the dark ages in their scriptoriums? Farmer John may not have had as wide a range of classics to enjoy today if not for their efforts.
Mr. Ducky, either take your tin foil hat to the tin foil hat shop for a tune up, or cite some legitimate sources for your mind boggling ignorant statement, "That f*****g cokehead thought it was over when he had Ahmed Chalabi's stooges stage the statue toppling in Baghdad."
Duck I believe that you are a very intelligent individual, but, I am regularly stunned by your ability to occasionally display completely unbridled ignorance with your unsubstantiated verbal grenades.
Friedrich Nietzsche on the influence of Christianity on the Roman Empire (Anti-Christ):
"In point of fact, the end for which one lies makes a great difference: whether one preserves thereby or destroys. There is a perfect likeness between Christian and anarchist: their object, their instinct, points only toward destruction. One need only turn to history for a proof of this: there it appears with appalling distinctness. We have just studied a code of religious legislation whose object it was to convert the conditions which cause life to flourish into an "eternal" social organization, — Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an organization, because life flourished under it. There the benefits that reason had produced during long ages of experiment and insecurity were applied to the most remote uses, and an effort was made to bring in a harvest that should be as large, as rich and as complete as possible; here, on the contrary, the harvest is blighted overnight .... That which stood there aere perennis, the imperium Romanum, the most magnificent form of organization under difficult conditions that has ever been achieved, and compared to which everything before it and after it appears as patchwork, bungling, dilettantism — those holy anarchists made it a matter of "piety" to destroy "the world," which is to say, the imperium Romanum, so that in the end not a stone stood upon another — and even Germans and other such louts were able to become its masters .... The Christian and the anarchist: both are decadents; both are incapable of any act that is not disintegrating, poisonous, degenerating, blood-sucking; both have an instinct of mortal hatred of everything that stands up, and is great, and has durability, and promises life a future .... Christianity was the vampire of the imperium Romanum, — overnight it destroyed the vast achievement of the Romans: the conquest of the soil for a great culture that could await its time. Can it be that this fact is not yet understood? The imperium Romanum that we know, and that the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know better and better, — this most admirable of all works of art in the grand manner was merely the beginning, and the structure to follow was not to prove its worth for thousands of years. To this day, nothing on a like scale sub specie aeterni has been brought into being, or even dreamed of! — This organization was strong enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personality has nothing to do with such things — the first principle of all genuinely great architecture. But it was not strong enough to stand up against the corruptest of all forms of corruption — against Christians .... These stealthy worms, which under the cover of night, mist and duplicity, crept upon every individual, sucking him dry of all earnest interest in real things, of all instinct for reality — this cowardly, effeminate and sugar-coated gang gradually alienated all "souls," step by step, from that colossal edifice, turning against it all the meritorious, manly and noble natures that had found in the cause of Rome their own cause, their own serious purpose, their own pride. The sneakishness of hypocrisy, the secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell, such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the unio mystica in the drinking of blood, above all, the slowly rekindled fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge — all that sort of thing became master of Rome: the same kind of religion which, in a pre-existent form, Epicurus had combated. One has but to read Lucretius to know what Epicurus made war upon — not paganism, but "Christianity," which is to say, the corruption of souls by means of the concepts of guilt, punishment and immortality. — He combated the subterranean cults, the whole of latent Christianity — to deny immortality was already a form of genuine salvation. — Epicurus had triumphed, and every respectable intellect in Rome was Epicurean — when Paul appeared ... Paul, the Chandala hatred of Rome, of "the world," in the flesh and inspired by genius — the Jew, the eternal Jew par excellence.... What he saw was how, with the aid of the small sectarian Christian movement that stood apart from Judaism, a "world conflagration" might be kindled; how, with the symbol of "God on the cross," all secret seditions, all the fruits of anarchistic intrigues in the empire, might be amalgamated into one immense power. "Salvation is of the Jews." — Christianity is the formula for exceeding and summing up the subterranean cults of all varieties, that of Osiris, that of the Great Mother, that of Mithras, for instance: in his discernment of this fact the genius of Paul showed itself. His instinct was here so sure that, with reckless violence to the truth, he put the ideas which lent fascination to every sort of Chandala religion into the mouth of the "Savior" as his own inventions, and not only into the mouth — he made out of him something that even a priest of Mithras could understand ... This was his revelation at Damascus: he grasped the fact that he needed the belief in immortality in order to rob "the world" of its value, that the concept of "hell" would master Rome — that the notion of a "beyond" is the death of life. Nihilist and Christian: they rhyme in German, and they do more than rhyme."
-FJ
BB,
I too believe that Christianity had a tremendous beneficial effect on Western Civilization and its' evolution into the Age of Enlightenment.
Nietzsche wrote as a "polemicist" and had a metaphor for man's condition as one of walking a tightrope that crossed over an abyss. I see Christian values as a point near one end of that tightrope, and early Greek and Roman values as a point "nearer" the opposite end. In times of peace and tranquility, we travel towards the "Christian" end, in time of war and activity, we drift towards the "Roman".
These "value" changes are necessary for our survival, for Christ would have us submit to our enemies as martyrs and turn the other cheek. The Romans would have us conquer them all to serve the Republic.
Christians also surrender all "power" to G_d, Roman's accrue it "temporarily" for themselves, their clan, and more importantly, transfer it to the "Republic" (I consider the Imperial phase of Rome to represent the beginning of decline caused by the migration of Christian and Eastern and Egyptian mystical religious values into Rome...a point of "transvaluing-values").
And so it is the "tension" created and the distance between the values of "Jerusalem" and pagan "Rome" that support the tightrope we walk. And if we fail to strike a proper "balance", into the abyss we will fall.
But also, the "greater" the tension and distance between these values, the farther we can go. For it is that distance and tension that forces the mind into "activity" and makes it "grow", for like the metaphor the mind is a "balancing machine" that must constantly compare and try and understand "difference". And it is "relentless" in this endeavor and works at it 24/7.
It's what makes us as "creative" as we are. And if/when we stop trying to resolve these differences (become a "devout" Christian or Roman or adopt a singular philosophy of life), we get "lulled to sleep" and vulnerable to NOT being able to adapt to a constantly changing environment. We become marine iguanas only capable of survival in the remote Galapagos.
-FJ
neptune,
I would only point out that the Renaissance resulted from the re-discovery of pagan Greek and Roman values (rise of the de Medici and the translation of Greek and Roman texts for use at the Platonic "Academy" that they founded). The Reformation was largely a reaction to the growing "pagan values" entering the church through the Renaissance as members of the great Renaissance Italian families became "popes" (I point to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as example... "pagan" art representing religious events... w/nudity).
As for Christians "preserving" ancient texts... yes it is true. But they also "washed" off a lot of scrolls so that they could re-use the "paper" for palimpsests.
As for 18th/19th century American philosophers... I see Thoreau as a kind of post-Platonic "cynic" rejecting the social and cultural conventions of "materialism". I also see Emerson as a student of Plato, attempting to apply the Platonic Theory of Forms in his Transcendentalism... offering a pleasant kind of a "mixture" of "spiritualism" and "materialism" (Nietzsche was a great admirer of Emerson).
As for the Founders, I regret that I am grossly underinformed as to their philosophies. The only Founder who I have studied (and not to tremendous depth) was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a first rate genius who leaned in the direction of Leibnitz over Newton. In that respect, Franklin too was more Platonic and Pythagorean than Aristotelean. I see him as a sort of modern Archimedes. His failing, IMO, was that he was too much a "democrat" and believer in the equality of men. For an example, I point to the "unicameral" legislature adopted by Pennsylvania. I suspect he had wanted to avoid the "English" experience of Lords and Commons. For after all, that distinction had broken up his own family and estranged his illegitimate son William from him.
-FJ
And, what Friedrich Nietzsche failed to see, or chose to overlook, was all the warts and blemishes on the face of Roman civilization. Rome had to pass with changing times. It was a model for its time and place in history, but not sustainable as the world progressed through the ages. The Roman model may have in earlier years been capable of surviving bad leaders. In its later years that ability came off at the wheels. Also that survivability was gained at the point of a Roman gladus, pilum, or in the Senate, or Imperial Residence, the Roman dagger, pugio.
Not being a fan, or a reader of Friedrich Nietzsche I did not realize that he was a self-hating German. Whatever Fred, our ancestors had the leader of the mighty Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar, banging his head on the brick wall exclaiming, "Quintili
Vare, legiones redde!" ('Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!'). Methinks the Germans, and assorted Huns, played the key roles in the fall of the Roman Empire.
BB,
I don't think Nietzsche was a self-hating German. I think he saw the way Europe was becoming an "economic machine" and that the "laborer" or "common man" was evolving into "socialist man" who was a "reader of newspapers" and therefore "trapped in the moment" and a cog for that "greater entity" a sort of ubermensch (over-man). Since Nietzsche was a GREAT lover of individuals, many thought the ubermensch was an individual (ie - Hitler). IMO, it was not. Nietzsche realized he could not stop this process, and so he wrote "Untimely Meditations" for people 100 years hence (now). He wanted people to understand a "range" of human values and the possibilities/ liabilities inherent in that range (and be especially [polemically] critical of contemporary values). He wanted to inspire "individuals" to free themselves from the machine and give them the WILL and COURAGE to create their own, futile, "Islands of the Blessed". Think of Aldous Huxley's distopic "Brave New World". Now picture Huxley's utopic "Island". Island is the futile, but beautiful, "Nietzschean" retreat from Brave New World.
And BB, you need to start thinking of Rome not as a "monolithic" set of values. Rome started as a "Republic". America tried to model itself after that self-same "Republic". The Republic expanded at the tip of the gladus in wars fought largely in "defense" of economic interests. Roman expansion came to an "end" with the pugio, the death of Caesar. The expanding boundary of Republic ground to a halt with Empire (although minor expansions and pullbacks still occurred).
And in assimilating the Roman empire, aristocratic/agrarian Republican values were transvalued into common/polis Empire values... Virtu (self-reliance) became panem et circses (social reliance) became Christianity (pity and self-lessness).
And to draw parallels to America, Jeffersonian/ agrarian values are transformed into Blue/labor values in the cities and are morphing into 60's "progressive" (selfless altruism) and multicultural values.
Lincoln was our Caesar. The American gladus was English-style mercantilism, which continued to be practiced, and not altered, even after Lincoln by European wars which transferred much of Europes Gold to America and later, Europe's abandonment of Empire. The "deficit" spending craze hit right after the 60's and the world abandoned the "gold standard" (proving that the continuing mercantilist practices was becoming a problem of reverse-wealth transfer). The mantra that was once "self-reliance" has been transformed to "state-reliance".
Roman multi-cultural value assimilation did her in, just as it will do us in. Ixion's wheel continues to turn in America.
-FJ
neptune,
I agree with you almost entirely. From the intro to Machiavelli's "Discourses on Titus Livy"...
"To him, therefore, who inquires into the origin of Rome, if he assign its beginning to Æneas, it will seem to be of those cities which were founded by strangers if to Romulus, then of those founded by the natives of the country. But in whichever class we place it, it will be seen to have had its beginning in freedom, and not in subjection to another State. It will be seen, too, as hereafter shall be noted, how strict was the discipline which the laws instituted by Romulus, Numa, and its other founders made compulsory upon it; so that neither its fertility, the proximity of the sea, the number of its victories, nor the extent of its dominion, could for many centuries corrupt it, but, on the contrary, maintained it replete with such virtues as were never matched in any other commonwealth."
Romulus was a warrior. Numa was a priest. Rome needed BOTH sets of "generally opposing" values, one for fighting enemies, the other for peaceful cooperation. Christian values ARE Vital for peacetime America... but I point out one vital difference. In Rome there was NO separation of church and state. This preserved the "founding" values for a long time.
Christianity, and religions in general, have, as you state, a beneficent "civilizing effect".
I don't think Nietzsche believed in practicing "Social Darwinism" (although he wrote polemically and so many, like Hitler, took his writings as advocacy). But I think it is benefical to view things as "constantly evolving" in order to understand them. Heraclitus said that everything is in a constant state of "flux" (change/evolution). Only the "rate" of change can be a river rapid, or slowly glacial.
G_d is permanent. Fixed. Static. Unmoving. Unchanging. A Touchstone. Outside the universe. The Reference Point. The Philosopher's Stone. The point from which all human values are to be measured.
The Universe only appears to be unchanging (ie - star positions), but we know that these too are in constant flux. The earth rotates and moves through space.
We live in this universe, and so need to understand the concept of evolution. This is "science". Understanding Cause and Effect. Means between two or more Ends....with no "real" end. Change in the knowledge that what we measure today will change tomorrow.
But God provides us with a fixed reference point from which to measure ourselves and our change as men, to tell us "where we stand"... but as we all know, we are flawed and cannot always "measure up" to his Son's standard.
And to have values and corresponding habits and behaviors that never change "impair" an organisms ability to adapt to change. One becomes subject to possible extinction. Principle can become "deadly".
Yes, there is definitely a "tension" and we all walk the tightrope. Peace and rest at one end, activity and change at the other. Temperance and Courage. Justice and Wisdom.
The ancient philosopher attempts to achieve a "static" mental state of "being" and physical state of "virtue", but is really always "becoming". There are legends of Socrates walking out into the agora, stopping to contemplate something, and not moving all day... a "stepping out of time and space". Nietzsche however, would call this "grave-digging".
It is a paradox.
-FJ
neptune,
from Genesis (KJV):
"1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
Nothing in the above passages leads me to disbelieve in evolution. No, I don't think that man evolved from "apes", but just like there is an "order" and "progression" of creation in Genesis, I believe there to have been a similar one in the creation of man.
We share so much DNA with animals, it's hard to believe we were a unique and special physical "creation" of G_d. What I believe G_d gave to man was not physical, but something completely spiritual. Man's soul. In his "Image", as a reflection in a mirror is an image, not substance. Something "out-of this universe" and completly different. A "spiritual" Leibnitzean "monad", from His realm of something akin to pure thought and unmoving mind. Forethought for creation.
Call me a heretic. I'm sure I am one.
-FJ
Farmer John, I believe in the seven days, etc, etc. I am just not sure if anyone knows exactly how long God's day is. I also believe that the Creation story was kept simple enough for desert nomads to get the gist of the story - we are created in God's image.
Religious people get too hung up in the Creation and End Times. They need to give it up and revel in the wonder of God's provision in their life and celebrate every day as if tomorrow they meet their Maker, the G-d of Israel. I just want to know Him and love Him. I think the odds of me understanding the mysteries of G-d are about the same as me understanding the principles of quantum physics.
BB,
I agree, we tend to get too hung up on "beginnings" and "ends". But trying to understand "causes" and predict "effects" is the human way. We'd all live much more satisfying lives if we didn't always feel the need to question the way things are and dream up utopia's. It simply makes us "unhappy" and desirous of change. And most of the time, we're not smart enough to know how to change for the "better". Better to revel in the wonders of His creation and enjoy the gifts He has granted.
-FJ
...but since we seem to "have to know" THE cause and ultimate effect, it would be wonderful if we could all stick to the same vision, otherwise we will likely be drawn into conflict as we strive towards divergent ends... some believing that they will be judged... others believing that there will be no judgement... which is one of the reasons why I believe the Bible starts with Genesis and ends with Revelations.
-FJ
When we try to understand God's "causes" and then predict their "effects" we are in fact trying to limit a Creator with no limits so as to fit our own limited expectations. When we try to limit God we actually are limiting his blessings in our life.
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