Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 5, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 11
Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 5, 2005 at about 11pm CST
Segment 11:
The Enlightenment came about 1600 in Western Europe. Before that time, the peasants were considered to be of no value. Their thoughts and aspiration were considered to be of no moment. In a certain light that makes sense, most people before 1600 were involved directly in agriculture. Some Godawful percentage of the people had to get up at dawn and work until dark in the fields or they starved and a huge number of other people starved. Farming prior to the mechanization was backbreaking and unrelenting. Very few people had the education or interest to contribute to national or even local politics.
After the 1600's, people started to have enough time to question authority. From being unimportant, individuals became the center of existence. Each person was supposed to be regarded as priceless. The American Revolution spawned the ideal of representative democracy.
The French Revolution spawned the idea of Communism and that the New Man could and should come about. You probably never heard of the New Man concept. I've always found it fascinating. Communism built up the idea that humans should change to fit the ideals of Communism. In other words, humans should serve ideology, instead of ideology serving humans. If the New Man came into existence, he or she would be willing to work for the group without asking for anything but that his or her needs be filled. By doing this, everyone would prosper. Or rather everyone would have enough food, clothing and shelter for their needs. The problem then becomes who defines the word 'enough'. I've always found that funny, because it's obvious to anyone with any intelligence that giving power to an elite to decide what is good for you and what your needs should be inevitably means that the elite have all the good stuff and everyone else has to take the leavings.
Another outgrowth of the Enlightenment is that we as a people will not take conventional wisdom unless there is proof that it works. No longer could a religious leader say, "God spoke to me in a dream. We must do His will." No longer would we simply accept that the elites knew best. What is even weirder about the Enlightenment is that it also caused us to question conventional wisdom as function of time. What I mean is that conventional wisdom allows a society to prosper because it gets results. What if the environment changes? What if the economy changes? What if it is no longer cost effective to do what we have always done? At that point conventional wisdom has to change, because the underlying Reality has changed.
Yet, there is a problem. What if an ideology like Liberalism comes along and says something weird like two parent families are just a lifestyles choice? How do you handle that? Any thinking person knows that a two parent family raises better kids. Liberalism clashes with Reality and Reality has been losing kind of. More and more single parent families have been formed. That's a bad idea. It's a bad ideology. Women outside of marriage are not treated well. Children in single parent families are not treated as well as those inside a two parent family. That's the truth. Why is that such a bad thing to say?
All of the above in this segment of the show seems to be pretty fuzzy, but I wanted to point out that Liberalism's demand that the government has to do social activism is stupid to me. The government has failed. I am trying to get you to meet me that part of the way. As I said last week, I do not need you to change your opinion of what needs to be done as far as social justice. All I want you to do is help me do the work external to the government. If that frightens you, then party on, dude, I'll catch on the flip side.
Segment 11:
The Enlightenment came about 1600 in Western Europe. Before that time, the peasants were considered to be of no value. Their thoughts and aspiration were considered to be of no moment. In a certain light that makes sense, most people before 1600 were involved directly in agriculture. Some Godawful percentage of the people had to get up at dawn and work until dark in the fields or they starved and a huge number of other people starved. Farming prior to the mechanization was backbreaking and unrelenting. Very few people had the education or interest to contribute to national or even local politics.
After the 1600's, people started to have enough time to question authority. From being unimportant, individuals became the center of existence. Each person was supposed to be regarded as priceless. The American Revolution spawned the ideal of representative democracy.
The French Revolution spawned the idea of Communism and that the New Man could and should come about. You probably never heard of the New Man concept. I've always found it fascinating. Communism built up the idea that humans should change to fit the ideals of Communism. In other words, humans should serve ideology, instead of ideology serving humans. If the New Man came into existence, he or she would be willing to work for the group without asking for anything but that his or her needs be filled. By doing this, everyone would prosper. Or rather everyone would have enough food, clothing and shelter for their needs. The problem then becomes who defines the word 'enough'. I've always found that funny, because it's obvious to anyone with any intelligence that giving power to an elite to decide what is good for you and what your needs should be inevitably means that the elite have all the good stuff and everyone else has to take the leavings.
Another outgrowth of the Enlightenment is that we as a people will not take conventional wisdom unless there is proof that it works. No longer could a religious leader say, "God spoke to me in a dream. We must do His will." No longer would we simply accept that the elites knew best. What is even weirder about the Enlightenment is that it also caused us to question conventional wisdom as function of time. What I mean is that conventional wisdom allows a society to prosper because it gets results. What if the environment changes? What if the economy changes? What if it is no longer cost effective to do what we have always done? At that point conventional wisdom has to change, because the underlying Reality has changed.
Yet, there is a problem. What if an ideology like Liberalism comes along and says something weird like two parent families are just a lifestyles choice? How do you handle that? Any thinking person knows that a two parent family raises better kids. Liberalism clashes with Reality and Reality has been losing kind of. More and more single parent families have been formed. That's a bad idea. It's a bad ideology. Women outside of marriage are not treated well. Children in single parent families are not treated as well as those inside a two parent family. That's the truth. Why is that such a bad thing to say?
All of the above in this segment of the show seems to be pretty fuzzy, but I wanted to point out that Liberalism's demand that the government has to do social activism is stupid to me. The government has failed. I am trying to get you to meet me that part of the way. As I said last week, I do not need you to change your opinion of what needs to be done as far as social justice. All I want you to do is help me do the work external to the government. If that frightens you, then party on, dude, I'll catch on the flip side.
posted by aRandomTexan at
6:14 AM
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