The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #4
…It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force…
My Dear & Most Excellent Publius:
How wonderfully, and with a felicitous economy of words, you have encapsulated the very kernel of the American Cause. In your essays you sought, despite various literary flaws (though I am personally hard pressed to find any), to “promote the cause of truth, and lead to a right judgment of the true interests of the community.”
In arguing for the adoption of the Constitution proposed by the Philadelphia Convention in 1787- no doubt a most rigorous struggle- you were aided by the prevailing sentiment held by citizens of goodwill: that Truth and Reason are real and indispensable standards by which legitimate and efficacious government should be conceived.
Today, the citizens of this great Republic you and your colleagues so tirelessly labored to establish, have come largely under the sway of a most dangerous sophistry. Advanced by the 18th century Enlightenment writers of the French Encyclopedie (1751-65), d’Holbach’s Systeme de la nature (1770), and the Positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), these ideas combined to eradicate all notions of objective and absolute Truth, as well as Reason that went beyond the “testimony of observation and experience”.
Certainly, Thomas Paine’s celestial article of FREEDOM and such estimations of value as Heaven might render would- at the hands of the French philosophes- fall into disrepute, being exemplars of clericalism, a priori or metaphysical speculations and, therefore, hostile to the more progressive doctrines of naturalism and materialism. I shall continue to keep you informed of these events through the Committees of Correspondence.
I am, as always, Your Sincere Friend & Brother in the American Cause of FREEDOM-
Montag.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #3
One might understandably wonder what conceivable danger exists to America’s FREEDOM that, while threatening harm, nevertheless appears benign- even beneficial. If something is really noxious, wouldn’t its destructive character clearly be recognizable as it worked through, for example, the press, public education, internet media and public assemblies? Is it at all possible for something to be at once dangerous and harmful, while yielding benefit?
Furthermore, if this danger to our FREEDOM has a long history- going all the way back to the era of our founding- wouldn’t its destructive character have been detected some time ago? Wouldn’t this danger have elicited some telltale sign of its presence, over and above the usual problems that beset any society? In short, wouldn’t there be some fairly conspicuous indicator that FREEDOM is under siege?
Yes, most certainly there would be tell tale signs; there would very much be an indicator of impending danger, if one were willing to take stock of all the evidence. But again, this danger to our FREEDOM is most subtle and is often made to appear attractive by the benefit it otherwise conveys.
The source of this danger to our FREEDOM proceeds from our Western intellectual heritage, our system of thought, and the far-reaching assumptions about our universe it has come to produce. Particularly as a result of the work of that most esteemed and useful of Western intellectual activities: modern science.
I recall Professor Russell Kirk’s valuable insight, in his book The American Cause, about the “three great concepts [that] are the cement of American society…[that] make possible the ordered liberty that is among the chief justifications of the American Cause.” These concepts are justice, order and freedom, this last being defined as the “principle and process by which a man is made master of his own life. It implies the right of all members of adult society to make their own choices in most matters.”
He goes on to say, “A slave is a person whose actions, in all important respects, are directed by others…”. It stands to reason then, that a person is not free to make their own choices and direct their own actions to the extent that their thinking is controlled and determined by others, whatever the supposed benefit to society- or science- is claimed.
Journal Entry #3
One might understandably wonder what conceivable danger exists to America’s FREEDOM that, while threatening harm, nevertheless appears benign- even beneficial. If something is really noxious, wouldn’t its destructive character clearly be recognizable as it worked through, for example, the press, public education, internet media and public assemblies? Is it at all possible for something to be at once dangerous and harmful, while yielding benefit?
Furthermore, if this danger to our FREEDOM has a long history- going all the way back to the era of our founding- wouldn’t its destructive character have been detected some time ago? Wouldn’t this danger have elicited some telltale sign of its presence, over and above the usual problems that beset any society? In short, wouldn’t there be some fairly conspicuous indicator that FREEDOM is under siege?
Yes, most certainly there would be tell tale signs; there would very much be an indicator of impending danger, if one were willing to take stock of all the evidence. But again, this danger to our FREEDOM is most subtle and is often made to appear attractive by the benefit it otherwise conveys.
The source of this danger to our FREEDOM proceeds from our Western intellectual heritage, our system of thought, and the far-reaching assumptions about our universe it has come to produce. Particularly as a result of the work of that most esteemed and useful of Western intellectual activities: modern science.
I recall Professor Russell Kirk’s valuable insight, in his book The American Cause, about the “three great concepts [that] are the cement of American society…[that] make possible the ordered liberty that is among the chief justifications of the American Cause.” These concepts are justice, order and freedom, this last being defined as the “principle and process by which a man is made master of his own life. It implies the right of all members of adult society to make their own choices in most matters.”
He goes on to say, “A slave is a person whose actions, in all important respects, are directed by others…”. It stands to reason then, that a person is not free to make their own choices and direct their own actions to the extent that their thinking is controlled and determined by others, whatever the supposed benefit to society- or science- is claimed.
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