I Seem Myself

Nigel Hawthorne as George III

“I’ve always been myself, even when I was ill, but now I seem myself.  I’ve remembered how to ’seem.’”

The Madness of King George

Reputation

Iago

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

Othello

Act III, Scene III

Shakespeare

Great Is Our Sin

If the miseries of our poor be determined not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

Charles Darwin
Darwin was right.  If the miseries of the poorest of the world’s citizens are caused by institutions of industry and/or government then we have sinned against them and therefore against God and will be called to account for that sin.  But Darwin stated a great “if.”

How do we alleviate the miseries of our poor unless we globally redistribute wealth?  First you must have world government because it is impossible that those with more wealth will voluntarily surrender it to the point where the scales are balanced.  That will not happen.  And even were it to transpire it would have to be a form of socialist government.  That is even MORE unlikely to happen.  And even if THAT were to transpire, there would still be a gap between those who are in charge of the redistribution.

It has been tried on the local (nation-state) level and with devastating results.

I will not go into the arguments for Capitalism vs. Socialism.  You can click the link here for an excellent site for this purpose.

It should be warned that the idea that it is NOT the fault of our institutions added to the evolutionary theories of Darwin gave rise to the idea of social evolution.  Socio/cultural evolutionism has long been discredited.  In short, it posited that there was a scientific basis for poverty based on race and culture, i.e. that the poor were poor on the basis of the inferiority of their race and/or culture.  It gave justification for racism and prejudice and there is NO scientific proof for its theories.

But the miseries of the poor might be attributable to the laws of nature without blaming evolution.  We may go to Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, et. al. to discuss Man in a State of Nature.  In the State of Nature discussion there is a hypothetical premise that posits human society prior to political organization.  Society pre-political organization is, by definition, anarchy.

By examining the subject from the State of Nature viewpoint we find that there have always been those in poverty and those who have not.  There have always been “Haves” and Have-Nots.”  The question then is will or can there ever be a time when poverty ceases to exist.  My position is no.  There cannot be such a time.  Therefore we must assign it as a natural state.

There is nothing that can be done absolutely to remove poverty.  It will be with us always.  Does this mean that we can turn our backs on those in poverty?  May that never be.

Though we cannot be rid of the condition, we can do much to alleviate the miseries of those so afflicted.  And, much is indeed being done.  Does this mean that more does not need to be done?  Ditto. We are called to help those in need.  We are called to do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves.  We are called to love others as we love ourselves.  We are called to do unto others as THEY would have done unto them.  We are called to give of our resources and our lives as the spirit instructs us.

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’”

Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’”

The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’”

Matthew 25: 35-40

But, don’t be fooled.  It can never be abolished absolutely.  Not on this earth.

doc

LAY ON, MACDUFF!

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.  And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

OUT OUT Brief Candle!  ‘Tis a tale told by an idiot, FULL of Sound and Fury, signifying – nothing.

Lay On, Macduff!  And damn be he that first cries, “Hold Enough!”

William Shakespeare

Macbeth

Treason

Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

Sir John Harrington (1561-1612)

Epigrams, Book iv. Ep. 5.

Live Forever

Someone once wrote,

To write, is to live forever.

The man who wrote that is dead.  Nobody believed him anyway.

g.

Iron and Blood

If you believe that history is personality driven then the history of Germany from Bismarck to today is largely dependent on the leadership of Bismarck.  If you believe (as I do) that history is a mix of personality and events then the history of Germany is STILL dependent on his leadership.  He was a powerful dynamic man.

Otto von Bismarck quotes

Otto von Bismarck

Anyone who likes sausage and respects the law shouldn’t watch either one being made

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, and before an election.

There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood

And Yet It Moves!

Galileo Galilei allegedly muttered these words when he was forced to recant his theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  In order to avoid excommunication and probable execution as a result of Heresy, Galileo was forced to recant his theory in a Church trial in 1633.  Even after recanting, he was still under house arrest and of course his future writing came under intense scrutiny of the Church.  Six years after the trial he went blind.  Three years after that, he died.

Did he die a broken man?  You bet.  Was he later vindicated?  You bet, and of course.

At the end of his trial did he mutter, “And yet it moves!”  Are you kidding me?  They would have burnt him on the spot.  There is no proof he ever said it.  His first biographer makes no mention of it.

But it sounds good doesn’t it?  It’s something that you would have wished for him to say.  This broken man would therefore be able to grasp at least a shred of his formal dignity by this parting thumb of the nose.  But sorry folks, he didn’t say it.  It’s just another of the lies told you by your high school history teacher.

Hope I didn’t burst any bubbles.  I take that back.  I hope I did.  *shrug*

c.e.s.

What Hubris!

(Commentary on The Use and Abuse of History)

What amazing hubris it is for humanity to claim that just because we have the power to destroy all other creatures including ourselves and the planet upon which we live that this makes us the most supreme accomplishment of nature. As Nietzsche was quoted in the post immediately preceding this one, proud humans say “we are at the completion of nature!”

Rubbish!

I do not doubt evolution.  I do not doubt (as Nietzsche states) that we find traces or the beginnings of ourselves in “the utter depths of the sea, in the living slime.”  That this should be used to celebrate that we are the pinnacle of all that there will ever be is not only illogical, but arrogance in the extreme.

That we have acknowledged evolution, it is logical to assume that it is an ongoing process.  What evidence is there to now conclude that it is now at an end at the least for humanity?  There is none.  We cannot assume (even if we were to believe) that we are the best or most advanced of all that will ever be.  I am no anthropologist, but didn’t Cro Magnon and Neanderthal eventually become extinct (supplanted)?  Homo Erectus in the form of what we derisively call “Cave Man” must have thought that they, too, were the ”best of the best.”

Fooled them didn’t we?

How long will it be before we too are fooled?  That is, if in our still primitive war-like animal natures, we don’t end up destroying our capacity to adapt and survive.

Now let’s leave that argument aside.  We still have the question of what is “nature?”  Science continues to question the essence of nature.  It hasn’t been that long since we discovered that perhaps Newtonian physics isn’t the end-all-be-all.  Until another paradigm is discovered we call anything that is not understood as being in nature as being in sub, super, or paranature (paranormal).  When new knowledge is discovered to rationally explain these things, then we can label them “natural.”

Just as evolution has not stopped to please the hubris of man, neither has the march of science.

Just because we cannot explain paranatural events does not mean they are not true.  (This by the way is an argument for the possible existence of God.)

Just a thought.

Just for what it’s worth . . . 

c.e.s

The historical imagination has never flown so far, even in a dream; for now the history of man is merely the continuation of that of animals and plants; the universal historian finds traces of himself even in the utter depths of the sea, in the living slime  He stands astounded in the face of the enormous way that man has run, and his gaze quivers before the mightier wonder, the modern man who can see all the way!  He stands proudly on the pyramid of the world-process; and while he lays the final stone of his knowledge, he seems to cry aloud to listening Nature: “We are at the top, we are at the top; we are at the completion of Nature!”

Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History

The Use and Abuse of History

The historical imagination has never flown so far, even in a dream; for now the history of man is merely the continuation of that of animals and plants; the universal historian finds traces of himself even in the utter depths of the sea, in the living slime  He stands astounded in the face of the enormous way that man has run, and his gaze quivers before the mighter wonder, the modern man who can see all the way!  He stands proudly on the pyramid of the world-process; and while he lays the final stone of his knowledge, he seems to cry aloud to listening Nature: “We are at the top, we are at the top; we are at the completition of Nature!”

Nietzche, The Use and Abuse of History

( commentary to follow.  c.e.s. )