Last week after finishing the "Scots and the Modern World" book* I started on "Closing of the American Mind" (a loan from a friend) and some "Big Names in Philosophy" survey book on the discount rack at Barnes and Noble.
Most of the ideas in that little survey book are familiar, of course - reading it is more a matter of learning so that's who's credited with such and such than learning anything new. More than anything, it's interesting how much as a people we retread the same ground. I remember once when I was little, asking my mother "how do I know the orange I see is the same orange you see?" ... little guessing that same question had been put to world thousands of years before my country existed. Recapitulation in mind, if not body.
I've only poked through the first a bit so far, but the latter is fairly fast going- I'm up to the 17th century since last night.
That section is particularly interesting, because you're already starting to see the principles and modes of thought that anchored our Founders in the Revolution - the immediate precursors to the Paines and Henrys we've read about. Heck, even the "Social Contract" theory so loved (and I'd say misused) by self-styled "Progressives" over the last hundred years long predates our own nation.
That's what stands out the most I think, how much of what's crowed to the rafters as dynamic or new is anything of the sort. And the more I read, the more some of the oldest writings we have come back -
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-14
At some point, I'll feel a little more qualified to talk about the whole Western Civ thing. Not yet, despite growing up in it and four years of undergrad in the humanities. I think after these some early Victor Davis Hanson and some Howard Zinn for counterbalance. After that... Lord only knows.
Yeah, it's been a perplexing few weeks.
I want to get back to Gaelic folklore to go with the bardic/music end of things, but am also getting pushed to learn more about the Founders recently. And and and...
criminy. What I wouldn't give for another four years to do Undergrad again. Forget "youth is wasted on the young" ... education is wasted on the young. There's hardly a thing I had in classes from age 18-22 that I managed (or took advantage of) half so well as I could now.
Of course, I'll prolly say the same thing again in another ten years. Grow or die, I guess.
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* neat discovery for the week for the aviation-minded who are still poking about here -
"tarmac" derives from "tarred macadam" - itself a type of gravel road named for the engineer MacAdam. The things you learn..
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4 comments:
Reading is always good. Learning is always good. Learning the hard way is a mixed blessing but you remember better.
No money in it for me but a few past acquaintances are mentioned in the following book and it's about freedoms. Finally is in print after Gawd knows how long of a wait.
This one might be of interest at some point as far as modern American freedom movements.
Best Regards,
Yeah, those personal lessons are the ones that stick around the longest, aren't they? I always figured better to learn from others' mistakes best I can though - there's plenty enough of my own to make without repeating the old ones all over again. :)
And thanks - looks interesting! A good deal less histrionic than Morris Dees' take on 'em it looks, yes? One more to add to the pile.
In some ways, I'm a little jealous of our 16th-18th century ancestors there - seems it would have been much easier to get conversant on the writings of the day. Well - provided one had the leisure and money for such things as books, that is.
People don't change, just the times they live in. Or, rather, people as a group do change, but very slowly in comparison to everything else. The nature of humanity doesn't change very much.
History is both cyclical and linear. The same type of things happen over and over, but we can also build on everything that has happened previously.
When we are young, many of us know it all. As we grow older most of us come to realize how little we really know and how much we have to learn.
I'm sure someone else could put it in nicer words but my thought is "The older we get, the more we realize how stupid we really are."
If humankind really lived for hundreds of years Back in the day as is implied by many religions and religious texts, those poor folks must have really felt dumb after a couple of hundred years.
Of course if the historical religious texts are to be believed, humankind did not have the problems back then that it does today. I say hogshit to that. Humankind has always had the same problems, we just keep compounding them by trying to force our fellows to live as we think they should.
Joe
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