Free Republic

>> ...Unlike the French who elevated reason to the primary role in human affairs, British thinkers gave reason a secondary, instrumental role. In Britain it was virtue that trumped all other qualities. This was not personal virtue but the “social virtues”—compassion, benevolence, sympathy—which the British philosophers believed naturally, instinctively, and habitually bound people to one another. <<

I disagree that it was just "social virtues". Personal virtue -- honor, duty, courage, steadfastness, strength -- "naturally, instinctively and habitually bound people to each other" as well. Personal virtue embodies the noble and heroic among us and both are at the center of the divine human character ... at the well spring of enlightenment ... both give joy to reason.

As argument, here's an excerpt from Walter Pater's 1869 essay on the Mona Lisa, ironically France's most treaured possession:

"The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern philosophy has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea."

A wonderful book -- Inventing Leonardo by Richard A. Turner -- is worth a read.

And here, for your fancy, is an excerpt from Walter Pater's 1869 critical essay on the Mona Lisa:

"The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come,"and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern philosophy has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in itself all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea."

Clinton's real legacy: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." "Depends on the meaning of "is" is." Vince Foster's suicide (?) Web Hubbell $700,000 payoff The funny money with the McDougals The sexual harrassment of Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, et al. The rape of Juanita Broadrick Jennifer Flowers' testimony Ron Brown's death The Arkancide list The drug running out of Mena Hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy" Mogadishu His letter to his draft board The bombing of the aspirin factory The non-response to terror attacks like the first World Trade Center bombings and USS Cole

Please add to the list. Let's make sure the truth about Bill Clinton is not "reinvented" by his cronies in Hollywood and the media.

Richard Kimball and Hilton Kramer (editor of The New Criterion) are among a handful of articulate critics of the "art scene" since Modernism was turned on its head by the Pop, Minimalism and Post-Modern movements of the 60s, 70s and 80s. His essay, "Treason of the Intellectuals" in Against the Grain (a New Criterion publication), is an excoriating attack on the failure of the "knowledge" class (university professors) to reaffirm common sense, virtue and standards of civility as the goal of a "liberal arts " education.

At a Yale Intelligent Design Conference, Mr. Berlinski asked for help to construct a genetic algorithm. I offer Bayes' theorem as an integral splice. (Wired Magazine: 8.02, "The Quest for Meaning", p.173)

Check out other articles by William Dembski at www.leaderu.com/offices/dembski/ especially "The Explanatory Filter."

And ... for those following the work of David Berlinski, keep an eye out for his new book "Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction."

'Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow with form
Our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we [imagine]. -- Lord Byron

Gravity Units are the fundamental units of existence. They are indivisible, windowless units of submicroscopic, quantized geometries from which nothing can enter or exit.

Intrigued ... What do you mean by "windowless units" and "quantized geometries"? Aren't they mutally exclusive?

Originally published in The Weekly Standard, February 18, 2002

Originally published in The American Spectator (15 December 2001).

Gotta love this guy Gilder for his no-nonsense defense of common sense.

Clever interactive maps listing the CEOs and board members of major corporations, and the political and non-profit organizations they support. Compiled by the Future Farmers Project and Josh On, a real (or virtual) Marxist, pro-Nader, anti-capitalist.

Amazing how information like this is so easily available. And how the veracity and time sensitivity of the information is almost irrelevant, since the corporate players fit so conveniently into the "grand conspiracy."

Welcome to the the belly of the beast.

We cannot win by imitating our adversaries. In a rivalry focused on secrecy and control, demonic cliques will always outperform democratic bureaucracies. Freedom and openness are our chief enduring assets. As Edward Teller points out, the U.S. nuclear and missile programs, shrouded in secrecy, could not even keep their edge against the Soviet Union's Sputnik and hydrogen bombs. But the U.S. triumphed through entrepreneurial industries, whose innovations -- and the wealth they generate -- are the real foundation of our security. Washington now needs to summon those and the distributed resources of insurance firms, financial institutions, security consultancies and commercial data farms -- together with the factious teams of government intelligence -- to address fiendish threats to open society. Without stifling it in the process.

On the merits of your argument, I agree with you. But I don't think Gilder is demanding our government and military tell us exactly what their plans are and just what the Special Ops Forces are doing right this very minute. It's regulatory impediments to innovation in the name of national security that has him worried.

A free and open society does not mean the government, military, corporations or individuals have to voluntarily provide information that is the mainstay of their survival, autonomy and success. (Clinton -- to his credit, and our country's shame -- was highly successfully in covering his ass especially with the media's help when they realized their socialistic reforms might go down with him.)

It does mean, however, that you, I, and them have a right -- no, a duty -- to try -- and I emphasize the word try -- to ferret out the truth with as much creativity, integrity and zeal as possible. That is why America has been so successful. (That's why this forum is so successful.) This adversarial cat and mouse between thems that have and thems that want is the hallmark of our grand experiment played within rules established by our Founding Fathers for an orderly society. Rules, I would add, that postulate a moral universe (versus an amoral universe postulated by the Darwinists.)

Gilder is warning us, though -- and this is the "imitating our adversaries" part -- to NOT become acquiesent when the government tells us be quiet and stop asking questions, or when the government fashions regulatory rights out of whole cloth in the name of national security or I would add, environmental protection.

Vigilance is the price of liberty.

Gilder shoots from the hip with rapid, staccato blasts. Pithy with punch and poignancy. Love the last paragraph:

Without the miracle of mind, expressed in the art and enterprise of a free society, human beings become mere meat. Without the word that breathes spirit into creation, nature is brutal, deadly and Darwinian. Soulless butchers rule, and rush to bury civilization under the rubble. Human creativity reflects divine creation. And this arouses the unending abomination of nihilists everywhere. That is the real evil in the Luddite urge -- the annihilation of the sapient creativity that lifts humans beyond the beasts and the Bin Ladens.

For adults, I suggest Francisco D'Anconia's speech on Money in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
http://jim.com/money.htm

Here's additional ammo to keep the Evolutionists dancin'.

Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer's Guide to PBS's Evolution

Accuracy and objectivity are what we should expect in a television documentary - especially in a science documentary on a publicly-funded network. But the PBS EVOLUTION series falls far short of meeting these basic standards. It distorts the scientific evidence, ignores scientific disagreements over Darwin's theory, and misrepresents the theory's critics. The series also displays a sharply biased view of religion and seeks to influence the political debate over how evolution should be taught in schools. EVOLUTION presents itself as science journalism, but it is actually a work of one-sided advocacy.

The series is intended not only for broadcast on public television, but also for use in public schools. EVOLUTION's biased content, however, makes it inappropriate for classroom use without supplementary materials. This Viewer's Guide has been prepared to help teachers, parents, students, and interested citizens ensure that discussions of evolution in the classroom fairly represent the evidence and the full range of scientific viewpoints about Darwin's controversial theory.

http://www.reviewevolution.com/getOurGuide.php