Victor Davis Hanson: The New War against Reason - Medieval heretic-hunters had nothing on...

National Review Online ^ | November 25, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Well, just think, while on the subject of Obamanomics stimulus, when you buy "Made in China" gifts...you will be helping to keep our creditors and bankers in business.

[Citizen Soldier]

ping for later reading

[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm glad you brought up the schoolboy dumbness of the "medieval" trope, Howl, because I was irked by it, but didn't know if correcting it was worth my effort.

VDH is a classically-trained historian, and should know better.

Rather than wear out my fingers (and FR readers) running down this rabbit-trail (OK, mixed mataphor, but hey) try these on evaluating medievalism, for starters:

The Age of Unreason, Pfui, and

OK, can't pick... let's say anything by Thomas Madden

Thanks, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you!

[Dajjal]

obumpa

[aruanan]

Just as creationists insist that the world was made 6,000 years ago, so too the Obamians believe that joblessness must show a decline because their messianic leader says it’s so — bothersome facts be damned.

Should have been: Just as [some] creationists insist that the world was made 6,000 years ago, so too the Obamians believe that joblessness must show a decline because their messianic leader says it’s so — bothersome facts be damned.

[aruanan]

The result is the triumph of superstition, and the dethronement of science.

And Obama is the witch doctor in chief.

[VR-21]

"Remember, we are now in an age of superstition, not rationalism, in which utopian ends justify unscientific means."

[annalex]

that stereotyped pejorative use of the term "medieval" is outdated.

Indeed, as is his silly sin/confession analogy. There is nothing wrong in confessing sins actually committed, as well as paying for environmental damage actually caused. The problem with left wing environmentalism is that the damages are bogus, not with the principle of compensation itself.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Well, it's outdated.

It is arguable that medieval Englishmen had more freedom.
Lord Acton makes that point.
Modern Absolutism played a great role in the growth and expansion of modern
statism. But with an orthodox Church there are checks and balances on the King
and the State.Watch "Becket" for a sense of that. Or "A Man for All Seasons"
with Paul Scofield. I think More invokes Magna Carta for the principle of the
Church being free from the King and the State in his trial.

Part of the problem with Obama is his heresy which leads to aggressive Statism.
Orwellian, really. He does not recognize a role for natural law or limitations on the
authority of the state.

In that he is VERY modern, even ultra-modern, you might say. Obama is like a
character out of Prof. Eric Voegelin's The New Science of Politics or Science,
Politics, and Gnosticism. He makes the major claim of scientism, that he is
"restoring 'science' to its rightful place" as if Bush's evangelical Methodism had
somehow harmed science by dethroning Darwin. I think this line was really about
embryonic stem cell research. This is the language of modern gnosticism,
scientism, and the ideology of progress, scientific materialism, etc. All of the
enlightened, progressive liberal pieties of the Illuminati at Columbia and Harvard.
And of the Enlightenment. He mixes that together with the class warfare rhetoric
of his Alinskyite Fabian Socialism. More Robespierre and Rousseau.
He's like a caricature of that.

[caddie]

"...has lost the ability to reason through common sense."

Absolutely. Common sense, based ultimately on immutable laws of logic or math, used to be passed on either formally in schools or informally as, well, 'common sense'.

Today's educators (sic) will have none of that.

Literally the entire day is spent indoctrinating kids with nonsense such as 'Diversity is Strength'. Whereas not ten percent of them can make or break the simplest logical argument, formally posed or informally posed.

They literally can not think themselves out of a paper bag.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well said. That 'Myth of Progress' done eat him up...

Check out how he and his allies use the word "historic" this and "historic" that. Like they're riding the History Train and the rest of us are just dung on the tracks.

Or, to put it another way, we (you and I, buddy) have no 'usable' history, and so in the long view of things, we don't even exist.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Just to clarify: by “he” I mean Obama, of course..

[sonic109]

I think we all need to send this article to our “representatives”Im serious Lets do it.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Spot on.
Without digressing on Edward Gibbon, the Enlightenment, and The Whig Interpretation of History, what they did to History, replacing it with Social Studies, was a deliberate scheme to dumb people down so they wouldn't know any History and would not be able to figure out what was going on with the Fabian Socialist social engineering. The Carnegie foundation and the Deweyites of Columbia Teachers College figure in that.

For the "medieval" contribution to liberty and constitutionalism (and Magna Carta) check out "In the Meadow That is Called Runnymede" from the Acton Institute. Obama must have missed this part at Columbia and Harvard while he was being brainwashed in scientism, positivism, and utopian Fabian Socialism.

[Cacique]

btt

[ModelBreaker]

Noone ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.

[Tunehead54]

4 am bump! ;-)

[neverdem]

Enemies are showing their hands. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[jonrick46]

I am so thankful that we don't have this fool for President:

Now we have this fool:

[dennisw]

VDH only gets better and better