conclusion:
“...What intelligence and innovation rely on above all is criticism and disputation. That is the nature of the thing. It should be what education is for. We cannot, must not, stop fighting for the right to disagree. It is appalling that it has become necessary to legislate to enforce this freedom on academic institutions that were once dedicated to free discussion. The imperatives that must be taught to the young have not changed since Plato’s day. Argue. Question. Disagree. Expose received ideas to rigorous interrogation. Express doubt when you are unpersuaded. Seek truth through endless dialogue. Certainly some mistakes will be made in the name of liberty, but they can only be corrected if we do not, literally, lose our minds in the name of safety. The lines by Dylan Thomas, which were intended to be about physical death, could just as easily be applied to the death of Reason:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Just like the fall of Rome - we the people are decadent and divided, with a rapidly decaying culture and being led by corrupt fascists that are consolidating their power daily.
This will not go back to “normal times”. This only goes forward into full fascism and the loss of everything.
Fun fact: the Vatican’s objections to Galileo were spot on the money. He had made correct observations, but the Vatican had also made correct refutals. Ironically, Cardinal Nicolas Di Cusa had already correctly supposed how to reconcile the apparent contradictions (and published them asserting that they represented Catholic thought): The universe was so massive that any point within the universe was the center of the universe.
Einstein came up with something which even more radically affirmed the ancient Catholic position, but which was ignored because it gave the win to the Catholic Church: that wherever an observer is IS the EXACT center of the universe, from that observer’s perspective.
God really did devise the universe so that the whole universe revolves around each of us. That’s pretty awesome.
Galileo, despite multiple warnings, persisted in declaring his (at the time) unproven theories to be fact, so he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to house arrest in his luxury apartment with all his equipment to further his research.
Personally, I do not believe that life as “returned to normal.”
In fact, things seem to be getting more and more bizarre and... unsettling, to say the least.
In Galileo’s day the power of the government was supported by the clerical hierarchy through the use of fear preached from the pulpit.
Today the power of the government is supported by the intelligentsia hierarchy through the use of fear promoted via the media.
There is some difference in that then the opinions of ordinary individuals holding forth in the alehouse or on the street corner were largely ignored. Now, the same sort of individual holding forth on social media may become influential enough to invite official suppression.
Ha Ha
Whatta laff
This thread devolves into a bunch of Catolico apologists regurgitating papal propaganda about how “The Church” (always capitalized) was Really Right and Galileo was just a confused old coot.
Cancel The Enlightenment! Let’s go back to Papal Infallibility and Monarchs picked by the Divine Right of Kings!
And just remember, the Inquisition was really a gentle little affair, the massacres of the Albigensians and the Huguenots was No Big Deal, and secretly, Jefferson was the Pope’s Emissary!!
Sorry. Made the last one up. But since the “Nation of Immigrants” crowd here makes crap up out of whole cloth, why can’t I?
Go home to Italy. Lotsa nice villas in Tuscany for cheap.
This has been a fascinating thread. Many excellent comments.
We have lived through a period of what would once have been the unthinkable suspension of basic freedoms: interventions by the state into personal life.
History repeating self by lesson not learned who you vote for means a lot but many never learn why.
Propaganda does work on to many
