Uncertain Uncertainty ("Postmodernism on its way tothe ashheap of history")

National Review Online ^ | 4/4/02 | Dave Kopel

[betty boop]

[Leonard] knows that only through the mechanism of identity politics can a historical figure be effectively discredited in the present muddle-headed culture. And Leonard wants to discredit Tolkien because his powerful morality play draws upon a construct that Leonard wants to deny, a construct in desperate need of deconstruction, one that he no doubt considers a simplistic, unforgiving, paternalistic and zero-sum myth --- the battle between good and evil that rages in every human breast.

Beautiful, beckett. Thanks. Peace and love, bb.

p.s.: Thanks for the link to Nietzsche. Most helpful. I gather Nietzsche would agree with Leonard, that the hated "construct" is indeed "simplistic, unforgiving, paternalistic and [a]zero-sum myth."

[betty boop]

...I believe that we are bound by the past only insofar as we choose to be so bound.

Dear P, I'm not sure this is sound, but I'd welcome a further elaboration of the idea. Personally, I don't see that we have a whole lot of "options" WRT a proper appraisal of the past -- that is, of history -- our own and that of the human race. I can't simply dismiss my parentage, for instance, or the happenstance that I was born in a certain place at a certain time; yet both dimensions have shaped my existence in critical ways that I had no choice about. It seems to me when we enter the world it's as if we were entering into a great steam of life that's been flowing long before we got here. It carries us along by its sheer force into an inchoate, uncertain future -- a future that does not end when we do, for the stream goes on after we leave it (e.g., when we die). To say that one can step back into past time and alter the course of the stream before we even entered it (e.g., before our birth in time), is difficult for me to understand. For if the past can be selective, "optional," as you seem to maintain, isn't that tantatount to saying that we can alter the course of the stream?

Don't know if this makes any sense. It's all just speculation anyway. All my very best -- bb.

[Dukie]

Just wish to voice my appreciation of all your thought provoking posts.

bb: the textbook which you reviewed gives plenty of evidence of why homeschooling is the greatest threat to the ever- further intrusive state. Such notions as embodied in the textbook indeed lead the student / reader to the conclusion that the rules - embodied in the Constitution - are sometimes inconvenient and must on occasions be sidestepped. And so we find ourselves well along the way to government by fiat.

Always the best to you, bb.

[betty boop]

...homeschooling is the greatest threat to the ever-further intrusive state. Such notions as embodied in the textbook indeed lead the student/reader to the conclusion that the rules - embodied in the Constitution - are sometimes inconvenient and must on occasions be sidestepped. And so we find ourselves well along the way to government by fiat.

Dukie, thanks for your kind thoughts. WRT the above, just some lines from Thomas Jefferson, on the subject of whether "ignorant people" can maintain their freedom:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information...." [Source: Private letter to Colonel Yancey, 1816] (Italics added to draw attention to the "can of worms" TJ is opening on this occasion).

Needless to say, the folks who do not like America much well know that commanding the sources (and resources) of mass (that is, public) education is the very ticket to lining up the "brave new world."

And, yes, these folks hate the idea of home schooling with every fiber of their being, because it is an insult to their sense of preeminent fitness to rule the rest of us. You know, it's that ol' "will to power thing" that's really being "challenged" and "compromised" here: They need absolute conformance of the public mind to their enlightened plans in order to carry out their vision for manifesting the Brave New World. (Which would be wholly subject to their judgment and power after its reification.)

So I gather the self-proclaimed mavens of "diversity" just can't stomach the "real thing" when they see it "up close and personal."

Somehow I think TJ wouldn't have a problem with home schooling, and I cite these lines as evidence:

"Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does [society's] right and duty extend? -- to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instructions, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these; we draw a line, but where? -- public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely. Nor is it necessary in the present case. It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be [publicly] educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father." [Source: "Plan for Elementary Schools," 1817]

The way I interpret these lines: TJ wouldn't have the least problem with home-schooling; especially if real parents of real children found it necessary, given the present desolation and dereliction of American public schools to educate Americans.

TJ, after all, was first an American. And then only secondarily (if he thought of himself that way, and I don't know that for a fact) as a "citizen of the world."

Thank you so much for writing, Dukie. It's such a pleasure to hear from you. best, bb.