So some of you knuckle heads didn't believe me when I introduced philosophy and philosophic questions in my government class, right? 

You cringed a bit when I mentioned the influential if not inconsistent Peter Singer and his stances on subjects such as abortion (killing babies even a month after they've been born and calling it abortion) and granting animals "human" rights (protecting animal lives even if the owners do not care for those animals - unlike the baby human animals), but you didn't think it important.  You thought he was a joke, but not a powerhouse as I had mentioned.

Further, many of you and your parents dismissed the power of philosophy especially as it shapes, from afar at times, policy and everyday life through the goverment institutions we all know and love.  "What does Plato, Hegel, and Singer have to do with our government," some of you would ask.

You would then notice me biting my lips bloody as I covered my eyes with both of my hands as I tried to pretend that I hadn't JUST answered your question in either my lecture or notes or both.

Notice the name at the bottom.

Now read this:

Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes

By Martin Roberts

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's parliament voiced its support on Wednesday for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has called for such rights for non-humans.

Parliament's environmental committee approved resolutions urging Spain to comply with the Great Apes Project, devised by scientists and philosophers who say our closest genetic relatives deserve rights hitherto limited to humans.

"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defense of our evolutionary comrades, which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," said Pedro Pozas, Spanish director of the Great Apes Project.

Spain may be better known abroad for bull-fighting than animal rights but the new measures are the latest move turning once-conservative Spain into a liberal trailblazer.

Spain did not legalize divorce until the 1980s, but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government has legalized gay marriage, reduced the influence of the Catholic Church in education and set up an Equality Ministry.

The new resolutions have cross-party or majority support and are expected to become law and the government is now committed to update the statute book within a year to outlaw harmful experiments on apes in Spain.

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening," Pozas said.

Keeping apes for circuses, television commercials or filming will also be forbidden and breaking the new laws will become an offence under Spain's penal code.

Keeping an estimated 315 apes in Spanish zoos will not be illegal, but supporters of the bill say conditions will need to improve drastically in 70 percent of establishments to comply with the new law.

Philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri founded the Great Ape Project in 1993, arguing that "non-human hominids" like chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.

(Reporting by Martin Roberts; Editing by Richard Williams)

Remember how I mentioned that you either believe that humans are special or you do not?  We are either large bags of chemicals or we are something special and possibly Divine?  We are either the most complex animals that have evolved to date and, therefore, very similar to all of the other animals on this planet or we are made in the image of God or gods and are on a completely different level than the rest of the universe?

There are ways to protect animals without putting them on the same level as humans, but, my gosh, what a statement by Spain!  Just like every other political movement in history, this is only the beginning.  Liberalism has spread like wildfire and continues to do so.

We conservatives should know that we are on the losing side of this struggle just like (pardon my romanticism) Leonidus, David Bowie, or (dare I say it) Socrates.

A Sort of Prelude:  I wasn't sure that I needed to spell this out, but I will anyway.  My arguement is not that forcing men to be fathers (and hopefully good fathers) is a bad thing.  When dealing with men, force is often needed even if the men are intelligent.  Men tend towards selfishness.  Having laws to force men back into the family is a necessary component of civilization, in my view.  This is essentially a problem of "freedom" that the sexual revolution has unleashed.  Men are now free (sexual and otherwise), but what kind of freedom is it when the children of these men are shackled by the fatherless family?

I've finally finished mulling over Plato's Lysis which, as I've written in an earlier blog, centers around the question "What is a friend?"  The dialogue is between Socrates and a group of young men or boys.  The two main interlocutors are Lysis and Menexenus. Hippothales, another young boy, asks Socrates for advice on how to entrap Lysis and make Lysis his lover.  Socrates, as he tries to help Hippothales, addresses Menexenus and Lysis both separately and together throughout the dialogue and thus demonstrates to Hippothales what is to be done to capture someone's love.

Toward the end of the dialogue two drunk angry men, sent by the boy's fathers, show up cursing in a foreign language.  Socrates leads a rebellion against the foreigners and, by extension, the boy's fathers.

The fathers, by sending the drunk servants, have to use force to coerce the boys away from a possible new friend (Socrates) that poses a threat to the family and, by virtue of obvious connections, the city. 

Socrates does not use force on the boys to keep them around him.  As a matter of fact he attacks their opinions time and time again.  He seemingly pushes them away in this manner and yet the boys remain.  Meanwhile, the father must use force via his slaves to reunite the family.  The strange and new attract the boys even as the strange and new put the boy's morals and ethics at risk (think of college professors or highschool teachers and freshmen).  The family must use a type of force to remain united.

 

On a similar note, a friend of mine and I were talking about the "men's rights" cases in Michigan.  For those unfamiliar with the case, it is/was being argued that, in the case of an accidental pregnancy, men should be able to have a choice as to whether they want the child to live or not (just as the mother does).  In cases where women decide to keep their unborn child then the man should have a legal way to opt out of the commitment to level the "rights" playing field. 

The point here is not whether this is right or wrong or whether it should be right or wrong. 

Notice that there is a problem with fatherhood.  Laws and force must be used for this institution to exist.  As the title of this blog suggests, fatherhood is against nature.  It is not natural.

Women have the children, women are equipped to feed the children, they stop menstruating so long as they are nurturing the baby, so on and so forth.  Further, if custody of the child must be determined between the two parents, our courts seem to take their cues from nature and apparently prefer that the child stay with the mother. 

So when we look at the nuclear family we can see its sub-familial components: children, mommy, and daddy.  Of the three, daddy isn't overtly a natural part of the formulation.  Of course his seed is needed, but the role of the father is essentially undetermined especially when we look at the relationship between father and mother and then, separately, father and son.  What I mean by pronouncing that the role is undertermined is that the father is not compelled by nature to feed the child, love the mother of his child, and so on.  If the door is left open, no pressure is placed on him and the man is given the option , he will leave more times than he stays.  It is bad according to our society's standards (at present at least), but it is also natural. 

A little clarification may be needed here.  By "leaving" I mean abandoning the family so that the mother and the child are left to fend for themselves whether the father is still part of the home or not.

The detached father in most cases may as well be the absent father.

It hardly has to be pointed out that in today's society men feel little pressure to stay with women that carry their children.  We have an entire societal system that does little more than frown when the father leaves the mother or forces the mother to leave him.  We have stopped forcing fathers to act as fathers.  Once we entered civilization and women could be taken care of by the state or by someone other than the father of her children, we opened the door to one of the most important inventions since the rule of law: fatherhood.

Technology has also helped.  Condoms, ru486 pills, and other birth control free up the libidos of our nation's horny.  Little thought is given to the rights of the child. 

When I use the term "child," I do not speak of aborting a child.  That is a lengthy topic that will have to wait.  I speak here of the children who are born and then subjected to one parent families because the father is no longer held accountable for his actions because the mother has become so selfish that her pride to raise her child on her own ignores the needs of that very same child.  The ego of both parents gets in the way of what is best for the child (I speak here of selfish parents and not of abused women and men).

Society has changed, but nature has not.

The mother in most cases is the nurturing part of the family that looks to the future.  She is apt to look to the future simply because she cares for someone other than herself.  She sacrifices her dreams and goals to help establish a foundation for her children so that they can reach their dreams and goals. 

The father, if he wanted access to sex, companionship, and an orderly home (his castle), was bound to the woman who helped to provide this for him.  Men, who naturally seek glory and honor, could be guaranteed a sort of immortality by staying at home and helping to raise and feed his children.  His 'lineage' would remind future ages, at least in his mind, of his existence.  The accomplishments could at least partially be credited to his actions as father.

This has all been done away with because we no longer see the natural weakness of the human condition.  The inventions of the myth of fatherhood must be reinstated.  However, myths are not highly regarded in our culture.  Within the new world of the positivists, that is, people who want absolute proof of the existence of a proposed idea or inclination, cannot believe in the nature of men and women because the foundation has been covered up under years and years of laws and fads and 'studies'.  Human nature and social conditioning are not so easily discernable.  To put it another way, when a doctor looks through the microscope he no longer sees Dan the heart patient, father, and brother, but only particular heart cells.  The patient becomes dehumanized.  If we can only believe in what we see and refuse to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with accurate myths then the gaps turn into societal pot holes that can badly damage us over time.

The sexual revolution gave men more freedom and power than they could ever have asked for.  Men leave not only their wives, but entire communities (!!!) for the lure of a new and exciting sex partner.  They do this because they are not forced by society, through laws and communal morals, to stay.  They are free to do as they wish which says nothing of their child's right to grow up with a father.  The once defender and coeducator is now an ego-centric, violent, sexual nomad and his absence breeds more of the same (the same seems to be true for elephants).  Meanwhile, the mother has to work two jobs to pay for the day care center that has taken her place because she has taken the man's place.

There is utter selfishness at the heart of most divorces.  There is a kernel of narcissism at the heart of every broken home.  This all can be laid at the feet of the men who are no longer forced by a stronger power to stay.

 

These days Lysis and Menexenus no longer have a wise old Socrates to keep them out past their bedtime.  Today instead of a philosopher they have gangs of other fatherless kids and/or the T.V. set to educate and form their opinions.  Inquiries no longer delve into Justice and Friendship, but settle to drugs, sex, esteem issues and desperate attempts at impressing friends (the often stand-in for the father).  The father is no longer concerned enough to find his kids and force them to come home at a decent hour or even to send drunk sevants after his kids.  No one listens to dad anymore and hes not around to care.   Mom is though, and the thankless job is all hers.

Jean Jacques Rousseau is very convincing when he says that women are the pillar of society because they domesticate their men and convert the men's need for immortality, sex and honor (re:fame) into a need for procreation and the esteem of his family.

It seems that some of us are closer to the truth when we are stung with confusion than when we claim to know.

At least when we are confused we are open to all possibilities.  When we think we know we are often closed to any possibility but one.

The god Apollo through his mouthpiece, the Oracle of Delphi, tells Socrates' friend that Socrates is the wisest man in Athens.  After this is reported to the then scientist Socrates, he begins to doubt the judgement.

An all powerful god has reported a fact and the reciever of this fact doubts the message.  To doubt the message of a god is to doubt the power and abilities of that god or to doubt the god himself. 

Of course, the pre-Socratic Socrates, that is to say, the scientific Socrates and not the philosophic Socrates may not have believed in God or gods.  This "fantastic" and "incredible" decree was spoken by an Oracle, but speaks to Socrates' ego and seems to point to something further than himself.  The god seems to challenge Socrates' reason.

Why would Apollo have chosen Socrates, after all?  He was just another sophist?!  He was just another person who questioned the whole and looked beneath the earth and above the clouds for answers.  He was  an Athenian scientist. 

With his head full of wonder, Socrates set out to prove this "god" wrong by finding someone who is wiser than him.  Athens, being the pinnacle of civilaztion, would be full of wise people.  He went to the Athenian market and found people who seemed to know things. 

Artists, politicians, artisans, sophists and so on were interviewed by Socrates' sharp wit. He soon discovered that these "experts" surely knew about their field.  However, when the questions that he asked led to higher or different levels of knowledge Socrates found that they guessed as they pretended to know.  They were ignorant while they pretended to be wise.  This made them unwise.

They knew their place found within the whole, but were ignorant of the whole.  They pretended that their piece of the whole was the whole or was at least the most important part of the whole.  "How can they know that their knowledge is THE knowledge unless they know where in the whole of things their knowledge belongs?" Socrates might have asked from time to time.

As their ignorance surfaced, Socrates saw that he was wiser than those people he spoke to because they pretended to know, and did not really know, while he knew that he did not know.  He knew this by the simple fact that a god had declared him to be the wisest while he doubted the Decree.  The fact that he searched for an answer revealed his ignorance.

Actually, the very fact that Socrates doubted the god's decree seemed to prove the god correct.  As Socrates attempted to be impious by doubting the word of God he was proving God correct the entire way.  And yet, he could not know if he was the wisest until he had interviewed everyone who might be wiser than him.  Socrates' radical doubt would not allow him to interview A FEW people to assure him that the god's decree was correct.  He had to interview everyone. 

Socrates's doubt compelled him to continue his questioning until he had proven the god to be either right or wrong.  The more he questioned the more sure he was in his answer, but that nagging doubt would not allow him to stop his questioning until the job had been completed.

Socrates also inadvertently showed himself to be pious by showing how weak human reason is as it attempted to challenge the gods.

By asking his questions, Socrates is assuming, incorrectly it seems, that Apollo had incorrectly identified him as the wisest of the wise.  The more he questioned the more he proved his doubt to be unfounded and Apollo to be correct.  But his doubt insisted that he continue his quest until a true aswer had been reached.  While attempting to prove God wrong he continued to prove God right.  By attempting to act impiously he continued to give credence to piety.  By the use of his keen reasoning abilities, Socrates showed the weakness of reason.  Socrates was a failure and a success at the same time.

Reason would seem to point to the fact that Socrates was not pious and yet all of the evidence points, argueably, in the opposite direction.  No final answer can be attained by the use of reason.  It seems that only faith, one way or another, can give that final answer to the Socratic quest.

Reason can investigate a role within the whole, but it seems that it cannot investigate the whole.  For it to investigate the whole it would have to step outside of the whole for a safe vantage point.  This seems to be impossible.  Reason seems to devour itself or dilute itself as it investigates itself.  Reason then reveals to itself how limited it is within this "whole."   As stated in another post, this usually leads to what the Geico caveman mentions as an "existential meltdown."

Socrates did not meltdown however.  He converted from a scientist/sophist to a pious philosopher.  A philosopher who investigates, but a philosopher who also leaves well enough alone as he investigate.  He cannot replace other people's opinions with knowledge because he doesn't possess true and permanent knowledge himself. 

He replaces bad opinions with better ones and he speaks to the level his audience requires of him.

Socrates can investigate pieces of the whole, but cannot get outside of the whole to investigate it.  He is ignorant of the whole as the whole (even the existence of a whole), but is open to the possibility of a whole. Socrates becomes a philosopher who still doubts the god's existence, but since he has no answers of his own cannot fully argue against the gods just as he cannot fully argue for the gods. Socrates, through Apollo's decree and his own doubt, has become as pious as a philosopher can be.

quote Originally Posted by priority0ne

we've abandoned generations of cultural wisdom. I think this wisdom was worked out long ago (maybe not consciously) with aim of long term happiness. We've abandoned it and now we are paying the price.

Some would say that "tradition" is the accumulated result of the trial and error of our forefathers. Many traditions are not scientifically filtered or researched and thus are discounted as an unintelligent "that's the way we've always done it" approach.

Going along with the comment about today being all about "me me me me me me," we then seem to want to go along with only those things that are verified or verifiable. What is lost is the notion that you can't reproduce 100 years of trial and error with 6 months of "experimentation."

That's certainly not to say that all traditions should be permanent. Socrates was fond of walking around Athens and interviewing those who thought they knew something. Eventually his evaluation showed that they did know a little something, but not as much as they thought they knew.

Plato, who wrote the dialogs that starred Socrates (and from which we've learned most about Socrates), seemed to agree with Tradition. Plato, through his writings, points back to Socrates and his life. Plato did not point to himself, or at least not in an obvious manner.

Plato said horrible, radical, and very challenging things in his dialogs, but they were usually hidden so as not to disturb those who didn't need to be disturbed.

It seems that in looking for and prizing freedom above all else, we're leading ourselves to a very selfish society. We can't pay attention to the radical things others are saying because we're too self involved.

Since those Truths (God, family comes first, always act virtuously, do unto others, the Founders were noble men) that were formerly believed by previous generations have been shown to be either incomplete or inaccessible to our short attention spans, our society has thrown tradition overboard (the good and the bad) in the name of "creating" a tradition of non tradition.

I'm sure you can see the problems that arise when an approach of (attempted) absolute individual freedom is married to a tradition of non tradition.

quote Originally Posted by catluver

Huh?

You are blaming your divorce on the government?

Are you saying that society or its manifestation through the government has no bearing on what we do in our daily lives? Does government not educate its citizens through the laws it chooses to pass and/or enforce?

Isn't the enforcement of a simple speed limit a moral choice that the people in the government choose to act upon?

Are laws not divinely moral, not to mention divine in origin, if they really do represent the will of the people in general?

quote Originally Posted by Jeni-CD

The Govt has made it too easy to get a divorce.

Way to easy.

I was going to prevent mine due to the fact the only problem we really had was she is immature (we have 2 kids) and doesn't understand the concept of placing your family before yourself but I found it to be a lost cause.

It's sad for my kids, for me and even for her because she will eventually realize what she did to everyone.

My political hero (which is not the same as my overall hero) Ronald Reagan helped to make divorce easier in California when he was governor there.

Divorce destroys a "whole" that is at once greater that the individuals in that family and more fragile than the individuals in that family.

You can refer to a family down the street as "the Basses", but once the parents divorce "the Basses" die and a bunch of individuals take the place of that larger entity. I mention the parents because the children rarely, if ever, get a say in the issue. They are part of the family and yet "the strong" overpower "the weak" in the act of the divorce (ie. Might Makes Right). In most cases, it is truly a selfish act. While not all selfish acts are bad, these seem to be. I'm sure you can see that it is essentially a type of suicide.

A death occurs and it should be mourned.

I'm sorry for your loss.

quote Originally Posted by Parafly9

I think that's the big thing. A lot of people will say that; 50 - 100 years ago it wasn't "acceptable" to get divorced and that a lot of women & men stayed in bad marriages.

A "bad" marriage by today's standards was not necessarily a "bad" marriage back then. A "bad" (by today's standards) marriage back then could have produced a "good" family. Marriage and family are not necessarily evaluated by the same rubric.

I largely agree with what you said and I would change the view of the issue just a little bit.

50-100 years ago it seems that giving in to your selfish wants (not to say "needs") wasn't "acceptable." A marriage that is considered "bad" today might be one in which the individuals in the marriage aren't allowed to be "who they are." Little notice is given to the fact that they are no longer "who they were" when they get married. Who they are as individuals has been radically changed. It seems impossible to be an "individual" and be faithfully married at the same time.

Today, it is acceptable to be selfish. As a matter of fact, it seems that many people are commended on the heights of their selfishness these days.  However, I've heard that there is a way to be selfish and pointed towards "the good" at the same time.

In the Garden of Eden Adam was allowed to name all of the animals as they walked before him. On the sixth day God created the animals, but it was man who named them.

By naming animals Adam sought to separate them from the rest of the universe. By naming animals Adam sought to know them as well. It can be easily imagined that a person names a thing only when that thing has some use to the namer. Adam saw an entire Garden in front of him, but only sought to name the animals. Adam must have been at ease with his ignorance of the other objects in the Garden.

We name things that have a practicality and are somehow applicable to our lives. We put into use these names and seek to establish an order with them. With order come the rules for that order. With these rules comes the hierarchy of the rules so that one is above the rest.

These days we have people who wish to see every action, punishment, and reward codified into law, that is to say, named. If it is not named in law then it may as well not exist. When thought of in this manner, laws seem to be used to "get the herd moving" in the right direction. The need to put into law the proper ways leads to an attempt to control, as much as possible, the actions of others (if controlling thoughts were also a possibility then laws would be needed for those as well-ie. hate crimes).

Just like in 2nd grade, being able to name a friend "cool" or a foe "doo doo head" gave the speaker a sort of control over the person being named. This control may not actually manipulate the actions of this other, but it at least allowed us to categorize the other as essentially useful or not useful. The other is now a thing. He has been dehumanized and, ultimately, subjectified.

This need that positivists have to name all the good/bad actions that people can take and name all of the punishments/rewards that they will receive if those actions are or are not taken is antithetical to what the Founders intended. It also acts to force out tradition as parallel means to social control.

The Founders believed that citizens should enjoy a well ordered and well informed liberty, but they did not name every single liberty citizens could or could not have. Even in the Declaration it is written that "among these Rights..." How could the Founders have named every single Right?

They had no need to. To name all things in a category is to constrain yourself in several ways. First, if a Right is not named then it does not exist if we assume this "naming=existing" to be correct. Second, if a Right is named it must be constantly revised according to current understanding. Why? Because a Truth, any Truth, cannot be confined by language. Once you describe a Truth with words that Truth can be misunderstood or words will otherwise fail in the attempt to become that Truth. By attempting to make a map as big as the thing you are mapping, so to speak, you act in a manner contrary to that Truth. Description of Rights or Truth must necessarily summarize (and not become) that Right or Truth. The Founders knew this. Positivists do not.

That brings us to one of the bigger differences between the Founders and todays positivists and many libertarians, if I my add. The Founders had a language that was connected to Nature and Natures God whereas todays positivists do not. Without the anchoring of the positivists language to something outside of itself, it (the positivists language) becomes simply self referential and ultimately cut off from a universe and humanity that it looked to name, that is to say, categorize and conquer.

Does an anchor exist for them? God? Not any more. God, as you know, isnt allowed into our governmental language and cannot be fully named as The God. Science? Maybe, but science cannot admit or experiment on and prove the existence of morals as morals. How long will a society last without morals? Popular opinion? No, people are too easily swayed and opinions are no longer well thought out enough to be respected (Read Plato's Thaetetus for the impossibility of knowledge and the necessityof good solid opinions).

Adam needed to bring order to chaos by naming the animals, but probably recognized that an unknowable chaos still existed. He did, after all, separate animals into different names which implies multitude which, of course, is the opposite of unity (ie. absolute order). Adam did not try to name everything that he came across and God did not command him to do so.

Unlike Adam, the positivists of today that find the need to name all things will likely discover a need to name their trek, as it stands today, a "failure." Adam only had animals to name. Positivists want to name, and hence know to one degree or another all human actions. By knowing them they also seek to control those actions.

This circular naming and knowing leads to the naming and knowing of all things, that is to say, of all knowable (ie. human) things. To know all things is to place before humans all of the universe, which, would include the one doing the "naming."  If this person subtracts himself from the universe then the universe is incomplete or this person s God. Since the human issues cannot be separated from the universe, the positivist must also be an expert of himself.  He must know the human as a human. That is to say, he must know both what a human can know and what a human cannot know. Here lies the problem.

The positivist can never come to know his own ignorance because he only names those things he knows and not those things he does not or cannot know.  Thus, can never fully examine himself, never mind other people. If he cannot know himself or others fully, the positivist is left prone in a sticky web of vague "facts " that he can no longer discern from vague "opinions."

"Science must thus be concerned with what is eternal, definite and through and through intelligible, and with nothing else." Alfred Taylor 1924

A friend recently posted the above quote.

I would reply with another quote by Thomas Aquinas "We should love both those opinions we follow and thsoe whose opinions we reject. For both have applied themselves to the quest for truth, and both have helped us in it."

What I mean to say is that if science truly is concerned with what is eternal then it should be concerned with that filter which all eternal things must necessarily flow through.  The human being (or "becoming" as a friend of mine likes to say) must be understood as the beginnings of all intelligible thought.  That is not to say that Truth is necessarily relative or that there is no Truth since we all harbor different perceptions of what those eternal things are.  It is meant to suggest, however, that if we are concerned with Truth or eternal things we should also be concerned with their necessary manifestation in the temporal.  "Becoming" thus becomes an important aspect of the search for "Truth."

Opinions are necessary for the uncovering or climbing towards Truth or the eternal.  Understanding that there is a chasm, as the story of Jacob's ladder denotes, between us and the eternal becomes the vehicle for our ability to traverse or at least come to know the existence of that chasm.  Knowledge of our distance from God, let's say, helps to close that gap in one way or another.

Socrates brought philosophy down or, rather, founded political philosophy because the human "thing" is the most important "thing" to contemplate.  Without understanding our weaknesses and the limits of reason then all attempts to describe or explore the eternal can't really be trusted.

How can one build a foundation for philosophy or science by looking to opinions as opposed to Truth? 

I would put my (already failed) answer thusly...If I ask you to think of a "shirt" you will necessarily have to assign  characteristics to this shirt that are not "shirt" characteristics.  Shirts must be of a material and of a color and of a shape.  A simply white cotton shirt is nothing but cotton...so is it also a shirt?  We combine the two ideas and call the object a "cotton shirt", but can we ever make something that is simply just a "shirt"? 

Truth and the eternal likely manifest themselves in the temporal as opinions just as Justice tends to manifest itself in cities as "laws" or "rules".  The immaterial must be viewed through its manifestation in the material. 

The circle will always be a circle, but it must be drawn or be made out of something other than "circle-ness".

Science, that guardian of the eternal and valueless, must necessarily partake in (or be founded upon) values and opinions since humans seem to exist as walking, talking opinions.   Science must manifest itself in the material mind of the scientist just as the circle or definition of a circle must exist in material.

Lastly, since all materials change then any manifestation of  the "eternal" in the material world cannot produce a permanent "eternal."  Yet, if we are careful to study the human "thing" in its myriad incarnations we might be able to intuit the possible existence of the human "thing".  Even wrong theories about the human "thing" can help in our attempt to ascend beyond mere opinion. 

Shadows of the eternal may be able to give us just as much information about the eternal as the blinding light that produces them.

Soren Kierkegaard believed that there were many ways for God to speak to each of us.  However, because God reveals himself to me as a burning bush and to you as a voice in your head at night it would be hard for me to relay my experience to you and your experience to me.

I could say "Hey, Ricky.  God spoke to me as a burning bush today."  But since it was my experience and my mind and my life and my fears and hopes, I could never accurately or truly explain to you what happened.  Even if you were there with me we would have similar experiences, but because of differences as simple as the fact that I'm your older brother and you have been to places I haven't in the world we could never see the same thing.  We would experience the same burning bush similarly, but not exactly the same.  In other words, we'd essentially occupy different worlds at the same time.

The only way for a subjective Truth to become known to other is if we are exactly the same person and have the same experience and notice the same details and think the same thoughts about the experience.  

Kierkegaard's views put a huge canyon in between you and every other person at all times.  We all live on the same planet, but we experience it in so many different ways that it might as well be 3 billion different "earths".

Kierkegaard says that you don't notice how distant even your closest loved one is until you start looking very closely at your life and the tiniest of details in that life.  Since details make up the bigger picture, the bigger picture changes as you look at the small details.  The simple act of looking at your life and judging it changes everything about it.

Kierkegaard's God does this (puts a huge gap between even the closest of people) so that you'll eventually reach what Soren calls an "existential crisis".  This means that the more you look at your life and notice how no one will ever truly know "you", the more alone you feel.  Eventually this leads you to think about death.  Death is something that we can only experience completely alone.  Even if I die in a bus crash with 100 others, I experience my death only and not theirs.  So when I start feeling completely alone because no one else will ever know my thoughts, experiences, dreams and, basically, any portion of my reality, I will be forced to make a decision...the most important decision of my life...

The question that needs to be addressed is: Am I really alone or is there a God out there who cares for me?  Either (a) I decide that the universe is empty and I am alone...which means there is no God and no Truth and no inherent meaning (which means I can start acting 'badly' because there is no God to punish me...There is no such thing as Good or Bad because God does not exist) or (b) I put my faith in God (just like Abraham did when God asked him to kill/sacrifice  his only son, Isaac) and hope that God will bring me through even the darkest days in my life.

So, we look at our lives, notice that we are truly alone and decide to either believe in God or believe that there is nothing and no one that really knows us...maybe not even ourselves.  Both choices are "insane" from an outsider's point of view.  Either way, you are crazy or at least seem to be.  In a way, when you look at your life existentially, you kill yourself only to create a new and more "aware" you."

So I was thinking back over the funerals, weddings, and other celebratory gatherings where people come together to remember the lives that were and the possibilities that may lie ahead and something struck me.  For the most part, these events involve alcohol in one sense or another.  Toasts hang in the air as the clink of glasses or clunk of plastic cups ferry both words and sentiments to the ether.

In celebrating and drinking we also do a sort of mass "self forgetting" that helps to bond friend, family, and acquaintance alike.  This forgetting tends to hide the barriers between "us", "me", "you" and "them". 

As we tell stories of how we knew the dearly departed or where we first met the new husband or wife we transport everybody back and stand as onlookers of an event.  We look from the same vantage point, a vantage which tends to erase old wounds or at least hide them for a while.

This new unified perspective intoxicates the soul as the alcohol intoxicates the body and mind.  We see the drama of life being played out before us and, in our "sameness", we see, whether just or unjust, that we're all headed down the same path.  Whether you view life as a comedy or tragedy, the intoxication lifts the fog of daily living and reveals the deck of a ship that we're all passengers of.

And for a time, and maybe just a brief time, we've stolen something away from the universe.  Something that it can never get back.  For a moment or two, we learn again that forgetting can help us remember.

I came here when I was about 6 years old and still have memories of where I lived in Costa Rica.  I have gone back a half dozen times to visit my family down there and am still, at least partly, a "Tico."   I harbor no shame in this fact.  My foreign perspective allows me to appreciate, on many levels, the wonders of this country that elude many who were born here.

I am an immigrant. I mention this fact to properly frame the following comments:

As an immigrants, my mother, brother, sister and I all felt the sting of anti-immigrant sentiments.  As a kid I was constantly beat up...and I mean constantly...because of where I was born, my skin color and/or my accent. There were groups of guys in my lower middle class south Irving neighborhood that made it a point to seek me (and at times my brother, but I was the oldest which meant I was the one most in demand to be used as a punching bag) out and "inform" me of their superiority. Heck, I once had a girlfriend in early high school who's father, an adult mind you, did everything he could to get her to break up with me because of my "dirty skin." Even to this day, my mother, because she retains a pretty heavy accent, runs into racists comments.  My sister, because of her lighter skin, escaped much, but not all, of these growing pains.  She did, however, wonder aloud why she never received the cultural shocks that my brother and I got.

There are most certainly worse stories out there, however my point is that I do know of the lumps and bruises required when starting over in a new country. To be sure, the shadows that help hide racist and xenophobic tendancies have cast their darkness over me and my family's live on several occasions.

We did come here, however, legally. We are all legal citizens. My mother, especially, waited for years, jumped through all of the necessary bureaucratic hoops, and took the tests necessary to become an American.  Not a Costa Rican-American, but an American.

You will hardly find another person as irritated with the pro-illegal immigrantion protests (and let's call them what they are "pro-illegal" - ie. in support of breaking the established laws) than my mother, unless, of course, you talk to me. We are both irritated with the "white guilt" that seems to pervade this society. As hard as it is to believe, many people feel bad that America is number one. Many of you feel bad that you were, to paraphrase Al Gore concerning the prospects of being born to a rich family (America in this case), "lottery winners."

Don't feel this way, please.  We, none of us, should feel any more guilty about being born to a certain family or nation than we should feel guilty being born to a certain time.  Do the best you can with what you have...good or bad.  That is not, of course, a clarion call to abuse, neglect, or otherwise hurt immigrants.  It is only a call for clear thinking in this matter.  Those immigrant that come here through the proper channels should be celebrated for we all were once in their shoes.  It is the American way.  Do not, however, ignore law after law because of a need to make ammends for winning your "lottery."

As Socrates showed in "The Crito", to ignore one law is tantamount to ignoring them all.  He believed this even though it helped to bring about his death.  To bring it closer to home, Lincoln mentions in his Lyceum Address that he disagrees not with the abolishionist ideals, but with their call to break laws.  Again, the falling (read "breaking") of one law can only be taken as a pretext to the falling of them all.

Watch your televisions and you cannot help but see people who are not citizens of this country protesting a government that is not theirs being supported and, indeed, incited by these guilt-ridden American citizens. All this engergy expended in the name of "fixing" things.

How about this...why don't these illegal immigrants stay in their  own country and protest their own government? Let's do a cost-benefit analysis of where best to expend this energy: stay in your country and help yourselves and those weaker among you OR move to this country and only help yourselves. Back at home, the older, sick and younger suffer. There are entire towns in these central american countries (mostly Mexico, that I know of) that are devoid of working age males because they are all in the US.

By allowing these illegals into this country and offering them amnesty we have essentially guaranteed that no pressure will be placed on their home countries/government that they flee from. In fact, Mexico's  number 1 source of income is the money that illegals send back home (20 billion dollars a year) and ..2 is the oil industry. THE OIL INDUSTRY IS number 2!!!!

There are the various talking points, of course: illegals artificially depress wages, 29 percent of all men in prison are illegal immigrants, illegals don't have insurance for their cars (as I have known because of two separate wrecks), etc...

This is not racism or xenophobia that I speak of here. It is national sovereignty.

The illegal immigrant protest our government to influence the our laws. They cannot influence our government from within (in theory) because they do not have the right to vote nor should they.  This is not their government. They are simply guests that we have allowed to stay in our country. Now that we want to slow the flood coming across the border, they and their political supporters (read: demagogues) make claims to "rights" (there will be another post on this word "rights" in the ever so near future).

There are claims made that illegals have helped our economy; and they have. Their lower wages helps keep prices low in some sectors of the economy. But we are not simply taking from them without giving anything, this is not a parasitic relationship with the big bad US sucking the lifeblood out of the illegal immigrants. As mentioned before, money from the US is the #1 source of income for Mexico.  Let's also not forget that we do not force them to come to this country. The risks they take are ultimately of their own free will.

There are, however, two big forces at work here: (1) the pushing action of a poor Mexicn economy and (2) the pulling force of higher wages in the US.

To repeat, if they were to stay in their own country and protest their own governments something could be done about the economic and social issues in their own countries.  It would not be easy and surely tears and blood would be involved. A price would have to be paid, just as Americans and citizens of any other established country have cried and bled to better their respective homes.

As long as businesses keep offering (illegally) low wages and as long as we do not enforce the laws that are already on the books nothing will improve. A flood of illegals will wash over the border the second it is announced that amnesty will be given to any illegal immigrant in this country. In future years, those here illegally will see that we've offered amnesty once and if protests and demagogury commences, it will surely happen again.

Just as I began this particular blog, sob stories abound of the bravery of those that cross the border in the name of higher wages, those that send money back to their families, and those that simply seek the free atmosphere of America. Those stories are powerful indeed.

If you'll recall a previous post on the tripartate soul that Plato formulated, the aforementioned stories speak to our spirited or 2nd layer of our soul. The stories are meant to over take our "heart" so that our heart will then ovetake our mind or "reason". Once the mind has been infiltrated by the heart, reason and rationality leave the captain's chair. The irrationality of the heart then commands the apetites as well as the mind. I should hardly mention that this is a dangerous situation.

In the same way, stories of struggle and heroism command the imagination. The heart shows a "What if it were me?" scenario that the mind buys into. People then start to believe the world is one way without fully investigating whether it really is or not. Most of these illegal immigrants are brave, to be sure, but they are also illegal. Let us not forget the facts.

We need to enforce the laws without being pulled into a dreamland commanded by the heart. If it is in the best interest of this country to do away with our present laws then it must be the citizens and their representatives who should make that decision. The decision should as rational as possible. It should be a well thought out decision made, first and foremost, to ensure the health of American citizens and other people second.  If we can't take care of ourselves, how in the world will we take care of any immigrants what so ever?

*I'm waiting now for my first obligatory "you're a traitor to your own kind" remark..Also, I know that these comments will hardly clear anything up.  It is more a framework for a better conversation than a be all end all solution to the issue at hand.

(Note: I will be using mind/soul synonymously and heart/spirit synonymously.)

What was Carol Decker (yes I had to look that up) of T'Pau asking from us in the early 1990's when she sang the words "give a little bit of heart and soul"? After all, Carol didn't ask for onlyf "a little bit of heart." For some reason, she also needed some soul. Soul is necessary. Mentioning both heart and soul implies that they are not the same thing. They are different and have their own characteristics. Later in the song she does, after all, ask that her lover give a sign because she has a "need to know" about their situation. Heart/spirit and soul/mind are both necessary.

Let's go ahead and address these things that we speak of: heart and soul.

The Greeks had three main words for love: agape, eros, and philias. Agape is a pure sort of love or a love of the soul. Eros is, of course, closely related to our word "lust". Philias is a practical love or a love that is concerned with benefit and usually associated with "friends".

In today's terms we use "heart" to signify, depending on meaning, some sort of attachment that approaches a sort of combination between agape and phillias. A love that is a combination of love of the similar, love of the beneficial, and love of the soul. Rarely do we associate "heart" with an erotic attraction. Even the saying "Have a heart" requests the subject to give in to his feeling a bit and not to be aroused.

Soul is a bit easier. We tend to put mind and soul together. Mind seems to be the accumulation of data and experiences that has been attached to the conscious. The Greek term for soul, psyche, seems to confirm that mind and soul are similar. Certainly, the Greek psyche was a bit deeper. (However, science, that basterd child of philosophy, has destroyed any conception of soul, but has kept mind.)

Plato, at least, said that there are three parts to the soul. We'll call the lowest level the appetite, the middle layer the spirit (or what might translate as heart or inspiration), and the highest part we'll call the mind.

How might a person act if the lowest part of this three piece soul ran things? If the appetite were in charge it would enslave the two other parts, the heart and the mind, to do its bidding. The appetite would be 'inspired' to think of ways, maybe creative ways, to satiate its various hungers. Appetite in this case does not only mean food hunger. The appetites basically represent all of our animalistic urges: sex, hunger, feeling good, and so on. There is a role for this layer of the soul, to be sure, but that role is not to rule the whole of the body. Someone with this part of their soul ruling their lives would be in an eternal masturbation. That is to say, everything would be about the experience and not necessarily about the repercussions of that experience. This person might love to eat food and then regret it or love to have sex, but regret the act afterwards. They want the experience of giving the body pleasure. Once the body had been pleased it fades away into the darkness only to allow the mind to take over. Once the mind sees what it had been forced to do, guilt or anger or regret sets in. Of course, later, when the appetites grow once more the weak willed mind falls again to the appetite and the whole thing happens over and over and over.

If the spirit or heart is in charge you have an equally unstable situation. The spirit is sort of like an engine. Engines make things move. Engines, if it were up to them, would run 100 percent at all times. With the appetite or mind in charge the engine/spirit gladly gives movement to their wishes. When it is in charge, however, it just goes without thinking about where it is going. Those that have the spirit/heart in charge tend to overreact to situations or "give it their all" in all situations and never pick and choose where their energy is best spent. These people are great followers. I mean no offense by this, but I tend to think of football players or army grunts as having this layer of the soul in charge.

If the mind is in charge you have a rational human being. A person who will eat if it is appropriate or get emotionally attached to the appropriate person. These people will think before they act. When reason is the ruler of the soul all is as it should be and as nature intended. We do not act like animals nor do we act like mindless over caffeinated football players just before a game. Of course, none of us possesses only one part of this tripartate soul. We are different mixtures of each layer.

To return to the issue, some people today believe that there are things of the "heart" and then there are things of the "mind." What these people miss is that the things of the "heart" do not reside in the organ "heart", they reside in the "heart" of the mind; both heart and soul reside in the mind.

I like to think T'Pau understood that if only heart were given then rationality would fly out the window. The spirit would over take the mind and all hell would break loose. Plato might say this is the reason people sob for days or months after the break up of an important relationship. The spirit has taken over the rationality of the mind. The song "Heart and Soul" seems to be about a last ditch effort of the mind to allow the heart to beg for the return of a loved one. The well balanced mind understands that love is necessary. It allows the heart to do what it does, but it can only abdicate so much of its power before the emotional state of the heart colors the mind's thoughts.

Some, largely joking, comment that there should be a democracy of the soul where all parts have equal say. That is as ridiculous as trying to reason with a two year old. T'Pau says that there is a "politics of life...yeah". Politics is not the same as democracy. Politics is allowing the actions necessary for the good to float to the top and the worthless to fall to the bottom. Politics is the arranging of values. Arranging the values of the soul can be done through the appetite, heart, or mind. So there are three different "internal" political arrangements to match the three different parts of the soul.

Just to make the point clear, the heart can't really think on its own. It isn't necessarily subservient to the mind. The heart can inform the mind when it has gone too far or when it needs to stop being so analytical, but the heart cannot think clearly. This is not its job.

Some may protest that I look to eradicate the apetite and the spirit. I certainly don't make that claim here. The mind has its limited and spefici job as well. Needing to know is just as important as feeling. The unguided heart leads to many a problem. We've all, I'm sure, been victim to our own desired. The heart collaborates with the appetite and overwhelms the mind. The appetite then propels the heart to greater heights or greater and greater depths. Appetite in this case is a yearning for attention or a need to be loved by someone who is out of reach or at least should be.

The objects of the mind (books, for example) can help lead the heart away from calamity. The objects of the heart (friendship, for example) can make life softer and more enjoyable. The true miracle is when you get a balance within and without. To find that friend or lover that has a place in both the heart and mind is rare and to be cherished.

The mind, spirit, and appetites are all necessary for life within "the city". Having said that, each has its proper role. Unfortunately, too many of us exercise our hearts and appetites until we get into trouble. We then beg our minds to think of some way to make the situation better or we punish it for not doing its job correctly by leaning our heads down and pounding on the forehead with the palm of the hand and yelling something like "Think, damn it!"

Thanks T'Pau, I love you!!!!

From what I know, psychology, as a discipline, claims to be able, in the broadest sense, to understand the human mind.

Psychology, as much as any other organization of knowledge, makes claims to know what the proper limitations of the good/safe/normal mind or person are. Conversely, it names the problems of the mind with authority: schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, manic-depression, etc.

As a human discipline, though, it is tether to that which it claims to study. It is what it studies.

A thought project for clarification: a psychologist must be trained in the ways of psychology. A degree is needed. So the psychologist uses the human mind to study the human mind in order to gain knowledge on the human mind. It looks to the extremes, at times, to determine what the norm should look like and vice versa. Yet, the person doing this studying has not been studied. The proto-psychologist has not been deemed worthy by any one other than themselves. This person need only pay some money and pass the tests. So the proto-psychologist is just a normal person that takes classes to become an expert in those things of the human mind. I say normal person, but I cannot yet determine what normal is. I have to look to an expert who was also once normal and also once paid money to get the degree after tests have been passed. The problem is that no one is born a psychologist. Those that claim they were seem to suffer from what they will later term a delusion. So psychology is learned. It is learned from others. It is not natural, but nurtured, as it were, by the student. Because it is learned it is subject to the forces of bias, societal opinions, and politics. This is important and I'll mention why a little later.

Psychology as a science looks to turn the human mind into another force of nature. As a force of nature it can then be predicted and conquered. People of a type can then be understood and digested into nice little chapters or paragraphs in future textbooks.

Having said that, do all people who wish to become psychologists suffer from a disorder that makes them think that they can come to know the human mind? Will the science of psychology understand the people who wish to be psychologists?

Psychology also claims to be able, again in some degree, to point to a subjective norm. Not an absolute norm, of course, because that would mean that there are absolutes, or Truths, and psychology can't bear that cross just yet. I speak here of truths that hold well within a given context for a given group of people.

So psychology looks to some form of a norm to be able to judge the relative health of those that are being examined in one way or another. Since truth is relative then the norms are also relative. Usually the norms are relative to the society in which the norms are being observed. So psychology must defer to a host society. In other words, psychology must look to another (higher?) standard outside of itself.

Society then sets the norms that psychology looks to. Can there be leaders of social opinions that then determine the norms? Yes, I believe they are called politicians, musicians, artists, teachers and so on. So psychologists seem to be enslaved by society even though they appear to be in charge of or at least higher than (able to "fix") the members of the society they are enslaved to.

Conclusion (for now): Psychology suffers from at least two weaknesses. The first is the fact that there are not born any natural psychologists. They must be made through education. This leaves the door open for biases and poor communication of facts to the newer generation of psychologists. If anyone can become psychologist then they are the variable in the equation and the constant is the system of psychology. This system cannot make claims to judgement because it is a science. In the IS/OUGH dilemma, science concentrates on the IS and tends to ignore the OUGHT. This means that the system must be cleared of social bias which means the psychologist must also be cleaned of social bias as they are educated. This is problematic to say the least.

Second, psychology, because it is so enamored with relativity, is enslaved to the society in which it was either created or the society it is presently studying. Psychologists cannot appear to make judgements about entire societies if it is to seem like a real science, that is, if it is to seem like a detached discipline that does not interfere with its subjects, its white mice.

Lastly, a science that claims to know, but comes closer to issuing dogma that evolves as the years pass looks more like a religion to me than a science.

Please let me know where I am wrong as I am sure I may have assumed too much in certain areas...

Choruses from the Rock

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?


T.S. Eliot is the only post-modern that I can think of at the moment that I respect (not that he'd care). His kind seem to be men and women who are determined to be lost, but nobly so. They seem to want to be lost and are graceful about it. They are almost pious about it. When I say this I think of the first layer of Hell in Dante's divine comedy.

I love cliches. They are so charged with philosophic meaning and yet thrown about as if they were as valuable as monopoly money. I speak specifically of the phrase "Everything happens for a reason."

"Everything happens for a reason." Ugh, what a trite and tired way to say that you have no control over your own life. Rather, that you choose not to weigh the actions of your life. Hegel would be proud.

Take an action, any action, and whether you succeed or fail you can always say "It happened for a reason." It feels good to say it. Ask a girl out and get shot down. Well, it happened for a reason. If she says yes instead, yet again, it happened for a reason.

People that overuse this phrase probably feel pious and self assured that all actions are out of our hands. Someone or something else is in charge and we trust that authority. They are responsible for our successes and failure, not us.

When we try to succeed, but fail we've actually succeeded and mapped out a little bit more of "the plan." Confusing isn't it? It matters not whether we give credit to God, Nature or Shiva. The plan exists! The plan controls us. Like a train speeding down its inescapable tracks our lives are fatal or fated towards an end.

The little nugget that most who subscribe to this "philosophy" never dig deep enough to discover is that both good and evil are done away with when "it happened for a reason" is called into service.

One might muse, for example, "Sure, Hitler was a horrible person, but without him and WWII the US may not be the economic and military power it is today. Millions upon millions suffered, but suffering is just a fact of life. It all happened for a reason."

Even the evil actions of men are done for the betterment of all mankind. The good that is often done decays with the bones of men, but the evil propels society further than it could have without the vile action. Conflicts force progress. All the while: it all happens for a reason.

Let's not forget the lesser evils that somehow produce a greater good. Temptation, that seductive flirt, draws people into her cloak of secrecy. Families break apart, friendships abruptly end, sins of fathers haunt their sons, decisive actions are aborted and all that these subscribers of an impotent position can mutter is "it must have happened for a reason." WHAT A GREAT SITUATION TO BE IN!!!!

That convincing temptress whispers to the lower portion of our souls, "It feels so good, it's gotta be right." Coupled with our lovable cliche, temptation induces a blissful and seemingly benign drunkenness. Cheat on your girlfriend? You wouldn't feel a need if you really loved her, right? If she finds out and stays with you then "it" happened for a reason. If she leaves you then things weren't meant to be anyway and, again, "it" happened for a reason. Whether you succeed or fail you've produced a good! The results happened for a reason and you were an integral part of that dynamic.

Do you understand??? We've had it all wrong for so long. If you do good, a good results. If you do bad, a good is still produced. So what does this have to do with philosophy?

G.W.F. Hegel was a German/Prussian philosopher. Hegel proposed that he had found the answer to the philosophic problem. The problem: the tension between (pick one) Being and becoming, faith and reason, or nature and humanity. The solution: God works through History via conflicts.

Some background, first: Being is the permanent Truth. Being is an absolute or the perfection of a thing. Justice, for example, shows up in different ways at different times in different cultures, but all these lesser forms of "justice" points to or participates in (the Being of) "Justice." Becoming, lower case "b", is the various material representations of things. We humans are "becoming" because we are constantly evolving and striving to find our final selves. Being is permanent and becoming evolves and never ceases to change.

Hegel looked back through history and saw that progress, through conflict, brought about better and better thoughts/nations/inventions; better everything. He came up with a dialectic system in which a thesis (a truth) and an antithesis (a barrier to or another version of the truth) came into conflict. When the conflict was resolved a synthesis formed from the two previous participants.

History seemed to be subject to this systematic and positive understanding of change. Groups within a nation (Democrats and Republicans) would have competing understandings of what was "good" for the whole. They would fight it out or have elections and the resolution would be a step in the evolutionary path to a better whole. These resolutions would inch civilization as a whole toward a better future. Eventually we would reach the end of History where further evolution was impossible. The best laws for an enlightened society would have already been developed or discovered and all that was needed was a large bureaucracy to administer the wise laws.

One of our esteemed presidents, Woodrow Wilson, completely accepted this approach to understanding history. The Civil War was necessary on several levels for Wilson. Historically, it represented the last vestiges of a bygone era. The new era, larger federal government and the industrialized North, would have to exterminate the old era through war. The winner succeeded because God had a plan for them. Societal evolution needed its sacrifices on the alter of the battle field. Once the North won, its progressive ways could spread unimpeded through out the South. The South would be converted to the ways of the North. Another way of putting this was that "it happened for a (R)eason."

What this understanding of history necessarily admits is that both good and evil produce an absolute good, assuming that progress toward the end of history is accepted as a good. Of course, when you accept God as the promulgator of all conflicts as He works his plan, one cannot but be a proud and confident Hegelian Historicist.

Everything happens for a Divine Reason. Who are we to look into the why's and how's of it all. Just accept it.

War and peace are both good. Genocide and procreation are both good. Nazis and democrats are both good. Good and evil are both good. God and Satan are both good.

So when you are met with a moral dilemma in the future just lay back and relax. History and Hegel have already figured things out for you. Whatever you choose to do, whether it's giving in to temptation or embracing your moral stance, "it's all good" because "everything happens for a reason." Don't worry about your petty morals. Don't expend too much energy writing up a cost benefit analysis of your whoring ways.

Don't bother worrying at all, because the line between good and evil has been dissolved with the help of a stupid little cliche and a dead white German philosopher.

Upon further reading it has been demonstrated that Machiavelli uses Livy to establish a fictitious golden age of Rome. Fictitious in that Machiavelli only includes as much of Roman history mentioned by Livy as will prove certain points advocated by Machiavelli. Equivocational history may be a good term for what Machiavelli does.

So Machiavelli looks to the past to establish the standard for the here and now (there and then). He looks to the Roman Republic, by way of Livy and his chronicles of Rome, to show the princes of his time what needs to be done to fend off the Papal powers as well as the French manipulations of the Italian peninsula. Machiavelli appears as a servant to spread a message that he claims to be new and different. Machiavelli also denounces unarmed prophets WHILE being an unarmed prophet himself. He denounces them as he speaks to armed prophets.

So Machiavelli borrows the arms of Livy, by way of his history of Rome, and the princes of the day, by way of attempting to persuade them to take a certain action, in an attempt to establish new ways.

It might occur at this point that Machivelli seems to follow, or at least sounds like, another unarmed prophet: Jesus.

(I speak here in Machiavellian terms)Jesus borrows the "arms" of the Old Testament in much the same way Machiavelli borrows Livy. Jesus was unarmed, but claimed to have powers and claimed to be "the way" or "the new way" as did Machiavelli in the preface to the Prince. Machiavelli sees how Jesus, the unarmed prophet, eventually crossed political and territorial boundaries because of the strength of his message. Machiavelli also lays claim to a strong message. It is said that on his deathbed Machiavelli said that he cared more for Italy than he did for his own soul. It is also claimed that he said that he'd rather burn in Hell and speak with the old philosophers than to go to heaven to be with the saints.  This, as far as I know, was never mentioned in his writings.

Machiavelli seems to "borrow" Jesus' weapons so that he can spread his "new way" just as Jesus did. Machiavelli, then, seems to go against his claim that unarmed prophets are weaker than armed ones. The right unarmed prophet can establish a new order that armed prophets will follow.

However, the problem that must be met before anything can happen is the problem of the presently armed prophets that follow the previous unarmed prophet. So it seems that the Author of the "new way" must present himself as a servant of the armed prophets in order to borrow their arms to establish the "new way" and erect themselves as the new unarmed prophet.

The pen, it seems, is mightier than the sword.