the Bethlehem Baby … grew up to be the greatest inspirational figure in all human history. Remove all the subsequent distortions of what He and His first followers said and began, and no message ever brought or still brings greater light and hope. Try as hard as we might, He and His Good News cannot ever be replaced with anything remotely comparable from any source.
Category Archives: Culture
The Uses of History, 11 – USA Meltdown, 2 – Revolutionary Reset
The American Revolution remains incomplete. The bitter fruit of the Sins of the Fathers are still being visited on a nation still embroiled at its tortured heart. The original racist infection festers and has metastasized in numerous tendrils of intolerance. Unhappily, some of the most ardent and bitter rival factions claim that they stand for the true values of the God Lincoln had come to believe was intimately concerned with bringing America through its great crisis. Lincoln had aimed to guide America into a true and final understanding of its place in the world as a beacon of hope and liberty and true equality among all its peoples from all their origins. It would be fair to say that Mr. Lincoln would be very hard-pressed to recognize much of his vision still living among significant portions of the zealots now calling themselves “true American patriots”.
The Uses of History, 10 – USA Meltdown, 1
In the short term, the race to subdue, dominate, and exploit a whole continent rapidly made the United States an economic and territorial phenomenon which all could quickly recognize would transform the “land of the free” into a global great power and a regional superpower. However, the innate internal contradictions which lay in its foundations because of the “Unfinished Revolution” would one day rise to the surface. Many predicted just such an outcome. But as long as the rush to gain the continent’s enormous potential for development could keep them buried, one way or another the problems could be brushed aside for the sake of power, money, and personal fulfillment.
The Uses of History, 9 – From France, 1812 to Russia, 1917, 6
In our modern age in the West, ideology now largely replaces religion. The God-shaped void in the human soul must and will be filled with something. With Christianity now largely treated as irrelevant, ideology readily steps into the vacuum. Often, the ideology just slithers into the emptiness via materialist rewards, peer pressure, educational indoctrination, and popular culture. With the modern doctrine of the separation of Church and State cemented in place, even many professing Christians leave their religion inside the Church door, then lock in a set of ideological constructs, sometimes sprinkled with Holy Water or, in the Fundamentalist formulation, with the “Blood of Jesus”, to salve their consciences.
The Uses of History, 8 – From France, 1812 to Russia, 1917, 5 – 1848
The problem with successful revolutions (as with battles and wars) is what the victors decide to do with their victory. All the high passion and strident rhetoric about freedom all too often disappear in an orgy of violent retribution upon the former oppressors. Between 1793-4, the Terror in France is said to have beheaded 30 000 “traitors” before it was ended by its chief perpetrator, Robespierre, taking his turn at the guillotine. The “Terror Phase” of revolution is usually followed by new sets of restrictions and limitations to control embittered losers and other dissidents, and firmly entrench the new definers of freedom in control with their hands on the machinery of State and jurisprudence.
The Uses of History, 7 – From France 1812 to Russia, 1917, 4
But what, or who, should replace the hated Bourbons? Another republic? God forbid! For the haute bourgeoisie of Paris and France, who were now the real power-élite, a return to Jacobinism (the term for the most radical socialist and egalitarian ideology of the Revolution) with its anarchy and chaos was unthinkable! Jacobin elements were not hard to find in the shadows of Paris’ salons and clubs, disguised under many names. To preserve France they had to be nipped in the bud.
The Uses of History, 6 – From France 1812 to Russia, 1917, 3
In the long run, the most influential of all the “Big Three” thinkers of the French Enlightenment was Rousseau. Rousseau stands apart. As a brilliant thinker and writer in his own right, he shocked even the trendy, progressive “salon set” with his radicalism between 1754 and his death in 1778. He further scandalized the elite social set by deliberately affronting the ethical and moral standards of the day. He was an iconoclast par excellence.
The Uses of History, 5 – From France to Russia, 1812-1917, 2
When Alexander had acceded to power in 1801, the idealists had placed high hopes that he, a young man himself, could be shown and persuaded that things had to change for the sake of the Russian people and the Empire itself. By 1825, the lower-grade officers (ranks below general – Generals and Marshals could only be upper-level nobles) had lost hope in Alexander or any of the established authorities of ever being willing or able to allow even the most modest reforms.
The Uses of History, 3 – The French Revolution, 1789-99, 2
The links from the United States and France were close and multiple, including inspiration at the beginning and ongoing sympathy as the USA hoped to see a sister republic emerge as a great power in Europe, and thus challenge the British so that Britain would not consider attempting to restore its old empire. The War of 1812-14 between the United States and Britain was a direct offshoot of the long struggle between Britain and France in Europe.
The Uses of History, 2 – The French Revolution, 1789-99, 1
These basic facts of existence apply to whole peoples and nations as much as to individuals. France is a salient historical model of this. The French Revolution of 1789-99 was a socio-political earthquake in Europe, and eventually changed the world through its “trickle-down effects”. The old debate among historians about whether the Revolution was inevitable or avoidable is rather beside the point. It happened. While its long-term and immediate causes can still be debated, its consequences reverberate more than ever even in the 21st Century.
World.V.You 