Dear Friends,
It seems to me, we are loosing the advancements of the enlightenment, and it is being done by the very people who claim to be it’s heirs. The Enlightenment was a philosophical advancement that allowed humanity to move into the space age. Since all scientific advancement is preceded by a philosophical advance, our modern era of scientific discovery and unheard of standard of living, required that philosophical advance. The basic tenets of the Enlightenment are, argument instead of authority should be the determinant of right, skepticism, the concept of natural law and empiricism. Today, the new class intellectuals, intelligentsia and our politicians, would rather us accept authority rather than rational argumentation, wander through life as babes, exchange natural law for the power of the state and the forget that all knowledge is based on what is sensible. In turning away from the advances of the Enlightenment the gains we take so for granted cannot long last.
The argument that there is a consensus of scientists that agree to such and such is a call to authority. That call to authority is magnified when rational debate is eschewed for fear mongering. Other than the number of people who’s lives will be negatively effected, what is the difference between a superstitious people burning a woman at the stake for being a witch, because of their irrational fear of witches, from today’s fear mongers calling for burning our economy, because of an irrational fear of global warming? They both rely on authority, they both eschew argumentation, they both cause suffering, they are both acts of self aggrandizement and they are both based on fear. If anthropogenic climate change were argued rationally, without vilification and lacking the blacklisting anyone who argues climate change might not be as bad as the alarmists claim, we couldn’t say it is a call to authority, but since it has all the qualities of a call to authority, that is obviously what it is.
Socialism is taught in our schools to our children without any skepticism about the past results at all. Moreover we are supposed to accept absurdity after absurdity from our leaders without question. In other words, we are told not to be skeptical but accept the word of our leaders and new class intellectuals, by faith. Our children are being filled with faith in socialism, we are supposed to accept that multiculturalism will not be the end of western culture and society, we are to be faithful to the media that calls itself unbiased, despite the absurdities we are force fed by them. The only thing we are skeptical about today are the miracles documented in the Bible, the words of the Founding Fathers and our own sense of right and wrong.
The American system of government is based on natural law. Natural law states that each human being has certain rights that come from God or nature rather than government. The Bill of Rights is based on natural law, the right to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to keep arms, security in one’s own home, and so forth, these rights come from our natural state not from government. Government however, or more precisely, those in government, disagree. They believe that all rights flow from the governors to the governed, or put another way, they favor arbitrary rule. Constitutionalism was based on natural law, but today that attempt to stymie the natural tendencies of leaders to become power hungry, has been perverted to empower despots. Today the concept of natural rights is being attacked by new class intellectuals and intelligentsia in the media, business, government and universities.
Saint Thomas Aquinas invented the concept of Empiricism. He said all that is knowledge is sense knowledge. Which gave rise to the term nonsense. If a thing cannot be sensed it cannot be proven true. Empiricism was then polished and plumbed by John Locke and David Hume. The idea of a germ is based on our ability to increase our vision with scientific instruments, so we can “see” bacteria. Science is all about sense knowledge, based in large part on our ability to magnify our senses with technology. Even Christianity is based in sense knowledge since people saw Christ crucified, witnessed him rise from the dead, probed the wound on his hands, then recorded the experience. Today some things that are call sciences are nothing of the sort, they are at best pseudoscience since they are not based on what is sensible. Economics and Psychology are examples. They seek to emulate the advancements of physics and math but cannot. They are philosophies that masquerade as science that we are supposed to accept as empirically true by the new class.
Human societies advance and retreat in science, economic power and justice as their philosophies advance and retreat. Every real advancement in human history has been preceded by an advance in philosophy. The Greeks advanced the philosophy of democracy, the Romans with limited governmental power, and the west with the Enlightenment, which led to the outlawing of human slavery, all the freedoms we enjoy today, constitutionally limited government to protect those rights, the phenomenal advancements in science and our natural rights. Just as Greece fell when they abandoned their philosophy of democracy for arbitrary rule and Rome fell when they abandoned limited government for a Caesar… our civilization will fall if we abandon the advances of the Enlightenment. Sadly, we are well on our way to forsaking them, led by those who are tasked with protecting them.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
