Darkness fills the room,
Like death in the tomb.
Ignorance and despair
Laying my soul bare
A prison for mind,
Truth is a crime,
A dungeon for my reason,
Enlightenment is treason.
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was right when he said, "Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage." People around me tell me what to do and think about so many things without asking why I do these things. Questions are more powerful than imperative statements. Just a thought, if I'm allowed...
Instead of working together to formulate opinions about the world around us, websites and news outlets that claim to be "fair and balanced" really just pick a side and stick to that part of a story. One must have some kind of foundation of truth, but that should not stop them from reading about the "other side." I'm a Christian, but I also read books, watch films, and listen to music by Jews, agnostics, Marxists, and even worshipers of the Roman snake god Glycon.
Many Christians disparage postmodernism. True, postmodernism rejects objective truth and with it all religious dogma. However, postmodernism widened the rigid narrow canon that used to only consist of books written by dead white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But with the advent of postmodernism and the "hermeneutics of suspicion", books by women, minorities, and persons who went against the grain of their culture can be included in the ranks of great writers. Also, postmodernism isn't snobbish and doesn't try to find an objective idea of a "great book", which a centuries old debate. It gets half the story right: the human race is desperately flawed and cannot be "cured" by cured by modern science and technology.
But it's missing one thing: a Savior.
"And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." Luke 24:5-7 (NASB)
The world is stained with dark shades of grey,
I have a debt I could never pay.
My car is stuck in the Slough of Despond;
My actions are right, but my motives are wrong.
Complaining and chafing 'til my face turns red.
Complaining and chafing 'til my soul is dead.
The Earth is rotating, so I give thanks.
Heaven is golden, so I give thanks.
My life is predetermined, so I give thanks.
The dead walk; Humans are saved;
The phoenix-like Messiah rises from the grave,
And I've finally found my way.
So I give thanks...
Today on Undisclosed Desires, we have our first guest blogger. Sam Cordle is a homeschooled junior who goes to my youth group. I enjoy board games, playing basketball and soccer, and having political debates with him and his brothers. Sam wants to major in political science or pre-law and is considering a bevy of Christian liberal art schools. Sam's favorite Bible passages are Romans 3:24-26 and Colossians 4:5-6. He enjoys books by Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain and is currently reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Animal Farm by George Orwell.
In making a cutting indictment of government injustices, Henry David Thoreau’s tract “Resistance to Civil
Government” highly criticizes government as a whole. As part of his outline of civil disobedience, he calls for citizens to separate themselves from government by taking actions like disobeying laws that connect them to the state. Such opinions raise the important question of the compatibility of these ideas with the American republican form of government. When used as a means to express discontent or protest over government actions, Thoreau’s methodology of civil disobedience can coexist with republicanism, but if taken to an extreme, his political philosophies would undermine any such government. With its focus on representing the people, the republican form of government allows for dissent, but not anarchy.
At its root, the republican form of government in the United States recognizes the supremacy of the people as the source of its power. Throughout his essay, Thoreau strongly emphasizes the opinion of the individual and his or her right to separate from the government. He calls for the state “to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived” (1872). American republican government does recognize the people in this way. As James Madison describes in The Federalist Papers, representation of the people lies at the heart of a republican form of government. Agreeing with the words of the Declaration of Independence, Madison defines a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people,” and he proceeds to illustrate how the United States meets this criterion under the Constitution. Because the foundation of both Thoreau’s belief in civil disobedience and American republicanism lies on the opinion and will of individual people, the two can coexist to some extent.
Furthermore, with its focus on representing the people, republicanism fundamentally allows for dissent. In his disobedience to the government, Thoreau purposes to convey disapproval of injustices in the government. He implies that he “[breaks] the law” to “[let] [his] life be a counter friction to stop the machine” of government injustice, instead of “[lending] [himself] to the wrong which [he] [condemns]” (1863). Again in The Federalist Papers, Madison explains how republicanism preserves liberty by not suppressing factions, but only by balancing and controlling their effects, so that destructive anarchy does not reign. Therefore, Thoreau’s basic concept of civil disobedience exhibits compatibility with the republican form of government.
While civil disobedience as protest generally fits with the principle of republicanism, some of Thoreau’s philosophical backing and application of his idea causes conflicts with the republican form of government. Thoreau bases his idea of civil disobedience on the idea of individualism and the principle “[that] government is best which governs least,” which he extrapolates to mean that no government ideally should exist at all, and the government should at least allow people to remain completely aloof from it (1857). If many people widely adopted and applied these ideas, they would likely begin to disobey the government based on whatever standard they wished to hold. When people do whatever they want, with no regard for laws, anarchy can result. Such a situation with no government, and in which each individual person makes his or her laws, obviously opposes any form of republican government.
Thoreau does not immediately call for the abolition of all government, but his ideas can certainly lead to anarchy. Despite his views of the state as an expedient in some areas, he generally perceives the government as a hindrance to justice, as an entity that can be abandoned in protest. However, Thoreau does provide a powerful argument for people to seek right and justice without regard to the cost. If seeking justice requires breaking laws, Thoreau urges this course of action as a means of nonviolent protest consistent with the republican form of government that allows dissent as part of its attempts to represent the people. Later social reformers, such as Martin Luther King Jr., found inspiration for their peaceful protests in Thoreau’s concept of civil disobedience as they challenged the actions but not the form of the government. Despite inconsistencies between the application of Thoreau’s ideas and republicanism, his basic concept of civil disobedience can certainly coexist with the republican form of government in the United States.
I know it's Greek week, but I got an "exemplary" on one of my essays on my latest history test, so I decided to publish it on my blog. The 1920s was the flowering of American culture and technology, but behind the facade of the pen and the silver screen was gang wars and xenophobia. Part I will deal with the hedonism and liberation of the 1920s; Part II will deal with the anxiety and intolerance. Comment on my blog if you remember the 1920s.
I believe that the 1920s was a complex decade in American history and displayed attitudes of both hedonism and liberation, anxiety and intolerance. Hedonism was achieved through movies, the radio, and sports, but the automobile was the bridge between hedonism and liberation.
The moving picture was invented in the 1890s by Thomas Edison but gained popularity in the early 1900s where one could see them at the nickelodeons. By the 1920s, leading film actors received $100,000 salaries and were more well-known than politicians and other public figures. In 1927, The Jazz Singer was the first film to use sound. Movies allowed ordinary citizens to escape from their ordinary lives and provided a new medium for artists, but the decadent lifestyles of the actors and film directors added to the hedonism of this time.
The radio (Marconi) was another important invention of the 1890s that impacted American life in the 1920s. With the economic boom, most households bought radios, which broadcast music, sports, comedy, and news around the clock. American families would gather around the radio dial at night for entertainment.
Sports was another product of leisure society. The 1920s were the Golden Age of baseball with the 1927 Murderer's Row New York Yankees team featuring stars like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Because living standards were higher, fans could afford to attend games lives, and stadiums were built like Fenway Park and the Polo Grounds. Professional and college football became popular with the NFL's founding in 1920 and college stars like Red Grange, Knute Rockne, and Ernie Nevers. Movies, radio, and sports were products of the 1920s' popularity, but these things didn't necessarily lead to hedonism. Americans became narcissistic, caring more about their diversions rather than helping forlorn countries like Germany, which had 50% unemployment. They also went into debt by buying boats, cars, and refrigerators on credit. These purchases stimulated the US economy, but they were only artificial gains.
The automobile was another product of American prosperity, and sometimes led to hedonism. The German Karl Benz invented the car in 1889, but it was seen as an unneeded luxury by most Americans. However, in 1910, Henry Ford of Detroit used his assembly line to increase production speed, and the number of cars in the US ballooned to ten million. By 1922, his Model T was $260, and the average middle class worker could buy one. The car literally set Americans free. Suburbs expanded and with a higher standard of living, vacations were a viable option. Cars also liberated Americans sexually for "flappers" and other counter-cultural groups. But many Americans bought cars on credit and spent money they didn't have. This hedonism was one of the causes of the Great Depression.
Other forms of liberation in the 1920s included feminism, the Harlem Renaissance, and new forms of literature. The first step of feminism was the 19th Amendment of 1920 finally giving all US female citizens the right to vote. Feminism was furthered with the Woman's Liberation Party. This party fought for equal rights between men and women in society and in the workforce. They also campaigned for birth control and even early forms of abortion.
The liberation of the 1920s extended to the arts and music. Despite the racism of the Jim Crow laws, black music and art continued to thrive in Harlem, New York. In this city, jazz music was invented, derived from black spiritual and ethnic music. It was a wholly American style of music with lots of syncopation, improvisation, and brass ensembles using trumpets and saxophones. Jazz influenced later US music genres such as rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and hip hop. Writing also flourished in Harlem with poets like Langston Hughes and novelists like Zora Neale Hudson.
The prosperity and growth of the leisure class allowed US novelists to experiment with different styles. Theodore Dreiser and F. Scott Fitzgerald ironically showed the weaknesses of big business and the American Dream in their novels An American Tragedy and The Great Gatsby during the Roaring Twenties. William Faulkner turned from traditional sequential writing to use "out of order" plots and streams of consciousness in his Southern Gothic novels and short-stories. Earnest Hemingway's journalistic style cast light on the human condition and his experiences in World War I in novels like For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea. Despite the increase in living standards, the 1920s also had a dark side of anxiety and intolerance...
Welcome to Greek Week! For absolutely no reason at all, I've decided to dedicate a post a day on my blog to extolling the virtues of classical Greek culture and generally being a suck-up to classical education. The first post is a requiem (death hymn) to Hector, the real hero of Homer's Iliad. Brad Pitt might look better with his shirt off, but because of Hector's dedication to defending his country at whatever cost and inner sense of honor and fair play, Hector is the most likeable protagonist of the Iliad or is he? Comments are appreciated.
