I think that I have always felt that the United States was the greatest country in the world since I can remember having thoughts about that sort of thing. I couldn’t really state in a very convincing way why I thought that other than to talk about freedom and individual liberties, but lots of countries have freedom and individual liber
I think that I have always felt that the United States was the greatest country in the world since I can remember having thoughts about that sort of thing. I couldn’t really state in a very convincing way why I thought that other than to talk about freedom and individual liberties, but lots of countries have freedom and individual liberties, why aren’t they great? Most people think their own country is great.
But I think I have put together the ideas I have been reading into a scientific case (given that philosophy and history are sciences) that
1. The development of Western Philosophy over many centuries culminated in the Declaration of Independence.
2. The Declaration of Independence expresses what it means to be An American.
3. The principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence have resulted in the abolishment of slavery everywhere it has had an effect.
I read The End of History by Fukayama around 1995 discussing some of the ideas of the early 19th century philosopher GWF Hegel which got me interested in reading history and learning more about philosophy. Many philosophy professors have their lectures on youtube, which is great. Recently I was listening to a lecture on one of Hegel’s i
I read The End of History by Fukayama around 1995 discussing some of the ideas of the early 19th century philosopher GWF Hegel which got me interested in reading history and learning more about philosophy. Many philosophy professors have their lectures on youtube, which is great. Recently I was listening to a lecture on one of Hegel’s ideas, one providing a framework for viewing history and seeing a pattern in history when viewed through this lens, and suddenly that framework made perfect sense of what history showed in what I have read the last 20 something years and what the 17th, 18thand 19th century philosophers were leading up to.
Hegel’s framework for historical development is the dialectic. Contradictions in society are the engine that drives history forward. Contradictions always exist because society constantly ages, changes. Dialectic is the process of resolving contradictions, trying to keep what is good about one view and what is good about its opposite and formulate a solution that is better for everyone. Don’t throw out the wheat with the chaff.
The dialectic consists of the Thesis, the Anti-thesis and the Synthesis. The Thesis can be thought of as the way things are, a current condition. But there are contradictions in the Thesis, things are never perfect. So, the Anti thesis is formed, in opposition to the thesis. But there are still contradictions in the Anti-thesis. So the
The dialectic consists of the Thesis, the Anti-thesis and the Synthesis. The Thesis can be thought of as the way things are, a current condition. But there are contradictions in the Thesis, things are never perfect. So, the Anti thesis is formed, in opposition to the thesis. But there are still contradictions in the Anti-thesis. So the Synthesis is formed to try to keep the best of the thesis and the anti-thesis. The synthesis becomes the new thesis and we start over.
A perfect illustration of this is playing out since Rowe was overturned. I only use this because it is so clear an example and very current.
Thesis- Pre Rowe, no abortions, ever
Anti-thesis- Post Rowe, no restrictions on abortion, ever
Synthesis- that’s what we are trying to figure out….what will be the new thesis
This is a basic scheme of the dialectic.
Thesis- the way it is
Anti-thesis arises in opposition to contradictions
Synthesis-the best of thesis and anti-thesis, becomes the new thesis
There are contradictions in the thesis
Keep best of thesis
Keep best of anti-thesis
The next graphic is Hegel’s overall development of society.
The Thesis is the period Hobbs described as”the war of all against all” “ life being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Early tribal culture…your tribe calls itself “the people” and everyone else…others.
The anti-thesis I believe, is the monarchical system or whatever you want to call a system where there is an ultimate ruler supported by a ruling class, kept in power with the military. I think this system peaked in the Monarchy of Louis 14thor perhaps the some particular Chinese dynasty but it doesn’t matter where it peaked, the point is that from the time that tribes began to join together and build cities with complex societies, that’s where societies were continually moving toward…a somewhat fair and prosperous society with laws. All human beings lived in one of these 2 societies. The idea of the free democratic state did not exist. The Greeks had believed that some people deserved to be free and allowed to vote, but certainly not everyone. It took until the early 17th century for the beginnings of the idea that all men were equal and therefore equally deserving of freedom, to emerge from an Ashkenazi Jew, Baruch Spinoza, to suggest the idea that men could possibly rule themselves.
Hobbes argued the principle reason that the democratic state would not work was that men cannot rule themselves, as he had witnessed during the English Civil war. He argued that if you have a bad monarch that you only have yourself to blame because men are inherently evil and you are a man, so you cannot rule yourselves…a king was necessary. He argued that without a king we go back to the days of no law. And that we had to give up some rights in order to have law.
Spinoza is considered to be first philosopher to discuss the possibility of a democratic state being able to function and how it might. To really oversimplify, Locke read Spinoza and adopted much of his philosophy on Church and State and Jefferson adopted Locke’s. There is a lot to be read and understood about these 3 men, I am just pointing out the thread that connects them. At the writing of the DOI, there were no Americans per se…perhaps you could say the first time the ideals in the DOI were published was in 1670, in Spinoza’s Political Treatise.
It is much easier to have an idea for a better world than have that idea realized in the world. Spinoza first discusses, figuratively speaking, what it means to be an “American” in 1670, Locke develops the idea, Jefferson and the “Jeffersonians” refine it and implement it, imperfectly at first, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln completes the vision. French Philosopher Edouard Laboulaye understands that Lincoln has completed the Democratic vision of Spinoza and commissions the Statue of Liberty to honor Lincoln.
This is a bare bones argument, I hate writing, but have been thinking about this a while and I think that people have a hard time explaining what makes America great and this is what I think makes America a great country. We share these ideals with England. By the 1830, the British Navy was sailing the Atlantic looking for slave ships and arresting them. The British colonized many places…and ended slavery in them all and gave them English common law.
In 1619, there were no Americans. Only English or Spanish or French citizens, loyal to their King. Slavery existed in every corner of the earth. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence ended slavery and kept the western world free for the last 150 years.
This is the lecture that brought it together for me.