Tag: Abraham Lincoln

Beautiful minds; two further reflections.

Further to the guest post from Patrice Ayme, an introduction to John Hurlburt.

I wrote on the 2nd May that an unintended consequence of my beautiful minds articles about Hugh Everett and Stephen Hawking was a recognition that the need for ‘beautiful’ thinking is more important than ever before.  I wrote,

The French philosopher Voltaire was reputed to have said, “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”  In these days where ‘spin’ and ‘counter-spin’, to put it kindly, are so widely used, and millions live in a culture where our societies’ communication outlets compete for the maximum provocation (sorry audience!) it is challenging, to say the least, to think independently.

But of course as you, dear reader, will instantly acknowledge, these are just THE times when independent thinking is so, so important.  Thus I want to acknowledge two completely different and totally disconnected people who set such wonderful examples of the power of a beautiful mind.

Unlike Patrice Ayme whom neither do I know nor have I met (Patrice Ayme is a pseudonym),  today’s guest post is from someone that lives here in Payson and whom I have met on numerous occasions.  What John writes about couldn’t be more different to Patrice’s article but that isn’t the point.  Well, to be honest, that is the point!  It goes towards underlining my proposition that these are times where we need a huge variety of thinkers who can be honest about their approach to life, and not hostage to any particular ‘group think’.

John’s essay is entitled, What’s for Dinner?

What’s for Dinner?

Ancient man had a legitimate fear about being gobbled up for dinner by a ravenous beast.  The vestigial fear remains in spite of the reality that mankind has become a ravenous beast which is gobbling up nature for dinner.  It’s interesting to note that although God and Nature can get along without earth or man, man and earth could not and would not exist without God and Nature.  After all, God is Nature.

We get careless when we don’t stop to think about what we are, where we are and who we are.  We don’t have to make a choice between God and money.  We can invest in the business of God which includes education, formation, transformation and the well being of the earth which sustain us all.

Walking the way we talk means having the courage of our convictions.  What can we do that is possible, plausible, practical and probable to protect ourselves and our descendents from the results of ravaging mother earth for personal profit?

Wisdom is neither an individual conclusion nor an opinion.  We live in a world that is financially dominated by economic interests which are gambling with humanity’s future.  It’s time to end the game.  We grow best when we live and learn together in harmony with God, nature and each other.  Saving the Earth from which we come and which sustains all planetary life is called conservation.  That’s as conservative as life gets.

There is a fraction of our population which prefers fear, hate and ignorance to faith, love and our common well-being; both as a nation and as a world.  What does this say about the United States of America?  Well, for one thing, it says that we’re hell bent toward our own destruction and can’t get our act together because of the influences of money, power and tribalism.

The facts of nature can not be ignored indefinitely.  While our nation becomes divided and we continue to face economic collapse four years after a journey to the brink of a world economic abyss, the environment which is our source, our natural birthright and our home continues to be stolen from us by those who seek personal gain and aggrandizement.

Let’s go back to the beginning and keep it simple. We hold these truths to be self evident.

1.    The bible tells us the same thing as all sacred scriptures; love God and each other.

2.    We are a country that is chartered as one nation under God.  The powers of our government come from “We the people”.

3.    Economics: a pump won’t work when the well runs dry.

These fundamental truths of faith, humanity, economics and the American vision transcend petty bickering and are ignored at our common peril.  Considering recent world events, it would seem that we have a window of opportunity to refocus our priorities.  We pray for God’s guidance.


An old lamplighter

Amen to that!

So two wonderful examples that illustrate the power of beautiful minds and how, in my opinion, we need the minds of Ayme, Hurlburt and countless others to pick our way out of this self-defeating mess that we are all in and lead us to a true long-term sustainable future for the Planet Earth and all of God’s creatures for whom this is the only home we will ever have.

I wrote on the 2nd May of the French philosopher Voltaire who was reputed to have said, “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”   Let me end with a quote from President Abraham Lincoln, “All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.”

Think!

Elliot’s Schooling: The Role of Government

This continues the series of posts on education.

Abraham Lincoln

What is the role of government in education?  The problem of central government power and corruption in relation to education is a cause of great concern for me.  I still remember learning that Abraham Lincoln was a champion of civil rights who wanted to end slavery, and that American exceptionalism defeated the aggressive Soviet Union.  I also now realize that there were gaping absences from my education, like the complete absence of any classes concerning philosophy, even as an introduction that scratched the surface, or any study of the decline of empires such as Rome whose glories I studied so intensely.

Ancient Rome

If there is any quick fix for the problems I am noting, it would be decentralization of power in respect to our education system.  This becomes more problematic on a daily basis, as more and more federal stimulus funds are poured into local education systems.  While the beltway political community often paints this as government helping small communities, I see the benefit of a temporary boost in funding being far outweighed by the cost of our central government grabbing more and more local power.  Education systems will, in the long run, be forced to either permanently entrust more of their budgetary matters to federal power, or suffer the pain of doing away with an infrastructure that big government created and, consequently, only big government can support.  Decentralization would help the education system of the United States to be more diverse as well, as different regions would certainly have different educational programs, and these programs could compete in the form of their graduates to show which programs had the best results.

However, no discussion of education in the United States would be complete without taking a look at the intent of our country’s founders.  Here I must thank Professor Jarrell for injecting this concept into the current discussion.  In a recent LFD post addressed to me and interested others, she wrote:

The Federalist Papers made it clear, to me at least, that our founding fathers believed that the government, our federal government in particular, should have nothing to do with educating the populace.

I realize it sounds a bit radical now, but I believe that any discussion of what is right and wrong about public education today must begin with a healthy debate about whether the federal government should be involved in public education at all.

Your thoughts?  Thanks!

In a very soon-to-come post, I will begin yet another discussion,  one that I hope will heavily involve Professor Jarrell and many others, about the original intent of our founders in relation to public education, and whether or not there is any hope of returning to their proposed system at any point in the near future.

by Elliot Engstrom