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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (1982)	9/12/1999 8:04:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

Charles's basic point is reasonable enough: to list those who are generally credited with deploring the constraints of civilized life ("Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains"),or with undermining man's sense of dignity as a being distinct from the beasts ("The Descent of Man", speculatively from the great apes) The notion that thinkers of the past ought to have had the insight that we possess today is absurd. The process of breaking the chains imposed by decaying royalty and the mythological decrepitude of religious thought has been a long and convoluted one, with many detours. Those who reacted to social constraint (and we must recall that "social constraint" in that day had a rather different meaning than it did today) went off in many different directions, and it would be absurd to suggest that we adopt their thoughts as gospel truth. Dismissing them out of hand is no less absurd. to attribute to them a baneful effect on the Modern Age. If we are going to enumerate the negative effects of free thought on the modern age, shall we not also enumerate the positive ones? If nobody had ever resisted the imposed precepts of royalty and religion, where would we be today? In any event, it is not incumbent on Charles to have read absolutely everything on his own list, even if it would enhance his credibility Would you denounce a book you had not read, or its author?