Enlightenment Defended will create an open realm of vigorous philosophical debate through animation, documentaries, poetry, humour, music and myth. People are many-sided in both apprehension and enjoyment.
Only the people themselves can escape the shadow life of Covid-Myopia. It has never really been a question of whether the disease is a serious disease, or whether it calls for proper management, but rather, from the very beginning, it has been a question of fear-induced single-issue thinking.
Disease can be a powerful tool to suppress liberty because it taps into the psychology of disgust and fear of contamination. Invisible contagion is deeply repellent. If unbridled by self-criticism, fear of contamination can demand ever more detailed, comprehensive and microscopic protection, cleansing, and monitoring. It's never really satisfied. I've washed my hands, but did I use enough soap? was the water hot enough? We want to have the Ascot Race proceed indoors, but can we guarantee that viral particles will not pass from one person to another?
You can see where I’m going with this. Normally people have the rest of their busy lives to distract them, so they adjust to the challenges and get over it. That has been the pattern for thousands, millions, of years. But not if the media and government are continually fanning the flames of their repulsion. A self-reflective, self-critical ethos is required. The best anti-dote to this one-problem-only thinking is to build a perspective.
During these adjustments, we need vigilance to safeguard our liberties from being warped, unintentionally and incrementally, toward super-surveillance and totalitarianism. It is important that we don't let the giant within us go to sleep. Calm but alert, the giant will need that liberty to re-build and then make continual progress.
[Addendum: With the ill-considered proposal to exclude people from clubs without double vaccinations, I'm tempted to put on hold my suggestion to allow the "monsters" an avenue of escape from the nightmare. But even that policy could be repealed if enough people removed their blinkers about Covid-19 and walked to the brighter valley of autonomy.]
Are we in danger of sacrificing our liberty, bit by bit, for increments of illusionary security?
Our answer is that the least secure existence is one in which we have sacrificed our personal autonomy. We recall Immanuel Kant's conception of Enlightenment, which flows from the individual, not the state or any other external guide.
"Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another.
The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! [Dare to be wise!] Have courage to use your own understanding!
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes [Those who have come of age by virtue of nature]), nevertheless ...
Alex and Ray at Bold Venture Park, Darwen, United Kingdom. Darwen was one of the centres of the industrial revolution, a fundamental catalyst of the Enlightenment. Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the spinning mule, lived here for part of his life. It was a thriving town of cotton goods production, coal mining and quarrying, connected by canal and rail to nearby hubs of invention and production- Bolton and Manchester.
In this video, we see a wonderful carving in the local strata outcrop in one of the large parks that adorn Darwen. Transporting us back in time to the people who worked in the burgeoning revolution that gave us so many life-transforming benefits, the sculpture depicts a quarryman lying on the boat that will carry him across the Styx. By the side of the sculpture is the inscription: Who Pays the Quarryman? Many quarrymen lost their lives in this work and a play of words alludes to the myth of the journey across the Styx and the Ferryman who guides the boat across.
It's ...
A discussion of the "Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development".
Alex Brocklehurst raises the question is human expansion, economically, psychologically, spiritually, technologically etc, in principle better than contraction?
Alex, Roger and Ray discuss. Alex and Ray push the progressive, enlightenment view, while Roger takes the dual role of a stick-in-the-mud, devil's advocate. Roger hates mud! : - )
Alex Brocklehurst has just had a chapter published in the book Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses.
https://www.amazon.com/Jordan-Peterson-Critical-Responses/dp/1637700121
Roger outlines the Ukrainian crisis, placing this delicate strategic confrontation in its historical and demographic context. Ukraine is a vital strategic interest to the Russian state, but not to the United States of America. Roger argues that states typically regard security as paramount, trumping economic interests and will accept a great deal of damage maintaining their vital strategic interests, and so the West’s threat of economic sanctions are impotent. Is the West playing a losing hand, given that Ukraine is perceived by Russia as a vital buffer zone right on its doorstep, but is 5000 miles from the US? Roger asks us to imagine a mirror of the situation for the US: Russia stations forces in Mexico and Canada, or simply establishes alliances with those countries. Such a move would be intolerable for the US state under the well-established Monroe doctrine.
(Some sources —for example, the omniscient POLITIFACT, argue that NATO has reneged on an agreement suggested by ...
A news report from Sao Paulo in 2045 details several significant global events. Firstly, Russia pushes for a dam connecting South America and Antarctica to combat global freezing. Secondly, a trial of an underground gay group highlights draconian measures to increase birth rates. Thirdly, the Intergalactic Church of Cosmic Fulfillment negotiates with religious leaders. Fourthly, Palestine Liberation Day commemorates the end of the Israeli state and the apology for past atrocities. Finally, increased extraterrestrial sightings and abductions lead to heightened surveillance.
Oscar Wilde and Friedrich Schiller Discuss Kant's theory of Autonomy and Percival's application of that theory to the phenomenon of enchantment by charismatic fellows.
