A critical scene is claiming most of my creative energies this week, so once again I bring you something from September 2013.
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Why do some people see the long of things and others don't? It's not age though that can make a difference, but I know "old" people (70+) who think the whole world is coming to an end or at the very least we have seen our best days, and I know people much younger who see that history just keeps repeating itself and both the good and the bad come and go and then yet come again. Can we pick out what it is that makes these people see the world so differently?
Maybe it's like another difference in world perspectives. Some people believe history is a near constant progression of change, that we come across moments in history where there is no turning back and something is with us to stay. Those who believe history repeats itself, their perspective is also the one contrary to the "near constant progression" folks.
This all started percolating for me while I was listening to George Will being interviewed on Reason.tv. In this interview he talked about his growing libertarian leanings but he qualified that he believed we will always have big government. I encourage you to listen to his own words on this but my paraphrase is that he believes we are at a point where so many and so much is drawing benefit from big government, which includes the current tax code, that it would be unrealistic to ever expect to shrink government and eliminate the progressive income tax.
Will seems to be one of those believers in historical progressions that lead us to points of no return and I beg to differ with him.
"There is nothing new under the sun." That's more my view of things. That is not to say we don't make things better or worse from time to time, and it is definitely not to say we shouldn't work to make things better. But what it does say is nothing in the area of social or political change is ever permanent. Like rising and falling of tides, whatever we chase away or comes to beset us, a counter force will inevitably come along.
We get rid of kings in the United States and along come a snobbish political and academic elite that want the same oppressive and equally unjustified authority we spent our blood to free ourselves from. Likewise history is well stocked with examples of regimes who tried to claim unchallengeable authority who met their inevitable demise. Usually collapsing in on themselves due to corruption and ineptitude bread of that same corruption but also often brought down by force.
Some reject this view of history because they believe it means we don't achieve anything and we waste our time trying, but that's just a matter of how one wants to see things. A determined negative person can see both views of history as equally negative. Will's apparent view can be seen to mean there is no point in trying to achieve certain things, no matter how good they may be, because history has spoken and slammed the door on any opportunity to achieve it. But I believe a positive person is best served by the view that history repeats itself and not the constant progression view.
We live in a world where the weather changes and yet we find ways to stay warm in cold months and cool in hot ones, and we are ever finding better and better ways to achieve this. Still, no matter how far we may ever come we can expect the cold and hot seasons to keep coming. This is how I view the cycles of history. Liberty grows and wanes. The great American experiment in liberty wasn't the first time liberty expanded against tyranny and the growth of the United States government and the imposition of its unwieldy overly controlling income tax system wasn't the first time tyranny started to oppress.
What's different about this most recent great experiment in the expansion of liberty is that it was better conceived to survive the ebb and flows of history (see the Constitution). Like with our modern air-conditioning and heating technology there is now a lesser chance of being dictated to by external forces. Our current state is analogous to a winter where our house's insulation is proven inadequate. We are not doomed. We just need to fix up the house. The winter of tyranny comes and goes. Some times we ride through with almost not a notice and other times our protections prove inadequate, but the over-all trend is a positive one where each winter as a general rule will be less troublesome than the one before it.
The forces of collectivism and growing dependence on government do act a lot like erosion and given no effort to counter them everything will eventually be made useless and flat, but that is not the trend of history we see in human records. There is another force at work that rebuilds what is torn down and makes it better.
George Will and I agree on many things it seems but not his view of changes that cannot be undone. Nothing is ever done such that it cannot be undone and that's a good thing.
+++++++++++++++
Why do some people see the long of things and others don't? It's not age though that can make a difference, but I know "old" people (70+) who think the whole world is coming to an end or at the very least we have seen our best days, and I know people much younger who see that history just keeps repeating itself and both the good and the bad come and go and then yet come again. Can we pick out what it is that makes these people see the world so differently?
Maybe it's like another difference in world perspectives. Some people believe history is a near constant progression of change, that we come across moments in history where there is no turning back and something is with us to stay. Those who believe history repeats itself, their perspective is also the one contrary to the "near constant progression" folks.
This all started percolating for me while I was listening to George Will being interviewed on Reason.tv. In this interview he talked about his growing libertarian leanings but he qualified that he believed we will always have big government. I encourage you to listen to his own words on this but my paraphrase is that he believes we are at a point where so many and so much is drawing benefit from big government, which includes the current tax code, that it would be unrealistic to ever expect to shrink government and eliminate the progressive income tax.
Will seems to be one of those believers in historical progressions that lead us to points of no return and I beg to differ with him.
"There is nothing new under the sun." That's more my view of things. That is not to say we don't make things better or worse from time to time, and it is definitely not to say we shouldn't work to make things better. But what it does say is nothing in the area of social or political change is ever permanent. Like rising and falling of tides, whatever we chase away or comes to beset us, a counter force will inevitably come along.
We get rid of kings in the United States and along come a snobbish political and academic elite that want the same oppressive and equally unjustified authority we spent our blood to free ourselves from. Likewise history is well stocked with examples of regimes who tried to claim unchallengeable authority who met their inevitable demise. Usually collapsing in on themselves due to corruption and ineptitude bread of that same corruption but also often brought down by force.
Some reject this view of history because they believe it means we don't achieve anything and we waste our time trying, but that's just a matter of how one wants to see things. A determined negative person can see both views of history as equally negative. Will's apparent view can be seen to mean there is no point in trying to achieve certain things, no matter how good they may be, because history has spoken and slammed the door on any opportunity to achieve it. But I believe a positive person is best served by the view that history repeats itself and not the constant progression view.
We live in a world where the weather changes and yet we find ways to stay warm in cold months and cool in hot ones, and we are ever finding better and better ways to achieve this. Still, no matter how far we may ever come we can expect the cold and hot seasons to keep coming. This is how I view the cycles of history. Liberty grows and wanes. The great American experiment in liberty wasn't the first time liberty expanded against tyranny and the growth of the United States government and the imposition of its unwieldy overly controlling income tax system wasn't the first time tyranny started to oppress.
What's different about this most recent great experiment in the expansion of liberty is that it was better conceived to survive the ebb and flows of history (see the Constitution). Like with our modern air-conditioning and heating technology there is now a lesser chance of being dictated to by external forces. Our current state is analogous to a winter where our house's insulation is proven inadequate. We are not doomed. We just need to fix up the house. The winter of tyranny comes and goes. Some times we ride through with almost not a notice and other times our protections prove inadequate, but the over-all trend is a positive one where each winter as a general rule will be less troublesome than the one before it.
The forces of collectivism and growing dependence on government do act a lot like erosion and given no effort to counter them everything will eventually be made useless and flat, but that is not the trend of history we see in human records. There is another force at work that rebuilds what is torn down and makes it better.
George Will and I agree on many things it seems but not his view of changes that cannot be undone. Nothing is ever done such that it cannot be undone and that's a good thing.
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