For many centuries, it was taken for granted that no modern country could move from dictatorship to democracy without considerable violence. The first wave of democratic revolution–the last quarter of the eighteenth century–saw every Western country undergo some political spasm aimed against the traditional monarchies. The two biggest events were the American and French Revolutions, both of which were integral parts of global war, and there were echoes in countries as different as Poland and Switzerland.
This was the watershed of the modern world, and the conviction that democracy was always accompanied by violent revolution/civil war/global conflict became part of the conventional wisdom. In the mid-seventies, for example, as Spain’s Generalissimo Franco lay dying in Madrid, it was next to impossible to find any knowledgeable person who believed that Spain could become a democratic country without a replay of the bloody civil war of the 1930s. Spaniards were thoroughly convinced that they would do just that. “We kill the bulls, after all,” they liked to say; they were a violent people, and the Old Order would not go quietly into the dark night of fallen autocracies.
And yet, Spain accomplished a seemingly miraculous democratic revolution, paradoxically organized and commanded by icons of the Old Order: King Juan Carlos and a now-forgotten Franco loyalist, Adolfo Suarez. Portugal followed suit shortly thereafter, albeit with some dramatic moments and a few street clashes, but the new model–dictatorships could indeed fall, and democracies could be created, peacefully.
Then came the Age of the Second Democratic Revolution, the years of Reagan, Thatcher, John Paul II, Havel, Walesa, Sharansky and Bukovsky, replete with revolutions from Chile to Taiwan, from Romania and the rest of the Soviet Empire to South Africa and Zambia. With the indifference to history so characteristic of our world, we quickly forgot the conventional wisdom and by now we take it for granted that neither war nor violence is required to end tyranny. All we need is patience and the proper invocation of the new rules: free and fair elections, the rule of law, and so forth. History had ended, liberal democracy was triumphant.
The belief in the inevitability of peace and democracy rested on one of the great conceits of the European Enlightenment, namely the belief in the perfectibility of man. In this view, man’s basic goodness (as found in “the state of nature”) had been corrupted by a selfish society (a notion that finds much favor among today’s more extreme Greens), but that once the heavy weight of misguided was lifted, man’s intrinsic goodness would reemerge. In our modern rendition of that Enlightenment folly, an appeal to reason is sufficient to change the world. Back in the Clinton years, it was widely believed that all future conflict would be solely economic; the age of military warfare had passed, henceforth products, markets, and human ingenuity would determine who is rightly top dog and who needs to get with the program. And so the defense budget was slashed, military men and women were treated with contempt by the president and his wife, and we turned inward. After all, if historical inevitability ruled, why bother with national security? Tyranny was considered a passing phenomenon, headed for the ash heap, and certainly no threat to us.
It was all wrong, as are most beliefs in the vast impersonal forces that are held to determine human events. The great constant in man’s affairs is change, the direction of that change is determined by human actions, and many of the men and women who take those determinant actions are evil. Machiavelli is not the only sage who recognized it, but he put it nicely: “Man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.” Rational statecraft starts right there.
The American Founders knew it: recognizing man’s innate capacity for evil, they designed a system of checks and balances to thwart the accumulation of power by any group, lest the entire enterprise fall into wicked hands. They knew the battle for liberty would never end, Benjamin Franklin famously warned we would have to fight to keep our republic.
All of this wisdom has been dangerously undermined by the foolish notion that man is basically good, that all men are basically the same, and that all we need do is to permit history to take its preordained course. Are these not the tenets of contemporary education? Are our children not forbidden to criticize “others,” whether of different pigmentation or religion? Has debate on our university campuses not turned into the moral equivalent of the Inquisition? And it rests on the sands of a demonstrably false vision of man. We are not naturally inclined to do good. Quite the contrary; left to our own devices we produce genocide in Europe, Asia and Africa. And the evil spreads, eventually it threatens us, it kills our people here at home and it is straining to kill more of us. Ask the Georgians. Ask Middle Eastern Jews and Christians, or the Iranian, Iraqi or Syrian peoples.
The basic debate needs to begin with a recognition that we have bought into a fable. Without that recognition, we will be incapable of designing the policies we need in order to survive this perilous moment.
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50 Comments
1. Andy:Stellar observations.
“The heart is deceitful above all things
Aug 15, 2008 - 2:53 pm 2. Roger:and desperately wicked.
Who can know it?”
– Jeremiah 17:9
I agree that man is inherently evil, but I don’t see how that statement is compatible with “The great constant in man’s affairs is change.” If the constant were change, rather than human nature, then human nature would change. Since it does not, how can the great constant be change?
ML:
Because men are never satisfied with what they have and are always desirous of more.
Aug 15, 2008 - 3:33 pm 3. Brad:HURRAH!
So true. Yet the Left insists that we need only negotiate as though war only comes of misunderstanding and fear. Indeed, Obama suggests that McCain’s intemperate response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia drove their sword deeper into the wound.
What can you say to an enemy bent on your destruction? What possible formula can you offer for the Palestinian/ Israeli dispute?
Most people prefer leisure to work but there are a few that will trade hours of hard labor for the promise of gain. So too with war and peace.
We want to live in peace but to suppose that our enemies will trade war gains for peace is wishful thinking we can’t afford.
Aug 15, 2008 - 3:44 pm 4. j green:ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. The second to last paragraph sums up humanity very nicely.
Humanity can be counted on to do numerous things more often than not–the easier thing, the more profitable thing, the funner thing, the more powerful thing–but not usually “the right thing” lest it also happens to provide one of the prior elements (or, of course, others which I haven’t named). Usually, the right thing is not done simply for the sake that it is the right thing to do–it does happen but its a very rare person who would do it to his own detriment. However, people might do the right thing often times if it is also the more profitable way. So the stars have to line up properly in order for “the right thing” to be chosen, and there are usually a limited number of possible “right things” (sometimes maybe even as few as one or two) and infinite “wrong things” so, chances are, the wrong thing will be picked.
As for “the wrong thing” it is also picked because one of those other elements is so over-powering.
Dr. Ledeen, we are also forbidden to be “judgemental” (and also give everyone the grand “benefit of the doubt” by pretending we don’t have previous experiences that demand skepticism–i nother words stupifying ourselves). We are told never ever to pass judgement. Some hypocritical liberals trick themselves into believing they are indeed never being judgemental. But they are dead wrong as our lives are filled with more judgements than we can ever keep track of, day in and day out, even if we tried. Its human nature.
Aug 15, 2008 - 3:49 pm 5. Bruce in Iloilo:You forgot the kick-off event of the Age of the Second Democratic Revolution — Philippine People Power.
In 1986, the Philippines held an election, which the dictator Marcos tried to steal. In response, there was a peaceful military uprising, followed by tens of thousands of civilians taking to the street to defend the uprising. Nuns standing in front of tanks. Cory Aquino in yellow leading, her husband assassinated by Marcos a few years before.
The Philippines captured the world’s imagination. Cory was Woman of the Year. And a great example was set for the world. The great democratic revolutions of the late 80s and early 90s followed.
ML:
That was more than a decade after Spain. But certainly Corazon Aquino is one of the major stories in the history of democratic revolution in the twentieth century, thanks for the reminder.
Aug 15, 2008 - 5:55 pm 6. Todd Grimson:Let’s not forget the insights of the Marquis de Sade. He is much more valuable when one seeks to understand the modern world, post-modern or barbaric, than the malevolent imp Rousseau (who by the way could not achieve ejaculation unless whipped.)
The Taliban assembled 30,000 in a stadium to watch women flogged — how many hard-ons blossomed as a result?
We should dig up Michel Foucault, hook his rotting corpse up to electrodes and interrogate him. He had a crush on Ayatollah Khomeini and “found himself” (the “map” of his body) in SM.
Aug 15, 2008 - 9:01 pm 7. Why we fight « Internet Scofflaw:[...] we fight Michael Ledeen writes eloquently on why we still have wars: For many centuries, it was taken for granted that no [...]
Aug 15, 2008 - 10:06 pm 8. Pajamas Media » Recognizing Man’s Innate Capacity for Evil:[...] Read the entire article here… [...]
Aug 16, 2008 - 12:13 pm 9. FreedomLover:Andy, that was the verse that came to my mind as well as I read this excellent article. The lie of the Enlightenment is that mankind is perfectable through reason. And who is the Enlightenment candidate today, if not the Light himself?
Aug 16, 2008 - 1:06 pm 10. Javelin:What else is new? I thought the “slash” in the military in the 90’s was a result of the ending of hostilities with the Soviet block. This is nothing more than a rehash of the same old left wing PC bashing by the right wing PC police.
Wow Mr Grimson, you truly lack both a sense of reason and humanity, digging up and mutilating a corpse. It sounds like you derive pleasure out of sadism. You watch too many cheap horror flick.
Aug 16, 2008 - 1:56 pm 11. Jong S:Absolutely true. We see thesedays more and more evils emerging from all over the world. We must be courageous enough to call evil an evil without getting trapped to politically correctness. Thanks for the insight.
Aug 16, 2008 - 2:45 pm 12. ex-democrat:like it or not, people are desperately disappointed to be told/learn that man is not, after all, perfectable through reason. the great challenge, it seems to me, is how to sell that truism in a way that people will accept.
Aug 16, 2008 - 3:07 pm 13. Michael McNeil:Roger said:
I agree that man is inherently evil, but I don’t see how that statement is compatible with “The great constant in man’s affairs is change.” If the constant were change, rather than human nature, then human nature would change. Since it does not, how can the great constant be change?
The “fixed stars” don’t seem to move either, and yet actually they do. In the past man’s nature drifted but slowly (so slowly it’s frozen on the personal and even historic timescale), under the impetus of evolution, but in the age of genetic engineering and the human genome decipherment, that’s likely to shortly (on the historic timescale) change.
Aug 16, 2008 - 5:20 pm 14. marsouin:one of the great conceits of the European Enlightenment, namely the belief in the perfectibility of man. In this view, man’s basic goodness (as found in “the state of nature”) had been corrupted by a selfish society (a notion that finds much favor among today’s more extreme Greens), but that once the heavy weight of misguided was lifted, man’s intrinsic goodness would reemerge.
This is not the conceit of the entire Enlightenment. This is Rousseau – the godfather of socialism! There is more than one strain to the movement. The other is liberalism, of which the Founders harbored the British strain of Whiggism (liberal republicanism). It’s is their understanding of Man’s capacity for evil as evidenced in history (Antiquity and the Stuarts) that led them to fear all accretions of power by the State.
ML:
Fair enough. But when I studied history, Great Britain was not part of “Europe,” and there were separate doctoral exams for “British history” and “European history.” We totally agree on the Founders, I think I even wrote that…
Aug 16, 2008 - 6:55 pm 15. fred:ex-democrat,
It will be a difficult sell. I used to be a Marxist many years ago, albeit I remained a Catholic Christian as well, so I am quite familiar with the theological debates around this issue. I think it takes a kind of disillusionment with utopian thought, which is what I had undergone, in order to realize that evil truly exists at the cosmological and organic levels. I do not agree with the above poster who thinks that genome decipherment will take care of the problem. It is BOTH a spiritual and a material reality.
There is no specific gene responsible for evil. Besides, the protein layer above the level of dna is extremely complicated. And the neural networks of the brain are wired both from directions encoded in the protein processes and in response to environmental stimuli. In addition, and this is where the mystery deepens, there are evil people (not many, but they do exist) who are that way even if they had parenting and care that was not abusive or neglectful. We don’t have a handle on all the mysteries.
Humanity is not perfectible. I once believed it was and I went down many pathways to try to find a rational, systematic way to prove that we were perfectible. But, once I found otherwise, I wasted no more time with it. It was a faith and it is difficult to disabuse people of their faiths. But faith (and anthropological dimension of human beings, not merely a religion or ideology) does have to also be anchored in reason. When I did subject that particular utopian faith to reason, I found myself moving back towards a more traditional understanding of my Catholic Christian heritage.
Aug 16, 2008 - 7:37 pm 16. Armando:Human nature has never changed, still today, is not the love of money that is the root of all evil, it is Envy.
Aug 16, 2008 - 11:49 pm 17. Michael McNeil:I didn’t say or mean to immply that genetic engineering would “take care of the problem” (of evil), nor that I think there is a specific gene thereto (of course there is not), but — barring establishing a more universal taboo than I expect to be possible or desirable — genes will change, and human nature along with it. Thereupon the proverbial “unpredictable results will ensue”….
Looking perhaps a bit farther than I wished to earlier, insightful physicist Freeman Dyson expressed what may lie in our future well, I think, in his book from three decades back, Disturbing the Universe:
“When we are a million species spreading through the galaxy, the question ‘Can man play God and still stay sane?’ will lose some of its terrors. We shall be playing God, but only as local deities and not as lords of the universe. There is safety in numbers. Some of us will become insane, and rule over empires as crazy as Doctor Moreau’s island. Some of us will shit on the morning star [a reference to a Robinson Jeffers poem —MM]. There will be conflicts and tragedies. But in the long run, the sane will adapt and survive better than the insane. Nature’s pruning of the unfit will limit the spread of insanity among species in the galaxy, as it does among individuals on earth. Sanity is, in its essence, nothing more than the ability to live in harmony with nature’s laws.”
Aug 17, 2008 - 12:15 am 18. Michael McNeil:“Names foul in the mouthing.
The human race is bound to defile, I’ve often noticed it,
Whatever they can reach or name, they’d shit on the morning star
If they could reach….
“The awful power that feeds the life of the stars has been tricked down
Into the common stews and shambles….
“A day will come when the earth will scratch herself and smile and rub off humanity.”
Robinson Jeffers, The Double Axe and Other Poems, Including Eleven Suppressed Poems (1977).
It’s perhaps unnecessary to note, but Freeman Dyson differs dramatically from Jeffers’ assessment and point of view.
Aug 17, 2008 - 12:25 am 19. Jonathan Levy:Andy:
Loved your quotation, so I went to look it up, but found it subtly different:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceeding weak–who can know it?”
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1117.htm
Still quite relevant, however, in my opinion.
I’ve found the occasion to browse through Jeremiah recently, and found parts of it to be
rather inspiring – particularly 31:14-16, 29:1-10
Sincerely,
Jonathan Levy
Aug 17, 2008 - 1:40 am 20. michelle:To defeat evil
Aug 17, 2008 - 5:54 am 21. elixelx:Pretend it is not there,
Act because it is.
“We must force men to be Free” Rousseau (the Socialist Credo)
Yes, and not smoke, nor drink, nor eat trans-fats!
Yes, and not judge, nor punish, nor anathemize!
Who was it said “it is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Aug 17, 2008 - 6:10 am 22. Don:Whomever it was, was a Socialist too!
There is evil . . .
But the statement that man is (by nature) good and is corrupted by the “selfish” greater society? Given free reign most will assume selfishness as an imperative. The best examples of this are in “socialized” societies where the more blatantly selfish rise, and those who are not . . . stagnate or fail. Man is by nature selfish, yes we do have our “better natures” but these are “learned” from societies (one of the reasons for their creations) and from our beliefs (in powers greater than our petty selfish natures).
This is why the train of though started by these great social “theorists” (Marx, Engels, Ebert, etc.) is a dead end, these ideas of socialist “utopias” are a fantasy rendered impossible by mans true nature . . . of selfishness.
Aug 17, 2008 - 6:13 am 23. fred:One of the most important observations I made, which played a large role in my intellectual journey, about socialist societies: socialism does not make a new moral man. Quite the opposite occurs. Socialist societies breed a cesspool of nihilism, despair, cruelty, cowardice, and a lack of moral imagination. The pretense of perfection, which is a monstrous lie, tends to produce people who are morally stupid.
Rousseau was wrong. If you can’t see that, well THAT is an example of a lack of moral imagination.
Aug 17, 2008 - 8:21 am 24. Rubicon:Some see the evil in those who promote
Aug 17, 2008 - 10:50 am 25. WR Jonas:“doing good.” Why? Because in the end, they seek power. Wealth will follow but their intention is, power.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Just a the national state is not dead, neither is there a chance we will have a wolrd where evil does not exist.
In the end, some people are good, and some people are bad. The fight, is to create an environment where good people can thrive, even among evil people.
Ironically, there is more to a reagan saying than initially meets the eye.
“Trust, but verify”
Think about it carefully.
Very thought provoking article and as always , plenty of great comment and opinion . Mr. Ledeen is a first class thinker/writer.
Aug 17, 2008 - 1:21 pm 26. Thalpy:IMHO, the origin of all sin is mans rejection of God. Every subsequent transgression can be traced to that evil seed.
There is no doubt that we are hard wired to a considerable degree. As we progress with the development of diagnostic tools to examine individual genes, this fact will become more apparent. However, the mystifying element of all of this to me is what we do with these “truths.” You cannot convince me that the Left, for example, do not understand that We are not “equal.” Yet, they act as if we were all equal, and that there is no good or evil.
Spainards may kill the bulls, but they are having hell with the Muslims just now. They, the French, Germans, and many others acquiesce at every opportunity. They are all so busy trying not to offend the Muslims that their civilizations are being erased. Spain has changed many of its anti-Muslim symbols, Catholic churches in France don’t ring their church bells, textbooks in Europe are being re-written, hate speech will bring a jail sentence, and on and on.
We have not bought into a fable. The Left have been allowed to seize our major institutions, making them instruments of indoctrination and propaganda. Where has our “eternal vigilance” been? Designing policies? Our leadership, Democrat and Republican, do not see Islam as a threat–or do they?
Aug 17, 2008 - 1:56 pm 27. ReCon USMC:Please Read the 10 books that screwed the world and the 5 that didn’t help .By Benjamin Wilker Ph.D.
Good intention by the caring can be bad medicine for those in need . When we fix the temporary it is no more than bad medicine for chronic behavior all too often . Good intentions were written by Karl Marx and Engels Communist manifesto . Taught in all our Schools today .In other words by Idea’s can have long lasting bad consciences since written words last forever . My knowing Marxist theories were proven colossal divesting facts then but not anymore sadly in our schools of higher learning yet it is here today bigger than ever . Yet the common man see those teaching a what is wrong and has no bases to be right since it discounts
Aug 17, 2008 - 3:18 pm 28. Steynian 226 « Free Mark Steyn!:Exceptionalism , Morals , Families , Individualism , God and Faith and evil is done by your enemy only .
Although their intended purpose was good in the beginning We were told .It mostly yields unintended bad consequences all to often .
When God , mankind or the troubles individual self possibly fixes his Chronic Soul from within . The temporary quite often heals thin’ self .
Machiavelli, Decorates’, Hobbs , Marx and Engles all very famous Atheist said the common good is ruled by Kings and Princes who don’t see Heaven and Hell as a Sticks or a Carrots . Since common man wrote Darwin is the highest degree of animal who speaks as a machine, eats , drinks and has unconscious natural sexual pleasures .He kills and rules without conscious .
In other words you do what ever it takes to Win while making you enemy out to be the fool and lier .Mr Putin .
[...] RECOGNIZING Man’s Innate Capacity for Evil, by Michael Ledeen: “To deny it is to render ourselves [...]
Aug 17, 2008 - 4:37 pm 29. Navy Island:Force rules the World still.
Has ruled it, shall rule it
Meakness is Weakness, Strength is Triumphant
All Over The Earth, Everyday is Thor’s-Day
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Aug 17, 2008 - 5:52 pm 30. Javelin:from The Challange of Thor
Recon Marine, are you kidding or are you naturally that stupid, incoherent and illogical? That is the best example of right wing nonsense here since, I guess, your last post.
Aug 17, 2008 - 6:04 pm 31. Javelin:European Enlightenment, is what our country was founded on. There is pleny of evil in man and the world, and some of the most evil people are ones who always point and call the other evil, judging by some of the cretinous posts here. Check yourselves before casting stones, didn’t your Jesus say something like that? Did he march around with an army smiting the evil doers? You all sound as naive as you are destructive: endless wars to do good and vanquish evil are the logical result of the warped, shildish thinking here.
Aug 17, 2008 - 6:10 pm 32. shocked!:” Back in the Clinton years, it was widely believed that all future conflict would be solely economic; the age of military warfare had passed,”. ” But the new model-dictatorship could indeed fall, and democracies be created, peacefully.” ” Then came the age of the second democratic revolution,” ” free and fair elections, the rule of law, and so forth. History had ended, liberal democracy was triumphant.” Yes, “liberal democracy was triumphant,” as new agents for the NWO of elite secret societies. The power holders of this world seeking ultimate power-all human souls. Unknowing tools they are to social engineer the environment of human condition, to modify the human psyche in preparation to accept a tyranny NWO under a, most possibly, Marxism dictatorship. An economic warfare is a strong tool, so is military warfare. To be able to falsely convince a society we are a true democratic system, is pretty clever of brilliant minds. While all this time we have been supporting a cleverly disguised luciferian agenda (under banners of socialism, human rights,equality etc.) for the most extreme type of dictatorship yet to come-involving the whole world as a unit/a country, under the rulership of a soon to be Antichrist. An economic warfare in the short future is inevitable, so is a world wide military warfare, & a One World Order with a luciferian constitution. After all, we are people constantly repeating history.
http://www.henrymakow.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/american_communist_party
Aug 17, 2008 - 6:15 pm 33. ReCon USMC:European Enlightenment …. B/S ? Europe since the late 1800- 1900 and still today has been a continuous Massive Blunder and actually long before !
Aug 18, 2008 - 4:52 am 34. CR:Of course that is exactly where Marxism was founded …. Not Russia ….. IT was Germany .
Your almost right .It was some American ”SO CALLED SCHOLARS THAT WENT TO GERMANY .
[AND } brought that Enlightenment ”GARBAGE ” back with them .
You are part of that obvious GARBAGE Socialism/Marxism is Right . They just had the wrong players you hear Young Elite or their College Professors say to the empty brain .American colleges Teach hate America we need Change .Oboma is your messenger !
I see it worked in your case . Socialism Marxism is good and Capitalism is bad .
Yet the European results are a total BLUNDER IN COMPARISON TO AMERICAN CAPITALISM
OBOMA is your kind of Racial Socialist/Marxist obviously .
You had to talk about … I was stupid not the merit of my points .
Move on .org The DAILY KOS taught you PC Correctness more of your so called European Enlightenment ?
Face to Face I would ”Enlighten you butt ” ! Since I am not a European Pacifist . Elite or and American hater like YOUR KIND !
Numerous scientific disciplines agree – Humans are the highest form of primate on earth. To think otherwise is folly, and to ignore our basic animal nature is dangerous. What we call “evil” is simply primitive set of behaviors that no longer serve us well but they still persist. You don’t need to be an evolutionary biologist to know that creatures engaging in detrimental behavior don’t stick around forever.
Gangs violently defend their so-called turf, same as primates do in the wild. Humans kill each other for resources, territory, sex, or out of anger and primates do the same. Individual humans may do those evil things or a large group or nation, but the motives and behavior remain comparable to primates, and many other creatures for that matter.
As humans, we have the singular advantage of rational thought. We’re supposed to learn over time and improve our species in every possible way, thus ensuring our survival. Unfortunately, some people don’t learn over time and we always end up repeating past mistakes. Our tools advance over time but our mentality has not been keeping pace so now we face the very real possibility of a relatively small group of humans killing every other human on earth, and for the same old reasons. Any number of nations or groups could trigger a nuclear holocaust, or biological attack that would cause the extinction of humanity.
The petty disputes of the past have gone global and the same old evils are still alive and well in our hearts. The Doomsday Clock keeps ticking but we just keep making the same old mistakes.
Aug 18, 2008 - 5:15 am 35. Words Worth Quoting « Road Sassy:[...] from Michael Ledeen’s War & Democracy The belief in the inevitability of peace and democracy rested on one of the great conceits of the [...]
Aug 18, 2008 - 8:04 am 36. harmonicminer » Memo on evil: it’s real:[...] has not come, nor will it until the Second Coming. Michael Ledeen has again written a document that perfectly skewers the conceit of the Left that humanity is perfectable, if only we could live in better, fairer societies. Read the whole thing for essential background, [...]
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:56 am 37. David W. Lincoln:One of my favourite writers is William Stevenson, and in his book, “A Man Called Intrepid”, a wonderful word picture is painted
that still teaches the right lesson.
William Stephenson, who was involved in the shadow aspect of the Second World War, was a pilot in the First World War. He was captured, but escaped because he saw that Germany was fighting for the wrong reasons.
Why we fight those who would plunge the world
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:27 am 38. Chuck Pelto:into more blood-stained darkness goes a long way in determining how long this test of arms
continues.
TO: Michael Ledeen, et al.
RE: How True
“All of this wisdom has been dangerously undermined by the foolish notion that man is basically good, that all men are basically the same….” — Michael Ledeen
How is it written in some Old Book? {rummage-rummage}….ah-HA!
As Morpheus puts it to Neo in The Matrix, “Welcome to the world of the REAL.”
RE: Pre-Ordained?
“…and that all we need do is to permit history to take its preordained course.” — Michael Ledeen
Indeed. And it WILL happen. Why? Because of the above.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 18, 2008 - 10:45 am 39. Byron Perez:[Dates in prophecy are closer than they appear.]
Just like all of the realists and neo-relists before Mr. Ledeen, and I put him in that camp because of what he writes, i do not know if he holds a P.H.D and if he does Dr. Ledeen, Suggests that we at heart are basically evil. Although we have the capacity for good he suggests we choose evil. Sadly most people believe the hype of the realists theories based on Machiavelli’s book “The Prince,” but do not care to search out his other books which he references in passing at the beginning of the prince the principles of Democracy and other things which the founding fathers used for the U.S constitution. I can take one sentence of Gandhi and argue something he did not mean. Take the prince and put it in it’s correct period of time and then try and interpret it. Also, he was brown nosing Lorenzo De Medici.
Talking to our enemies is not a bad thing and going to war is not always a bad thing either, but to be black and white about the issue of human goodness is pessimistic at best and ignorant at worse, despite Mr. Ledeen verbose prose. I mean we spoke to Germany before WWII and they still invaded, but we also spoke to North Korea and they stopped their nuclear enrichment project. The road to this argument goes both ways.Besides, because someone wants to be dogmatic they usually do much more harm then good (i.e. Mr. Bush).
Another thing, I could throw many names in the U.S that decided to do good and internationally as well; Martin Luther King, the Reformed Malcolm X or Mohandas Gandhi. It is not correct to grab a piece of the puzzle (i.e. human nature) and create a whole argumentative theory about evil and what the world is like because it leaves out too many factors. Besides to take the premise of his argument from the state of nature and decide that all humans are more evil then good is ludicrous. All of the great “International Relations” (notice the quotes) philosophers, including Hobbes and Rousseau which studied the state of nature first had to come up with what they thought the state of nature was and since neither them or Mr. Ledeen can prove what it was then it is my guess that all this is just a matter of opinion.
I’m only saying……..
Aug 18, 2008 - 2:02 pm 40. Chuck Pelto:TO: Byron Perez
RE: Heh
Better read my post, immediately above yours of Aug 18, 2008 – 2:02 pm.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 18, 2008 - 2:23 pm 41. Chuck Pelto:P.S. Those books go MUCH farther back than Machiavelli’s study on the exercise of power. And I mean WAAAAAYYYYY back…..
TO: Byron Perez
RE: Speaking of….
“….had to come up with what they thought the state of nature was….” — Byron Perez
…the ’state of nature’. It’s not as difficult to surmise as you might like to think. Indeed. It’s VERY easy to find. And here are some steps for you to discover it….
[1] Drive up to a wildness area nearest you.
[2] Get out of your car.
[3] Strip off ALL of your clothing.
[4] Taking nothing with you, walk for seven days into the wilderness area.
[5] If you encounter any human being, hide from them or run away if they detect you.
You’ll figure it out….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 18, 2008 - 2:40 pm 42. Chuck Pelto:P.S. When you get hungry, eat a bug….
P.P.S. For those who don’t care to try the method described to Byron Perez, I suggest a good book to read; something about the collapse of civilization.
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. See….
http://www.amazon.com/Lucifers-Hammer-Larry-Niven/dp/0449208133/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219099191&sr=1-1
…for details.
I think you’ll find a lot of useful information relating to this topical thread in there. Not to mention a better understanding of some things written about in that Old Book; think Great Flood.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 18, 2008 - 3:42 pm 43. Human Nature | Ru Zi Ke Jiao:[To understand things written in that Old Book, look at them from the perspective of the original writer trying to explain a vision to his contemporaries in terms they would understand.]
[...] Faster, Please! » War and Democracy The great constant in man’s affairs is change, the direction of that change is determined by human actions, and many of the men and women who take those determinant actions are evil. Machiavelli is not the only sage who recognized it, but he put it nicely: “Man is more inclined to do evil than to do good.” Rational statecraft starts right there. [...]
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:11 am 44. tanstaafl:Tyranny was considered a passing phenomenon, headed for the ash heap, and certainly no threat to us.
We’re distracted at present by our own election & the Olympics, while Putin’s tyranny pushes forward and Al Qaeda advances its “new” agenda to become dominant in North Africa.
Tragedy in North Africa
Aug 19, 2008 - 11:37 am 45. Matchett-PI:“All of this wisdom has been dangerously undermined by the foolish notion that man is basically good,..” ~ Michael Ledeen
“Whenever I meet someone who claims to find faith in God impossible, but who persists in believing in the essential goodness of humanity, I know that I have met a person for whom evidence is irrelevant.” ~ Dennis Prager ( Ultimate Issues , July- September, 1989)
Emory Report 11/29/99 Vol.52. No. 13 http://www.freerepublic.com/~matchettpi/ Excerpt:
“…Marci Hamilton … [is] a nationally recognized expert on constitutional and copyright law. ….
Her forthcoming book, Copyright and the Constitution, examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of copyright law and asserts that the American “copyright regime” is grounded in Calvinism, resulting in a philosophy that favors the product over the producer.
Calvinism? Hamilton’s interest in the intersection of Calvinist theology and political philosophy emerged early in her career when she began reading the work of leading constitutional law scholars. She was puzzled by their “theme of a system of self-rule.” “They talked about it as if it were in existence,” she said. “My gut reaction was that direct democracy and self-rule are a myth that doesn’t really exist.”
What Hamilton found was that a “deep and abiding distrust of human motives that permeates Calvinist theology also permeates the Constitution.” Her investigation of that issue has led to another forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Reformed Constitution: What the Framers Meant by Representation.
That our country’s form of government is a republic instead of a pure democracy is no accident, according to Hamilton. The constitutional framers “expressly rejected direct democracy. Instead, the Constitution constructs a representative system of government that places all ruling power in the hands of elected officials.”
And the people? Their power is limited to the voting booth and communication with their elected representatives, she said.
“The Constitution is not built on faith in the people, but rather on distrust of all social entities, including the people.” …
..Two of the most important framers, James Wilson and James Madison, were steeped in Presbyterian precepts.
It is Calvinism, Hamilton argued, that “more than any other Protestant theology, brings together the seeming paradox that man’s will is corrupt by nature but also capable of doing good.”
In other words, Calvinism holds that “we can hope for the best but expect the worst from each other and from the social institutions humans devise.”
Aug 20, 2008 - 4:30 am 46. Ravalli County News » Blog Archive » A Fact Neglected at Great Peril:[...] “The great constant in man’s affairs is change, the direction of that change is determined b… [...]
Aug 20, 2008 - 11:40 am 47. Chuck Pelto:TO: Matchett-PI
RE: Indeed
“That our country’s form of government is a republic instead of a pure democracy is no accident, according to Hamilton. The constitutional framers “expressly rejected direct democracy. Instead, the Constitution constructs a representative system of government that places all ruling power in the hands of elected officials.”” — Machett-PI
As was stated by one of the Founding Fathers….
Look at the Athenian direct democracy.
And even representative republics have a hard time of it in the long run. Look at the Roman Republic.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 20, 2008 - 12:28 pm 48. Chaz:[The great atrocities of our civilization have rarely been the acts of generals or presidents or kings. They have been the doings of petty bureaucrats acting within the strict confines of the law. -- Alain Simon]
Well, I have two things to say:
Aug 20, 2008 - 3:01 pm 49. Chuck Pelto:1) The (im)perfectibility of man
I’ll concede that Man in imperfectible by reason alone. It’s impossible. I truly believe that has reasons in both the physical and spiritual. We’re corrupt and fallen, any christian would know that.
THAT said, did not Jesus say ‘be ye perfect’? It is possible to become perfect, but not by reason. Hence we have Christians.
2) Democracy and the Republic
The founding fathers were scared to death of the old athenian democracy. That’s why we had the checks and balances and the arcane method of selecting senators pre-17th amendment. Even republics have way of breaking down after time (granted, they tend to last longer, but they have a shelf life). Hence, the old line in the declaration of independence: when a government fails, time to toss it out and replace it. It worked in 1774 and 1782 right?
TO: Chaz
RE: The Arcane System
“The founding fathers were scared to death of the old athenian democracy. That’s why we had the checks and balances and the arcane method of selecting senators pre-17th amendment.” — Chaz
It worked. But, in conjunction with SCOTUS Reynolds v. Simms (1964), it has destroyed the power of the State and shifted it towards the more ‘democratic’ system that resulted in the collapse of Athens.
Now, only majority vote means anything at the state level. SCOTUS Reynolds v. Simms (1964) destroyed the balance of power between metropolitan and rural areas by making the state senate an over-paid/over-glorified version of the state house of representatives. Gone is the classic balance of power found at the federal level and affectionately referred to as “The Great Compromise”.
Now the vast majority of legislative power, including the ability to appoint judges and commissioners, is vested in the large cities.
We’re experiencing the disaster of that ruling at the local level, as Denver sucks up more and more resources to serve itself.
Indeed. I sit on a county commission overseeing the transportation infrastructure and we’ve had a major east-west highway in dire need of attention. Meanwhile Denver builds it’s mega-lane I-25 corridor.
Why?
Because our east-west corridor does not serve Denver. The same is true for another east-west corridor 100 miles south of here.
If we, as states, want to return to an honest form of government, we need to have SCOTUS Reynolds v. Simms (1964) overturned.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Aug 20, 2008 - 3:19 pm 50. Sophie N.:Man is inheritenly evil. I will challenge Rousseau, and stand by William Golding and state: man in inheritenly, it’s the bounds of civilization that keep man good and noble. When i say ‘man’, i reffer to men and women, to small kids and adults. Innocence has little to do with age, it’s related to a person’s understanding of human nature. There is a beast inside of each one of us, waiting to be released. It’s civilization that keeps the beast chained.
Nov 26, 2008 - 7:48 pmRestricted by language bareers, as I speek spanish, i will try my best to communicate my thoughts and feelings. I consider we can never know our limits. I think survival can get out what’s best from each of us, but it can also reveal our worst things. It’s unbelievable what men can do. limit situations, life or death, show the real ‘us’. is in these situations when we discover our animal and savage instincts are intact. Even though we see this veri far away from us, You and Me have it in the darkest corners of our souls, those corners we are not aware of yet.