When Philosophy Meets History, History Wins
Dreams can't argue with reality
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Another riff on a Mark Lewis article.
Most people tell me they enjoy grounding my writing in history. We study history to learn the good and the bad, the wise and the otherwise, which works and doesn’t (see that slogan on top). History can teach us those things. However, we have not learned very well because most people don’t study history very much. We have our “ideas” of the ideal life, but too often, they run smack into an awfully stubborn brick wall called “life.”
History: the way things have been and are.
While there have been many intelligent men spouting ideas about life, what it means and how we should live, much of human philosophy is just nonsense. Interesting nonsense sometimes, but still nonsensical. One person’s subjective opinion is no better than anyone else’s. People throughout the ages and all over the world have enjoyed speculating, musing, and philosophizing about the way things “should” be. It is part of our nature. You do it, I do it, we all do it, and usually, we are the worst for it because history always wins. If your philosophy contradicts historical facts and reality, your philosophy is nonsense. History, nature, and reality will not change. Not for you or anybody else.
For instance, communism.
Socialism, or whatever you want to call it, is the supreme example of this kind of nonsense. Marx sounded smart, but he was an egghead imbecile. His philosophy and economics are pure poppycock that never worked in his day and still don’t work. It sounded so good—a perfect golden age of equality, freedom, and human brotherhood. It is a marvelous philosophy and so many people have swallowed it over the ages—long before Marx—including many Americans who still preach it. But when socialism/communism runs into reality, it fails utterly and completely. That one philosophy has brought more misery to humanity than most of the others that failed, including Nazism. Utopia sounds wonderful. But then, it meets the reality of human nature and economic laws, and the consequences have been horrifying for hundreds of millions of innocent people who didn’t—or did—believe this utterly unrealistic, unhistorical, unhuman human philosophy. But people still believe it and probably will continue to because everybody wants to have heaven on Earth. Socialists promise Heaven on Earth, but they never deliver it and never can. It is an entirely nonsensical philosophy, and history has proven it to be so.
Transgenderism is another example.
This idea is unscientific in the extreme (not to mention unhistorical), but again, look at the consequences of such an absurd philosophy. Transgender people, and those who defend them, are denying reality, historical and otherwise, in their pursuit of an errant philosophy about humans—that men and/or women can change sexes safely and without consequence. The number of transgender people who seek mental health help or who have committed suicide after transition is orders of magnitude above the averages. Even worse for this “progressive” philosophy, women are being robbed of their rewards and rightful attainments that we spent generations providing for them because some males want trophies and records they can’t get by competing against other males. And these enlightened “philosophers” are horribly mutilating innocent children who, one day like every kid everywhere since time out of mind, put on clothes not made for them. I hope hideous philosophy is only a fad that will soon pass. But, knowing humans, knowing their undying search for some personal utopia, regardless of its denial of truth, reality, or nature, I wonder how long we will have to endure this tragedy. It may sound good to some: “Males can become females and visa-versa.” Maybe we can transplant a uterus into a male-assigned person, but there’s nothing in nature that’s going to make it work. That disaster is just over the horizon, and a disaster it will be because it conflicts with biological reality and history.
And The Founders, of course, and their Constitution.
I respect the men who founded our country. They were brilliant men and wise students of history. Because of their fear of government tyranny — a near absolute in historical reality—they tried to establish a system where Americans could enjoy freedom from such tyranny and live their lives without the oppression of power-hungry despots. They did such a good job in setting up America’s government that we, as a people, have enjoyed great freedoms from government tyranny. But that is eroding now. What happened? The Founders limited government ideal has run head-on into the historical reality of the human lust for power and those who will ruthlessly destroy everything in their paths to get it…within what they consider Constitutional bounds, of course.
The Constitution intends to serve those who would respect it, not those who would abuse it.
The Muse
Some in America believe that an all powerful government is the key to happiness and prosperity, and is indeed possible under the Constitution as the Founders created it. These people want totalitarian power. And they are doing everything they can, and too successfully, in destroying the system set up by America’s Founders. Our Constitution was so well written that would-be tyrants must struggle to get around it to get the power they crave. But human desire for power is one of the greatest realities of history, and the persistent and power-hungry often prevail. No philosophy, no matter how well conceived and constructed, has been, or ever will, counteracts and defeats human greed or lust for power forever. Our Founders’ efforts were the best so far attempted but alas, may not survive. Those efforts are now being burned on the altar of human megalomania. Philosophy will once again probably meet history.
The Past Not Taken: Three Novellas
Historians and philosophers are at odds over not only the past but the present and the future. The Past Not Taken explores the philosophy of the present, clashing with the facts of the past and its portents for the future.
When a classroom discussion hits the point where current philosophy runs into the record of the past, which do you think prevails? Available from your favorite bookseller or from me if you want an autograph.
Coming Up…
World War I Reconsidered
George Kenny
And Finally...
On 27 July:
1054: The brightest known super-nova, in the Crab Nebula, is first observed in China, Japan, and the Middle East. While not widely reported, it is one of the “signature” global events that historians and calender-makers used to locate other events in history. The phenomenon is no longer visible to the naked eye.
1953: The US, China, North and South Korea and ten other nations sign an armistice in Panmunjom, Korea, ending the three-year long Korean War. While the figures for the Koreas and China are imprecise and subject to propaganda distortions, the UN force casualties were easily in the six figures, while the Chinese and North Korean losses were almost certainly in the seven figures.
And today is NATIONAL KOREAN WAR VETERANS ARMISTICE DAY, for obvious reasons. Called the Forgotten War by many, there were more than a million Korea veterans still alive in 2020 when their median age was 88.
I had a thought about children wearing the opposite sex's clothing. Until approximately the twentieth century, ALL young children wore girls' clothing. Clothes were not so easy to come by then, so perhaps the hand-me-downs needed to be uni-gender.
But apparently, somehow, boys and girls could still tell each other apart.