“He does not seem to know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never troubles himself to answer the arguments of an opponent… It has never occurred to him… that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with something more convincing than ‘scoundrel’ or ‘blockhead’.” Lord Macaulay, ‘Essay on Southey’s Colloquies’
Quoted in Anthony Browne "The Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain" Civitas 2006
"But as Thomas L Haskell has pointed out, it is important not to confuse objectivity with neutrality, indifference or lack of passion...the pursuit of history, Haskell argues,
requires of its practitioners that vital minimum of ascetic self-discipline that enables a person to do such things as abandon wishful thinking, assimilate bad news, discard pleasing interpretations that cannot pass elementary tests of evidence and logic, and, most important of all, suspend or bracket one's own perceptions long enough to enter sympathetically into the alien and possibly repugnant perspectives of rival thinkers"
I think many McAtheists fail Richard J Evans test for objectivity!
The article had this charming quotation from Pascal:
"We know too much to be skeptics, and too little to be dogmatists,"
This sounds like a fairly "dogmatic" statement to me.
What I think is notable is the fact that we, in the 21rst Century, dismiss our philosophical forefathers as "ignorant", "dogmatic"...and, otherwise, person's who were living in the "dark ages".
You know what I would like to see? I would like to see someone without the benefit of modern technology (i.e. printing press, typewriters, ballpoint pens, white out, error correction programs, word processors and computers), write a "Republic" "City of God" or "Against Eunomios" (i.e. Plato, St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, respectively)....and do so with the same degree of literary taste and sophistication that these three have.
The problem with "moderns" is more than simple ignorance of the past....the problem is our foolhardy lack of respect for men who labored under the so-called "dark ages", to produce the kinds of works that they did. Ought we not to bow before these men as our superiors, rather than as our inferiors?
G.K. Chesterton once said:
"Tradition means giving our ancestors a vote"
Indeed. But we give them a "vote" because they, more than we, deserve it.
6 comments:
“He does not seem to know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never troubles himself to answer the arguments of an opponent… It has never occurred to him… that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with something more convincing than ‘scoundrel’ or ‘blockhead’.”
Lord Macaulay, ‘Essay on Southey’s Colloquies’
Quoted in Anthony Browne "The Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain" Civitas 2006
Or perhaps, something more convincing than "ignorant" or "brainwashed."
Delusional. I forgot about delusional.
(-:
"But as Thomas L Haskell has pointed out, it is important not to confuse objectivity with neutrality, indifference or lack of passion...the pursuit of history, Haskell argues,
requires of its practitioners that vital minimum of ascetic self-discipline that enables a person to do such things as abandon wishful thinking, assimilate bad news, discard pleasing interpretations that cannot pass elementary tests of evidence and logic, and, most important of all, suspend or bracket one's own perceptions long enough to enter sympathetically into the alien and possibly repugnant perspectives of rival thinkers"
I think many McAtheists fail Richard J Evans test for objectivity!
("In Defence of History" p251)
The article had this charming quotation from Pascal:
"We know too much to be skeptics, and too little to be dogmatists,"
This sounds like a fairly "dogmatic" statement to me.
What I think is notable is the fact that we, in the 21rst Century, dismiss our philosophical forefathers as "ignorant", "dogmatic"...and, otherwise, person's who were living in the "dark ages".
You know what I would like to see? I would like to see someone without the benefit of modern technology (i.e. printing press, typewriters, ballpoint pens, white out, error correction programs, word processors and computers), write a "Republic" "City of God" or "Against Eunomios" (i.e. Plato, St. Augustine and St. Gregory of Nyssa, respectively)....and do so with the same degree of literary taste and sophistication that these three have.
The problem with "moderns" is more than simple ignorance of the past....the problem is our foolhardy lack of respect for men who labored under the so-called "dark ages", to produce the kinds of works that they did. Ought we not to bow before these men as our superiors, rather than as our inferiors?
G.K. Chesterton once said:
"Tradition means giving our ancestors a vote"
Indeed. But we give them a "vote" because they, more than we, deserve it.
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