Now that the six blind men and the elephant paradigm is broken, we may look at Plato with fresh eyes. Here, 92 in LF&P 48a: >>Plato . . . is highly relevant to our own mutiny on the good ship civilisation. For, the lessons of sound history were bought with blood and tears; those who Read More…
Governance & control vs anarchy
L&FP 48c: Supplement, addressing the disappearance of core knowledge of first principles of right reason (aka Logic)
In the course of speaking to disappearance/restoration of moral knowledge, I realised that there was need to stop the rot on core right reason also. Accordingly, I commented at 153 in LF&P 48a, and as it is obviously logically prior, I now headline out of rough chronological order: The issue of self-referential incoherence, regrettably, does Read More…
L&FP, 48b: Dallas Willard and the disappearance/ restoration of [authority of] moral knowledge
Knowledge, of course, is best understood as warranted, credibly true [and so, reliable] belief. Where truth is, similarly, accurate description of actual entities, states of affairs etc. Willard, in the closing decades of his life, spoke to the disappearance of moral knowledge (and was writing a book which was completed posthumously in 2018, five years Read More…
L&FP, 48a: Is the denial of objective moral truth an implicit truth claim about duty to right conduct etc? (Thus, subject to Reductio?)
Over the past month or so, there has been an exchange of comments regarding my OP L&FP 48, where I note how New Atheist Stefan Molyneaux, in his “Universally Preferable Behavior” (2007), stumbled across the Ciceronian first duties of reason. As a part of that, sometime objector VL raised the claim: Obviously, for one to Read More…
Barna profiles a generation on the cliff’s crumbling edge — 78 million US Millennials
Barna’s current report, “New Insights into the Generation of Growing Influence: Millennials In America,” is a portrait of a generation adrift, dancing on the edge of a cliff, and reflective of generations of civilisational betrayal by intellectual, policy/political, media and educational leadership leading to a destabilised culture. And so, this cannot wait, triple bereavement life Read More…
L&FP, 48 – i: The conscience factor in consciousness
Conscience is a major aspect of our consciousness, one of the “first facts” of our embodiment in the world, thus part of the start-point for sound thinking. Hence, Cicero’s recognition that it was consensus even in his day that “[sound] conscience is a law”: Given word games that may crop up, let us note a Read More…
L&FP 44a: What is 2 + 2, Mr Smith? (1984 as demonstration of how first duties and first truths are inextricably intertwined)
1984 is a classic satirical novel on the nature of tyranny in the mass media driven, information age, totalitarian surveillance state. Accordingly, it is vital to appreciate the force of the Winston Smith on the Rack scene — yes, taken from the related movie — where the issue of the self-evident truth 2 + 2 Read More…
Then, they came for Sir Isaac . . .
Newton. The latest year zero reset target, as Telegraph reports: Sir Isaac Newton has been labelled as a potential beneficiary of “colonial-era activity” in draft plans to “decolonise” the engineering curriculum at Sheffield University. Students learning about the mathematician and scientist’s three laws of motion, the core of modern physics, could see changes in their Read More…
L&FP 41: George Barna helps us to understand the worldviews chaos we must address
Barna has issued new survey results that paint a stunning picture of the bellwether United States, as an utterly confused, conflicted nation, with 88 percent defaulting to incongruous worldview components, with the single largest bloc being 39% inclined to “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Of course, actual full adherence is at the 1% level. Biblical theism comes Read More…
Should we recognise that “laws of nature” extend to laws of our human nature? (Which, would then frame civil law.)
Laws of Nature are a key part of the foundation of modern science. This reflects not only natural, law-like regularities such as the Law of Gravitation that promotes the Earth to the heavens (from being the sump of the cosmos) but also the perspective of many founders that they were thinking God’s creative, ordering providential Read More…
How do we move civilisation (and especially science, tech and math) forward?
We are clearly in an age of reversion to oligarchic domination and lockout of dissent, so the issue is that of formation of a counter-culture, starting with the life of the mind. H’mm, as a preliminary, let us look briefly at a refresher on a more useful ideological/political spectrum than the usual LEFT/RIGHT (which has Read More…
Candace Owens interviews Dr Stella Immanuel and dynamics of hope (yes, JVL, it’s back to answering the “never let a crisis go to waste”/ “inevitable crisis of Capitalism” Marxist revolutionary strategy)
Yes, Marxist ideology pivots on the idea of mounting crises of Capitalism opening the door to socialist transformation. (Where, yes, pandemics obviously count as do incidents of police brutality or anything else that can be used to hang the failure of Capitalism and/or Christendom crisis template on.) Back in the ’30’s, Stalin thought THE Crisis Read More…
UD Live Event from Nov 3, US Election cont’d: BBC — yes the BEEB — on BLM’s Marxist founders, “[We] fought to change history and we won”
Okay, we are looking at the victory lap being taken (a bit prematurely, methinks) by the BLM trio of marxist founders. Here is BEEB: Black Lives Matter founders: We fought to change history and we won Published14 hours ago The year 2020 will be remembered for a lot of things – not least the rise Read More…
UD LIVE EVENT — US Election Nov 3, 2020: predictions, tracking live, projections, reflections/thoughts
This election in the US is at a kairos for not only the US but our civilisation. What do you think, why? (Recall, UD makes no endorsements and no “un-dorsements” either, but we are aware that the seven mountains of power and influence strongly interact with worldviews and cultural agendas raising issues of alternatives.) So, Read More…
Judge Amy Coney Barrett begins US Supreme Court nomination hearings
Judge Barrett has issued the text of her remarks ahead of the hearings. She is President Trump’s third nominee and the hearings are liable to be contentious, one hopes the sort of accusations raised against Mr Kavanaugh will not occur. It is to be noted that election year nominations to the Supreme Court have happened Read More…