Science Forums 2

[lemit]

Aw shucks (dust kicking).

I often wonder what we would have had, if anything, had we not come out of the Age of Reason and had we not had such generalists as Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, the Adams family (one D), the Lees, Oglethorpe, and a host of others. They didn't just have the enhanced understanding of the nature of being and the social contract that went with the Age of Reason. They also had the belief in the scientific method that would very soon erupt into the industrial revolution, combined with a love of nature and agriculture that would result in our love of the nature we are destroying--Whitman and his contradictions came from that tradition too. And they had that conservative religious tradition.

If we had been a little less industrious and had not got around to forming our government until the age of spiritualism in the 1840's, how long would we have lasted?

If we had not sewn the seeds of the cure for slavery even as we permitted it, could we have ever grown out of it? If my generation had not understood the evolutionary nature of our revolution, could we have continued that evolution out of slavery and could we have re-discovered that social contract which had been gathering dust?

I'm not a bit comfortable now, although I am one of those reviled community organizers and have my opinion solicited by the current administration and congress.

The evolution of revolution that started two and a quarter centuries ago is still as tenuous as ever. Don't write us off, but don't worship us. It's all right to fear us; that's why "Moby Dick" is important to an understanding of us. We are culturally naive, unaware of our strength as we are of our real history and traditions. So we continue to behave like adolescents. If anybody ever successfully explains to us how much we've grown and aged, perhaps we'll learn to act like it. But probably not.

Our predominant culture is colonial Northern European. We believe we were the first humans to discover this continent. When we came here the continent was without form and was void. We placed our hands upon it and it brought forth fruit.

I hope we can come to understand ourselves, but I'm not confident. There is no need for us to understand us. It is up to the rest of the world to understand us, in the way it is always encumbent on the prey to understand the predator. Are you listening, rest of the world? You've been warned. Don't make us come over there!

Happy birthday to us? Damn straight!

USA! USA! USA! WOO! WOO!

--lemit