1776: The Pinnacle of Philosophical Evolution?

[jwoodie]

The most substantial claim for U.S. "exceptionalism" is its Declaration of Independence, wherein a disparate group of individuals staked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the novel proposition that people were born with natural rights independent of external authority. (The existing institution of African slavery does not diminish this achievement, since they were erroneously believed to be a sub-species at that time.)

Since that time, we have made great strides in manufacturing and technology, but our ability to deal with great concepts has diminished to the point of simply pandering to the lowest common denominator. Will our future be limited to passive acceptance of creature comforts in exchange for abdication of individual self-determination?

 

[whitehall]

Before the American Declaration of Independence the world was completely dominated by despotic rulers who claimed the title by birthright or demonic monsters who murdered their constituents to gain political power. During a single summer in the 1700's the fledgling new government of the people created a document, the Constitution, that revolutionized human existence. Americans should be rightfully proud of the system of government by the people created by the Founding Fathers that the entire (civilized) 21st century world relies on today but sadly the education system in the greatest Country in the world hasn't done much in the last fifty years of democrat party rule besides teaching grade school kids how to put a condom on a cucumber.

 

[regent]

The Declaration of Independence and that period of history was a result of the past, going back to the Golden Age of Greece. Many were involved in laying the groundwork for our nation and government even including even astronomers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Still others should get credit for putting that knowledge to work on governments and people. Our independence and government resulted from ideas at work over a long period of time.
Are there ideas today that will result in even more changes in the future?

 

[Agit8r]

"MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance: the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for"
-- Thomas Paine; from Common Sense (1776)

 

[whitehall]

The Declaration of Independence and that period of history was a result of the past, going back to the Golden Age of Greece. Many were involved in laying the groundwork for our nation and government even including even astronomers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Still others should get credit for putting that knowledge to work on governments and people. Our independence and government resulted from ideas at work over a long period of time.
Are there ideas today that will result in even more changes in the future?

Lots of British subjects might have thought that government of the people was a good idea but when the Brits finally had their chance after Cromwell's revolution and the beheading of the King they chickened out and recalled the headless monarch's son from exile because they were afraid of self government. The American Founding Fathers changed human history. Get used to the idea.

 

[regent]

The Declaration of Independence and that period of history was a result of the past, going back to the Golden Age of Greece. Many were involved in laying the groundwork for our nation and government even including even astronomers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Still others should get credit for putting that knowledge to work on governments and people. Our independence and government resulted from ideas at work over a long period of time.
Are there ideas today that will result in even more changes in the future?

Lots of British subjects might have thought that government of the people was a good idea but when the Brits finally had their chance after Cromwell's revolution and the beheading of the King they chickened out and recalled the headless monarch's son from exile because they were afraid of self government. The American Founding Fathers changed human history. Get used to the idea.

The founders changed American history based on a background of history which included the Age of Enlightenment, which was based on...which was based on...which was based on....

 

[Mr. H.]

It's a shame the Supreme Court is able to usurp states' rights and to stifle the voices of Americans by rendering opinions such Roe V Wade and same sex marriage.

 

[Picaro]

It wasn't much of a 'philosophical' revolution, just a consequence of English Parliament against the King, and an economic crash to the Crown treasury that necessitated attempting to get the colonies to pay their share of the costs of defending them after nearly a century of benign neglect and looking the other way on the illegal trade that built the early fortunes of people like Hancock and others.

A lot of high mined philosophical hubris and the like was thrown around, but it's not to be taken seriously, it was just for propaganda purposes, and mostly not anything the Founders actually believed or practiced themselves; they were a pretty bourgeois and practical lot. They tossed the fanatics under the bus after the war, and deported Otis; nobody likes blowhards and cranks.

Somebody already brought up the importance of past movements, but mainly it was Christian influences for the most part, though it's not trendy or fashionable to say so these days.

An example:

Thomas Helwys - Religion-wiki

"Thomas Helwys (c. 1575 — c. 1616), an Englishman, was one of the joint founders, with John Smyth of the Baptist denomination.

In the early seventeenth century, Helwys was principal formulator of that distinctively Baptist request: that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Thomas Helwys was an advocate of religious liberty at a time when to hold to such views could be dangerous. He died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of Protestant dissenters under King James I."

Other trends go back to John Ball, Thomas of Aquina, Augustine, Origen, to Plato and Aristotle, both of whom had a significant influence on the intellectuals behind both the New Testament and the Jewish scholars before and after the Jesus era. The First Great Awakening, the evangelical revivals in the decades before the Revolution, were key supporters when the war wasn't popular with most colonials, and the Second Great Awakening that were responsible for Jefferson's elections. they voted for Jefferson almost unanimously, and why Jefferson was so concerned to not offend the Danbury Baptists. Most of these trends go back to Bolingbroke and beyond, and the long centuries of religious dissent in Britain and Europe. 'Bolingbrokism' was the largest influence by far on the Jeffersonians, far more so than Locke or any of the other more well known philosophers.

 

[whitehall]

You can nit-pick written statements by the FF and use them in an argument just as a former KKK member appointed to the supreme court by FDR used Jefferson correspondence in 1948 to justify the "separation of church and state" that didn't appear in the Constitution to justify the subsequent war of Christians. The point is that the Founding Fathers came together and agreed on the final draft of the Constitution which is the basis for self government .The Bill of Rights was an astonishing concept in the 18th century of human endeavor when most monarchs were free to execute a political enemy or their ex wives well into the 19th century. By the dawning of the 20th century America was barely a hundred years old but was acknowledged to be the world's first super power and thousand year monarchies still existed but were falling like dominoes. Freedom of the people as guaranteed in the American Constitution became the dominant system that almost all countries subscribe to today.The opinions of useful idiot academics and left wing politicians, not withstanding, the greatest document written in a single summer in the 1700's in Philadelphia changed human interaction forever and we should be rightfully proud.

 

[Picaro]

The Declaration of Independence and that period of history was a result of the past, going back to the Golden Age of Greece. Many were involved in laying the groundwork for our nation and government even including even astronomers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. Still others should get credit for putting that knowledge to work on governments and people. Our independence and government resulted from ideas at work over a long period of time.
Are there ideas today that will result in even more changes in the future?

Yes. The model formed by the Founders is fairly compatible with the evolution of the modern nation-states by giving a large number of of its people a vested interest in the functioning and success of the states so formed, something feudal or imperial forms can't provide. In the current era, the destruction of the national culture and traditions is leading to merely 'the state', a la Soviet Union, Red China, without the 'nation' part, and that is not going to work out well; its lop-sided and unbalanced. We now have an academic and political 'community' that viscerally hates their own country and is instilling that hate into as many children and citizens as it can, and replacing that cultural vacuum with nothing but pop sociology fads and 'the State'.

 

[Picaro]

It's a shame the Supreme Court is able to usurp states' rights and to stifle the voices of Americans by rendering opinions such Roe V Wade and same sex marriage.

Congress has been sloughing off its primary job for decades now; they have been allowing the Courts too much power, in favor of devoting their time to getting re-elected and ignoring their part in the balance of Federal power; they hope to avoid being 'unpopular' and losing their next election. What this is leading to is states being hamstrung and frustrated when representing their own people and their wishes. Naturally the Courts love assuming more power and being the sole arbiters of law and social contracts. They are partisan political hacks, after all, and appointed by other political hacks specifically because of their biases, not any lofty ideals of 'impartiality' and 'objectivity'. The results of that assumption of power is going to end badly as well. It leaves Federal Courts deciding state laws entirely on the personal whims of a handful of judges, ones specifically appointed for their political and social biases to boot..

 

[Abishai100]

Computers: Network Nestea

Modern networking (i.e., eTrade) creates interesting negotiation-driven institutions (i.e., World Bank).

We turn on our TVs in Washington or California and enjoy a World Cup soccer match between Portugal and Holland and comment on the Internet about the skills of Cristiano Ronaldo or Dirk Kuyt.

In other words, you can be a jolly-old American your whole life in the modern age and still 'sample' some of the celebrity delights from Portugal (or maybe Asia) thanks to modern era media contracts created by negotiated networking...all thanks to capitalism.

So, I would argue that while 1776 is still the hallmark of contract consciousness (i.e., Declaration of Independence), Americans today can branch out to brood on 'globalization glue,' thanks to, among other things, networking-miracles such as Facebook.





Facebook (Wikipedia)