Ray9
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2016
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Let’s do a thought experiment. Apparently there are two camps on the issue of borders, those who believe they are necessary to preserve the continuity, safety and cultural integrity of civilization and those who believe borders shouldn’t exist at all.
Robert Frost reflected on the necessity of walls as he and his neighbor walked the stone border separating their properties. In his poem “Mending Wall” Frost did his own thought experiment while along with his neighbor he patrolled on the opposite side of the piled stones between their farms looking for loose boulders that needed to be replaced. Frost philosophically reasoned that “something there is that doesn’t love a wall” because walls can shut people out from one another. His neighbor had a more pragmatic approach to the maintenance they were performing. Unlike Frost he didn’t question any complex issues arising from the existence of the wall and human interaction. His neighbor knew only that the wall needed to be fixed in the spring and it’s a good practice to do the fixing with the owner of the adjacent property. His neighbor says “good fences make good neighbors”.
Now it’s a pretty good bet the Frost was better educated than his neighbor and he observes that his neighbor walks in the “shade” as he works which could be interpreted as unenlightened and though he would like to put “notions” in his head to persuade him to be more thoughtful he seems to respect the neighbor’s point of view and his dignity as a fellow human being because the wall they are repairing is an artifact of wisdom not educated intelligence.
In the poem there is the mention of “hunters” who are interlopers that cast aside the stones to make spaces in the wall to pursue their quarry. The hunters have no respect for the space they overrun because they have nothing invested in it. Frost does not say to his neighbor that the hunters have some kind of lofty right to dispossess those who occupy a space of the space they occupy. He does not confront his neighbor with threats of legal action to force his neighbor to stop putting up stones that impede hunters. Frost says nothing about his neighbor being an ignorant fool, only that he thinks differently. Whether or not one is more wrongheaded is not explored in the poem. Both seem to arrive at the conclusion that in a world where everyone does not have the best of intentions, some walls are necessary even if there is always something that wants them down-maybe in a fictional, fanciful world where everyone does have the best of intentions.
We are not living in the days of Robert Frost. We are living in an age where a tiny nucleus of politically connected and educated elite considers the rest of us ignorant fools. They are moving populations all over the Earth without regard to the personal space and shared cultural history the rest of us already occupy. This has been tried all over Europe for centuries and has produced such wonderful outcomes as Nazis and Ethnic Cleansing. For some reason intellectuals relish ideas where the slaughter of innocent men, women and children on the side of the road to settle old scores is just part of doing business. They keep pushing the failures of Europe in American classrooms as though they are somehow morally superior to our way of life. Separating people into political groups and then fomenting antipathy between those groups is commonplace in the psychosis of leftwing politics and it was staying the course here until this last presidential election. One of our political parties marched itself right over a cliff and now their true colors are exposed with rioting brown shirts at educational institutions as they try to burn out opposing points of view with violent intolerance.
Robert Frost should have listened to his neighbor. End of thought experiment.
Robert Frost reflected on the necessity of walls as he and his neighbor walked the stone border separating their properties. In his poem “Mending Wall” Frost did his own thought experiment while along with his neighbor he patrolled on the opposite side of the piled stones between their farms looking for loose boulders that needed to be replaced. Frost philosophically reasoned that “something there is that doesn’t love a wall” because walls can shut people out from one another. His neighbor had a more pragmatic approach to the maintenance they were performing. Unlike Frost he didn’t question any complex issues arising from the existence of the wall and human interaction. His neighbor knew only that the wall needed to be fixed in the spring and it’s a good practice to do the fixing with the owner of the adjacent property. His neighbor says “good fences make good neighbors”.
Now it’s a pretty good bet the Frost was better educated than his neighbor and he observes that his neighbor walks in the “shade” as he works which could be interpreted as unenlightened and though he would like to put “notions” in his head to persuade him to be more thoughtful he seems to respect the neighbor’s point of view and his dignity as a fellow human being because the wall they are repairing is an artifact of wisdom not educated intelligence.
In the poem there is the mention of “hunters” who are interlopers that cast aside the stones to make spaces in the wall to pursue their quarry. The hunters have no respect for the space they overrun because they have nothing invested in it. Frost does not say to his neighbor that the hunters have some kind of lofty right to dispossess those who occupy a space of the space they occupy. He does not confront his neighbor with threats of legal action to force his neighbor to stop putting up stones that impede hunters. Frost says nothing about his neighbor being an ignorant fool, only that he thinks differently. Whether or not one is more wrongheaded is not explored in the poem. Both seem to arrive at the conclusion that in a world where everyone does not have the best of intentions, some walls are necessary even if there is always something that wants them down-maybe in a fictional, fanciful world where everyone does have the best of intentions.
We are not living in the days of Robert Frost. We are living in an age where a tiny nucleus of politically connected and educated elite considers the rest of us ignorant fools. They are moving populations all over the Earth without regard to the personal space and shared cultural history the rest of us already occupy. This has been tried all over Europe for centuries and has produced such wonderful outcomes as Nazis and Ethnic Cleansing. For some reason intellectuals relish ideas where the slaughter of innocent men, women and children on the side of the road to settle old scores is just part of doing business. They keep pushing the failures of Europe in American classrooms as though they are somehow morally superior to our way of life. Separating people into political groups and then fomenting antipathy between those groups is commonplace in the psychosis of leftwing politics and it was staying the course here until this last presidential election. One of our political parties marched itself right over a cliff and now their true colors are exposed with rioting brown shirts at educational institutions as they try to burn out opposing points of view with violent intolerance.
Robert Frost should have listened to his neighbor. End of thought experiment.
