This article articulates something I have been feeling since 2020.
“The Past is a Foreign country.”
I love this idea because it means the present will be a foreign country to the future. It encourages me not to take modern political and ideological problems too seriously, but also not to idealize and romanticize western history as one long unbroken chain of progress. We are already so far off course from what the founders of western countries intended regardless.
Regarding free speech: If our rights come from the Creator, then blaspheming the creator would be a direct denial of our right to free speech. Blasphemy laws actually protect free speech and the entire institution of rights.
Then when you separate rights from their source, as the west has, they become utterly meaningless and/or whatever we want. In some cases, as we saw in 2020, they become the justification for oppression.
Thank you, Prof, for this clear and poignant Explain using as teaching aid Gustave Moreau's 1864 "Oedipus and the Sphinx” painting and the famous Faulkner line “The Past isn’t even past” (in “Requiem for a Nun”, 1950)
What the writing sets forth reminds me of J.S. Bach’s (b.1685 d.1750) contrapuntal harmony which to most musicians is perfection reified.
That’s all I have to contribute. I can’t think of anything to add or subtract or even embellish. That would be blasphemous. Except to note from a bird’s eye view of chronological time, there is no barricade between what’s past, what’s present, and what’s tomorrow. And if we make a U-turn, the same. That, imv, applies to interpretation of constitutional law. The fact that the painting, the book, and the music are all there for us to look at, to cite, to listen to, proves this. And “this” is the analog of the “soul” of law. In short, in the context of time, Originalism, as its proponents frame it, is a red herring.
Happy you like it. I wasn't aiming to be "kind". I wrote what I thought. I wish to thank you for the wonderful articles on Substack. Always instructive and edifying.
This article articulates something I have been feeling since 2020.
“The Past is a Foreign country.”
I love this idea because it means the present will be a foreign country to the future. It encourages me not to take modern political and ideological problems too seriously, but also not to idealize and romanticize western history as one long unbroken chain of progress. We are already so far off course from what the founders of western countries intended regardless.
Regarding free speech: If our rights come from the Creator, then blaspheming the creator would be a direct denial of our right to free speech. Blasphemy laws actually protect free speech and the entire institution of rights.
Then when you separate rights from their source, as the west has, they become utterly meaningless and/or whatever we want. In some cases, as we saw in 2020, they become the justification for oppression.
Great comments — much food for thought. Thanks!
Thank you, Prof, for this clear and poignant Explain using as teaching aid Gustave Moreau's 1864 "Oedipus and the Sphinx” painting and the famous Faulkner line “The Past isn’t even past” (in “Requiem for a Nun”, 1950)
What the writing sets forth reminds me of J.S. Bach’s (b.1685 d.1750) contrapuntal harmony which to most musicians is perfection reified.
That’s all I have to contribute. I can’t think of anything to add or subtract or even embellish. That would be blasphemous. Except to note from a bird’s eye view of chronological time, there is no barricade between what’s past, what’s present, and what’s tomorrow. And if we make a U-turn, the same. That, imv, applies to interpretation of constitutional law. The fact that the painting, the book, and the music are all there for us to look at, to cite, to listen to, proves this. And “this” is the analog of the “soul” of law. In short, in the context of time, Originalism, as its proponents frame it, is a red herring.
Thanks so much! Too kind.
Happy you like it. I wasn't aiming to be "kind". I wrote what I thought. I wish to thank you for the wonderful articles on Substack. Always instructive and edifying.