A series of short posts summarizing my thoughts as I work my way through the archives of the Imprimis newsletter from Hillsdale college.
As you might guess the most important person is you, no surprise there (although I don’t agree). He begins well by pointing out that we should seek to live life consistently and we should do so by adopting a basic premise from which all reasoning begins. In his case he asked himself the most probing question possible, “what is man’s earthly purpose?” Based on three assumptions he makes he comes to the following conclusion.
“It is to see how close one can come during his earthly moments to expanding his own consciousness into a harmony with Infinite Consciousness. Or, in lay terms, to see how close one can come during his earthly moments to a realization of those creative potentialities uniquely his own, all of us being greatly varied in this respect.”
Read bases his conclusion upon three assumptions. His first assumption is that “man did not create himself”. I am not convinced the other two are right (you can read these for yourself) but it is a great question. The first question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks “What is the chief end of man?…Mans’ chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” The Shorter Catechism comes to a clearer and more succinct conclusion.
Moving on Read continues to argue for the importance of working through all of life in consistent accordance with your premises. He then goes on to offer a helpful explanation of one of Immanuel Kant’s premises by using the following maxim.
“I have a moral right to my life, my livelihood, my liberty. Is that good? According to Kant, that is good only if you can concede that same right to every other human being—universality. Can I? Yes, I can. Therefore, it is good. Let me reverse the maxim and watch it come through. I have a moral right to take the life, the livelihood, the liberty of another. Is that good? According to Kant, that is good only if you can rationally concede the right of murder, theft, enslavement to every other person on earth. Can I? I cannot. Therefore, it is not good.”
Read points out that it is unlikely that Kant could have lived in manner consistent with this premise and therefore it is critical that we continue to seek truth and expand our consciousness through introspection and improvement of self. Read goes on to comment about governments and this is where his speech offers the most provocative insights.
“In order to know what government should and should not do, you must know what government is and is not. I have been saying for years that the essential nature of government is organized force.”
“The distinction between you as an agent of government and you as a private citizen is as an agent of government you have a constabulary—an organized force—behind you: you issue an edict and I obey or take the consequences. If this organized force be removed from behind you, you are restored to private citizenship”
“It (government) can inhibit, restrain, prohibit, penalize. The next logical question is, what in all good conscience should be restrained, penalized, prohibited?”
“What we have to recognize is that this physical force is definitely not a creative force.”
“All of this is by way of saying that we should confine government to inhibiting the destructive actions of men, and that all creative actions, without any exception whatsoever, should be left to men acting freely, privately, cooperatively, voluntarily, competitively. That is how I draw the line.”
Read’s point here is to say that a government should not act in such a way as to inhibit this pursuit of what I will call the “grand premise” (although that is exactly the system most of us unknowingly live happily within today in my opinion). Read uses the image of a clenched fist in describing the role of government, I can only add that perhaps a better image is a Nanny with a clenched fist.
November 7, 2007 at 8:03 am |
[...] The World’s Most Important Man- Government is organized force. [...]