Stumble it!Instantiated in Perfection
posted in Politics, Society by themaiden |Short but hopefully inflammatory.
The United States was founded on a strong set of principles, most if not all of which I favor by the way. But lets think about something else. Since its founding, people in the United States have had a kind of religious zeal about those founding principles. Politics seems to be eternally about returning to an earlier age. The suggestion is that the such an earlier stage somehow approached perfect and hence all we can do is preserve it. We can try not to stray too far from our foundations but we have little hope of doing better. Whether the founders thought of it this way is a different question.
Now, there is another case very similar but it has been instantiated for a longer period of time– about 1300 years to the United State’s 250 odd. This other instance also has a history of considering the founding a point of perfection, at least in the view of many in latter generations and many in many living currently. Again, whether this was the intent at founding is another question. The result has been widespread social and political stagnation, and the rise not a few dictators and considerable violence. Any guesses at this other instantiation?
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