Thursday, November 26, 2015
Critique of The Discipline of Gratitude-- E.J. Dionne Jr
Critique of The Discipline of Gratitude-- E.J. Dionne Jr
I agree with a lot you say, but the crack about Republicans taking "You did not build that " out of context is uncalled for.
I trace POTUS statement to John Rawls who is taught at our Universities and whose position is that almost nothing we achieve is due to some particular good we have earned. If we are smart, it was in our genes, hence there is no accomplishment. If we succeed it is because the society we live in appreciates the skills we have developed, once again, we are without input. If we work hard, its because we have been trained by our parents to do so.
This view of the President (and Rawls, and Mrs. Clinton) negates free will, the ability to work hard because of our personal decisions based on character and will. What Rawls (and POTUS) say is correct, but it does not explain why people with similar backgrounds and capabilities succeed and fail differently, nor does it correspond to the accepted formulation of "Survival of the Fittest"
Let's all be thankful for the gifts we inherited, those we developed, and the opportunities our village has provided for us. But let us not forget that it is effort, personal effort which produces results.
Let's remember that the little group in Massachusetts formee a failed comune whose experiment of working and sharing in common led to hunger, starvation, and death. Only when Governor Bradford canceled socialism and let free enterprise revive, did the colony prosper. "Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products,” sell whatever overages they had. “And what was the result? ‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford [in his journal], ‘for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.'” See Breitbart on Thanksgiving for a fuller story, or any of the myriad books written on the Pilgrims.
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