"land of Lincoln":
Lincoln never explicitly expressed a religious belief, and certainly never joined a church nor pushed beliefs upon another (Lincoln's religious beliefs are disputed by historians. Wikipedia has a page with references to multiple books discussing them). So the "land of Lincoln", while having relevance as a motto for democracy, freedom, and equality, is a phrase that does not appear to have any religious significance.
Freedom:
Lincoln emancipated thousands upon thousands of human lives with his presidency and set a precedent for taking a stand on the belief in the value of human equality. What is Ms. Davis calling her state to do? Repress ideas, perspectives, and values of one type, while force feeding and indoctrinating values of another. I am not a Lincoln biographer... but I highly doubt this is something Lincoln could side with.
Dangerous:
What is dangerous? The spreading of information and diversified perspectives? The belief that human beings have intrinsic and inherent value? The belief that children, while being young and thus impressionable, are nevertheless valued human individuals and consequently should be presented with multiple viewpoints such that they may begin to form their own values, rather than become a mirror of ignorant ideology which suppresses views that conflict with that ideology?
I for one say that what is dangerous is exactly what she is imploring of her fellow statesmen. She is calling for the suppression of ideas and the rejection of varying perspectives. These varying ideas say nothing more than the following: we as humans can think for ourselves and determine our own values based on the diverse viewpoints we are presented with; that this life is beautiful; that each human matters in themselves; that we do not need a judge in the sky to make us moral. If these ideas are *dangerous*, then consider me a daredevil.
Philosophy:
I myself will continue to be a daredevil, spreading my ***dangerous philosophy*** which seeks nothing more than the liberation of human value and perspective. Such dangerous philosophy has germinated in the Land of Lincoln. The land of Lincoln being not just Illinois, but these United States of America which he left behind. "The land of the free..."
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Good work, my friend. Consider me a subscriber.
ReplyDeleteThat quote is hilariously ignorant. However, dangerous ideas in general . . . hmmmm. Is it impossible that an idea could be dangerous? Check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.ted.com/2007/07/dan_dennett_on_2.php
The actual entry is below the garbage at the top. I particularly liked this:
"Remember the Shakers? "Gift to Be Simple?" Simple furniture? And of course they're basically extinct now. And one of the reasons is that, among the creed of Shakerdom is that one should be celibate. Not just the priests -- everybody.
Well, it's not so surprising that they've gone extinct. But in fact that's not why they went extinct. They survived as long as they did at a time when the social safety nets weren't there and there were lots of widows and orphans, people like that, who needed a foster home. And so they had a ready supply of converts. And they could keep it going. And, in principle, it could've gone on forever. With perfect celibacy on the part of the hosts. The idea being passed on through proselytizing, instead of through the gene line.
So the ideas can live on in spite of the fact that they're not being passed on genetically. A meme can flourish in spite of having a negative impact on genetic fitness. After all, the meme for Shakerdom was essentially a sterilizing parasite."