Monday, August 19, 2013

Carlyle and the Folly of Man

What I like about Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution is its sarcastic tone. The way he illustrates with example after example the foolishness of Man as Rational Being.

We see this with our politicians and legislators today. Instead of accepting nature, the complexity and anarchy of nature, and allowing for it, channeling it, we have instead politician Professors who believe they can order and regulate everything, all parts and activities of society. They, themselves, with their smugly intelligent rationalistic brains.

Reading Carlyle gives perspective on monstrosities like Obama’s 2800-page health care act intended to control every minute aspect of health care throughout this gigantic country—2800 pages of law culminating in 20,000—give or take—pages of federal regulations to implement and enforce such unwieldy rationalistic mess.

Like so much else coming down from on high, the premise is an absurdity on the face of it.

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