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We have to be careful. The American Revolution was the most radical egalitarian movement ever undertaken…..that is untill the French Revolution surpassed it and self-destructed. The Revolution was therefore a liberal movement in the sense that it was “progressive” in its outcome. Having said this, the rhetoric that came from the Revolution was socially conservative in that it was Protestant dissenting ideology that sought not to overthrow the British system, but a restoration of what was perceived to be the “pristine.” But as the war escalated and the cause seemed in jeopardy, the revolutionaries became increasingly more radical and egalitarian….that is more liberal. The removal of an aristocratic class was the most liberal of the ideas expressed. No titles or emoluments were to be tolerated, but at the same time, slavery was preserved even though the practice was fairly much gone in Europe. By the time of the Second Great Awakening, however, conservative moralism won out and began to shape American history from thereon.
I am going to withold my judgment on Scholasticism. No doubt it forged the foundation for the Age of Reason, but that means it influenced such figures as David Hume and Voltaire with its humanism components. Scholasticism also created a philosophy of religion. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, it demarcated the break with the Patristic system of thought. Also, the dialectic became a critical part of the Catholic curriculum which led to mystic interpretations….again this is according to the Catholic Encylopedia online. Plato was dumped for Aristotle’s line of reasoning….perhaps good perhaps bad. I relish the Patristic Era over this one because I favor the old Greek philosophic methods that were incorporated into Christian theology. St. Augustine, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Origin, and Tertullian rank higher on my list than Anselm and Dons Scotus. I will make allowances for Aquinas since he destroyed Avicenna and Averroes and paved the way for my hero, John Calvin. 😀
I’m going to say Gladiator. I also like Braveheart. My third choice will have to be Gettysburg.
By the way, thanks for joing the Gunbroker forums Phidippides. We need your expertise over there. There's some sharp folks who frequent those boards....some with Master degrees in Philosophy and Political Science. I hope we can convince more to join this site. 😀
Nemesis:
Yeah that movie was solid. The Russians had more soldiers than weapons. They just sent some of them out without without a rifle, but the officers assured them that one would become available shortly. 🙁Liberal thought is reactive and antagonistic to the decentralization of business and law.
Conservative thought is proactive and friendly to decentralized economics (including taxation) and law.
For example, Liberals favor labor movements that restrict the market, regulation, and taxation for the redistribution of wealth to less privileged classes. Conservatives, however, favor laissez faire trade policies, strict interpretationists of the Constitution, and the enforcement of morality via sodomy laws, blue laws etc....
Liberals act on juridical matters that can decentralize social issues such as abortion, civil unions, and euthanaysia.
These are the modern manifestations of Liberalism and Conservatism.The Declaration of Independence removed the king as mediator between God and the masses. It was a bold new egalitarian approach that diluted sovereignty down to the common people where it had never been before. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 diluted the sovereignty somewhat as Parliament assumed the role of the sovereign, but the House of Commons still ministered to a king representing his interests disproportionately over the will of the masses. Additionally, the king still held considerable influence over his ministers which perpetuated the court ideology of the Tories who remained the sycophants of the nobility. The Declaration did away with nobility….noblesse oblige…..and the imposition of the will of the One. It was a radical departure from all other notions of balanced government, and is still evolving to this day.
The Eighteenth-Century is fun. Lots of theology, ideology, and philosophy to chew on. I think you have the potential to be a very fine scholar. It’s up to you how far you wish to pursue it. 😀
I don’t have time tonight, but Crusoe mingled among the Big Thinkers of his day. The Atlantic colonies inspired his work tremendously.
Better familiarize yourself with the historians I cited. A serious scholar of American eighteenth-century will have wrestled with these giants of the field copiously.
While you are looking up scholars.....see also: Edmund S. Morgan, Joyce Applebee, Jon Butler, James Hutson, Patricia Bonomi, Jack P. Greene, George Bancroft, Alan Heimert, Perry Miller, Alice Baldwin, Louis Hartz, Nathan O. Hatch, Edwin Gaustad, Sacvan Bercovitch, Sam Mead, Eugene Sirmans, Alan Brinkley, Pauline Maiers, Frank Lambert, Frederick Jackson Turner Maine, Henry Steele Commager, Arthur P. Schlesinger Jr., James MacPherson, Robert Kerby, Lance Banning, George C. Herring, Robert Calhoon, Harvey Jackson, Allan Gallay, Martin Marty, John Philip Reid, Robert Weir, Mark Noll, and Marjolene Kars.
There is more than enough to get you started.
Several things.
1. Time. Europeans had a head start on the New World Civilizations.
2. Diversity. There were more ethnic groups with diverse cultural contributions where a synthesis of juxtaposed ideas intermingled which created advancements in technology.
3. Accessible Resources and new writing forms. The Middle East and Asia Minor had vast amounts of tar and pitch, clay, and granite to build with early on. The technology learned there spread to Europe via the Phoenicians and Greeks who each had alphabets and linear writing capabilities necessary for the retainment of complex knowledge above cunieform and hieroglyphics.
4. Competition. The Middle East and Europe were more populous and prone to internecine conflict.....the greatest motivator of innovation.....developing the means to defeat one's enemies.
5. Papyrus/Paper. The ability to archive greater amounts of written knowledge gave rise to a scribe class who codified, catalogued, and dissimenated their knowledge to artisans, craftsmen, and merchants who could transport their knowledge to ever wider distances away from the epicenter of their societies.
6. Christianity. Religions that prosyletize provide another way to contribute to the exchange of ideas. The Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas did not prosyletize their religions but remained localized at the main shrines located in capitals such as Tenochitlan.I don’t know if Menes qualifies. I’ll have to check on it. Egyptian an Sumerian civilizations were mostly confederated villages tied to the Nile and Euphrates river networks. There is a legend of Enmekar–a ruler of Uruk–circa 2500B.C. I will cast my ballot with Sargon I since the Akkadians were a mobile empire whereas the Egyptians and Sumerians were barely sedentary cultures though literate and using wheels, sailboats, and metals. Source: John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, eds., The Columbia History of the World (New York: Harpor Row Publishers, 1972), 60-61.
The Crusades and the loyalty of the Templars to the Church ensured the Pope a forum through which he could remain relevant in the eyes of the secular kings of Europe. The dismal failures of the last Crusades, however, damaged the Pope’s credibility irreparably as an institution and began the long arduous slide toward the Reformation. The Reformation became the new Crusade as the Moors were defeated in Spain and Mehmet II was thrown back by Ivan Dracul in Transylvania/Wallachia. The Templars, were perhaps the last positive thing to come from the High Middle Ages….that and the flying buttress!
I lost respect for Oliver Stone when he tried to ram The Last Temptation of Christ down our throats! I did enjoy Nixon and The Doors, but Alexander failed to live up to its potential. Stone is very anti-Christian. He has issues and I think they are gnawing at him.
Of course. We would have learned how Aristotle categorized comedy. It would not have rivaled the Nichomachean Ethics or his analysis of the Athenian Constitution, but it would have completed another piece of Aristotle’s mind. Think about all of the works that were lost when the Library of Alexandria burned. All of the great masterpieces of knowledge lost and the contents of their wisdom forgotten by the time the Germanic hordes overran Rome. 😥
I have been thinking about your post and I cannot relegate the SGA to being more of a Southern phenomenon. Yes Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone represent a Southern movement. Charles Grandison Finney and Francis Asbury are all over the place. Lyman Beecher and his daughter Harriet represent a Northern flank with William Lloyd Garrison, Jedidiah Morse et al mixed in a little later. I think the SGA should be partitioned into Sectional components that aggravated the sectionalism already present leading to the Civil War. Here is how I view it. The First Great Awakening sowed the seeds for the Revolution Phase I (Independence). The Second Great Awakening sowed the seeds for the Revolution Phase II (The Civil War). The Third Great Awakening led by Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and Brother Shambock sowed the seeds for the Revolution Phase III (The Civil Rights Movement). The Fourth Great Awakening is being led now by T.D. Jakes, Joyce Myers, Charles Stanley, and Pat Robertson (I can explain his role). The Fourth Great Awakening has prepared the way for the Revolution Phase IV (the Spreading of Democracy via the War on Terror). Robertson and his associates such as Ralph Reed and William Bennet have successfully influenced American foreign policy to be pro-Israel and therefore anti-Arab. This Neo-Conservative movement (a liberal tag but useful here) upholds the doctrine of regime change to reform the world political order in favor of the West and Israel via Americanized Democracy. Thus our Revolution continues on in an international exportation mode.
I think I heard something about this a long time ago. I have not seen anything on it though. I am sure Hitler took time to write down some of his thoughts. He was a methodical thinker, but erratic. Hitler has been condemned by many as being an intellectual lightweight. I won’t put him on the scale of a Hegal, Nietzsche, Marx, or Schweitzer (some German notables). But he was meticulously visionary in what he hoped to accomplish….a genius in its own right. Of course I am a Christian, and I think the Devil played a role in his ascendancy too. The only thing that prevented Hitler’s success was his impatience and his insistence to micromanage the war rather than adhering to the advice of his generals…..notably Rommel. After the July Plot (Operation Valkyrie), Hitler’s paranoia climaxed to such a degree that he could not trust anyone near him, thus reinforcing his already present need to control details all the more. As a side note, Hitler respected England, France, and America because he viewed them as descendants of the Anglo/Germanic peoples (Teutons).
