Boy am I pissed off ...
We have been given an opportunity to re-centre our civilisation. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that opportunity has been thrust upon us. It’s cant to talk about getting back to basics but it isn’t to talk about getting back to Aristotle. Is it actually possible that someone can speak to us from several thousand years previously and have something important and relevant to say? I suspect that a lot of evangelical Christians would answer the question with a defiant YES. Only a few would think of some bearded Greek (if, indeed, he did sport one).
On 11 September 2001 I lost my faith in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. I realised that day that those faiths are built on emotion and it’s emotion that makes people drive planes filled with innocent people in buildings filled with even more innocent people. It’s emotion that makes people believe in the words of some crazed lunatic who feeds them poisoned cool-aid or ends up leading them to fiery deaths in a compound outside Waco, Texas.
Aristotle does not talk to my emotions, he reasons with me. He is the foundation of the civilisation of which I want to be a part and of which I hope I am the child. Democracy is a work of reason. Justice is a work of reason. I believe that happiness – true happiness – is a work of reason.
We have been assaulted by terrible events these past 10 years. We have had leaders who did not understand the full magnitude of what happened and whose reaction was emotional rather than reasonable. We have encouraged and permitted greed to rule our economies and passion our politics. It is time to put a stop to this and let our finances and our politics be ruled by more human values. You see, as human beings, we are the inheritors of reason and logic and we ought to adhere to those superior values and not let ourselves be pulled down by the same emotions that appear to characterise the behaviour of jackals.
Actually, I may have overstated that last bit about jackals and, for that, I apologise to all jackals. In the end, their behaviour is rational.
