I shall blog more later, but this morning, I am thinking of how two generations of Americans and English have completely forgotten or never learned the history of their own people and civilizations.
Those who do not know history (my first degree is in history with an emphasis on ancient) CANNOT judge current events properly.
They have no historical or philosophical framework to apply to peoples or events.
Prudence, a gift of the Holy Spirit and one of the Cardinal Virtues, builds on knowledge. As Catholics, we know that Christ entered history as a Man at a particular point in time and taught us. In the Old Testament, God entered history again and again to form His People, to make a covenant with them, and to renew that covenant.
Catholics should be a People of History. At the Fullness of Time, our God came into the world and became physically part of history as a Man. We are part of His History.
It does not take much effort to be educated.
One of my best friends does not have an elementary education. She never went past THIRD grade or so because of many childhood illnesses. She grew up in Ireland after WWII. No one made her go to school, as she was ill and her parents took good care of her.
She knows Latin, some Greek, Italian, some French, history, geography, art, drama, opera, music history, religion, grammar, writing, biology, zoology and many other subjects at the level of BA.
She is self-taught.
She knows more than most college graduates in the US.
Why? Her natural thirst for knowledge, given to all of us by God, was never destroyed by an ideological school system.
If she can learn enough to have more than one BA degrees, so can anyone.
If one is ignorant and wants to remain so, one is not being the person God created.
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| The Baptism of Clovis |
This proclivity towards ignorance is anti-intellectualism, laziness, but worse, it has been encouraged by governments.
An uneducated populace most easily falls into slavery. Without knowledge, one believes ideologies.
As we stand at the edge of the destruction of our basic freedoms, we have only ourselves to blame for not wanting or taking the time to learn who we are.
Relativism and individualism lead, ironically, to tyranny.
Think, reflect, act.
