Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Must things be the way they are?

Something to think about as you make your election day choices.  Which candidates are most likely to ask why things must be the way they are?

Refusing to be intimidated by the received traditions and confident of their own integrity and creative capacities, the Founders demanded to know why things must be the way they are; and they had the imagination, energy, and moral stature to conceive of something closer to the grain of everyday reality, and more likely to lead to human happiness.[W]e have the obligation, as inheritors of their success, to view every establishment critically, to remain in some sense on the margins, and forever to ask why things must be the way they are, knowing that it is never enough to say they must be so -- one needs to know why. -- Bernard Bailyn  (age 92 today)

No comments:

Post a Comment