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Lesson Plans


Re: Founders and Abby Adams too!?

From: Larry Seiler (lseiler@ez-net.com)
Date: Fri Jun 16 2000 - 06:28:54 PDT

  • Next message: SANDRA ROWLAND: "Re: a view on distance"

    <snip>
    Do you have a big pot of whitewash?
    Jeez.
    Most of them agreed with Jefferson re. church and state.
    Advocating returning to a much imagined version of the past does a
    disservice
    to the future. Don't forget we read about ideals and not about reality.
    We would all be better off working on the future.
    Artie
    <snip>

    excuse me...? Hello? I said something about living in the past?
    A return to slavery perhaps?

    Treating people decently is not an outdated mode, nor shall be. History
    gives us a unique perspective to view how progress "progressed"... That WE
    sit high and mighty and pass judgments on past mistakes is what I tried to
    emphasize as ironic in lieu of no doubt so MANY mistakes we are making here
    in the present UNBEknownst to us because we yet fail to see the corrections
    the future will have made on our behalf. That we would judge religion and
    the general good intentions of the founders negatively by pointing out many
    held slaves is to ignore their times, to ignore how progress progresses. As
    they became "enlightened"....as further truths made themselves self-evident
    and were debated, the error of ways became apparent. It is AFTER error is
    understood that it becomes of interest to see what corrective measures were
    taken.

    Regardless...we make wrong assumptions to toss out the good and reasons
    behind the good of the founder's times based upon our assessments of those
    negatives that had not yet been worked out. I was calling for a bit of
    humility on our part, considering we don't know what we don't know yet about
    the future's judgments of our generation's pompous forgings ahead.

    Finding and filtering out the truths of the past from the mistakes of the
    past is NOT "living in the past." It is simply wisdom.

    Larry Seiler 

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