Sir Roger Scruton’s Personal Page
Will the Madness of 2020 Last?
COVID-19. Antifa. Fauci. Trump Derangement Syndrome. Black Lives Matter.
In his article linked above, Victor Hanson asks, “Will the madness of 2020 last?”
Our Praxis Circle Member from Houston, Texas, Will Garwood, was asking the same question when he forwarded it to us.
Last year will no doubt go down in the history books (if there are any in the future) as one where Americans essentially lost their minds.
And of course, we at Praxis Circle are interested when people lose their minds. Or, more importantly, why people lose their minds in the first place.
In the video above, Expert Contributor Sir Roger Scruton offers a rather simple explanation: the relationship between truth and reality. “What makes something true is the reality,” he says, “so objective truth and reality are the same idea.”
Madness ensues for a number of reasons, but perhaps the crux of all chaos comes when one’s “truth” and reality don’t align—when they see no issue with holding onto “facts” or beliefs that are at odds with what is really real around us. “It’s not for me to determine what the truth is, the truth is what it is regardless of what I think,” Scruton says.
Expert Contributor Michael Novak shares similar sentiments concerning moral reality in the video below:
A personal-only moral compass—when one decides for oneself what is true—often seems to others to have no bearing on reality. And that path may quickly lead a nation down a road of destruction before citizens see it coming.
So, with this in mind, will the madness of 2020 follow us into the years to come? Most definitely—until more Americans realize the importance of truth in relation to reality, which always leads back to the steady road of reason.
Worldview Angle: All worldviews begin with a view toward reason (versus feelings, emotions, desires), truth, or ultimate reality. Do you believe in reason or not? What is it? Across the globe, many popular worldviews give it low-to-no emphasis.
In a sense, reason and consciousness presuppose Truth. There is disagreement over whether God or man stand inside or outside Truth, if it exists, or whether they alone or together make it happen.
The general category Truth entails various combinations of experiential, dimensional, spiritual, conceptual, moral, scientific, historical, or material truth, as category examples. Is there moral truth without God or man?
Some believe that a world absent reason consists of chaos, with any possible order being found only in random power or need. Most people today would at least agree humans do not function well in chaos.
Chaos is terrifying.
What do you believe? Why? Does it matter what we believe? How can we know?
