CultureStack

In an address celebrating Constitution Month, I discussed the blessings of liberty and the four pillars the founders claimed were necessary to perpetuating that liberty. I also discussed how we can better engage with our fellow citizens to solve the problems our society faces

Principles of The Declaration & Constitution: Imago Dei, True Law, Church & State, and Happiness

Drawing on Biblical teachings and the writings of Aristotle, Locke, and Cicero, I discuss some of the most basic and perhaps least known principles underlying the Declaration and Constitution of the United States. This episode is taken from a live speech I delivered at a church event commemorating the Constitution. Afterwards I added in about five additional minutes of content that time constraints had required me to omit earlier.

I was asked to speak in my church on Constitution Day. In my faith, we believe this document was inspired by God, but that we have deviated from many of its important ideas.

One of our former leaders, Ezra Taft Benson, taught that the United States had "apostatized in various degrees from different Constitutional principles as proclaimed by the inspired founders."

I chose to briefly explore what principles President Benson was referring to, or at least a few of them:

The implications of our departure from these principles are significant and are responsible, I think, for our society moving closer and closer to becoming what Hamilton lamented as "wretched nurseries of unceasing discord". Yet it seems to me we rarely talk about them. We hack at leaves instead of roots.

Available in written format at https://www.culturestack.online/post/constitution-apostasy

Is Pride Month compatible with Christianity? Many believers believe so.

Written version

Pride Month is appealing to Christians and other people of good faith because they see it as a way of showing charity, compassion, and Christ-like love. It can appear to be a way of fulfilling the Second Great Commandment that everyone can rally around, transcending religious and ideological divides.

Benjamin Fincher, the host of the How to Rewrite Your Stars podcast, invited me on his show where we discussed the Culture Stack concept, particularly as it applies to the transition of the United States from republicanism (classic liberalism) to progressivism to Wokeism - particularly as they relate to human happiness and flourishing.

It was my pleasure to be a guest on Greg Denning's Be The Man podcast, where we explored the concept of a "culture stack", the idea that every society is built on moral, political, economic, and cultural layers that interplay and change over time - and are changing as we speak.   

We discussed Aristotle's formula for happiness outlined in his great classic, Ethics, and how western civilization in general, and the United States in particular, incorporated those ideas in their founding. The "pursuit of happiness" made famous in the Declaration of Independence isn't some subjective, ethereal concept, but is actually a specific recipe for individual and societal happiness.  

Check out Greg at www.gregdenning.com and Be The Man wherever you get your podcasts.

Other content referenced in this episode:  

"Where Are We Heading? Bret [Weinstein] Speaks with Peter Boghossian" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIigprRbKcs&t=0s

"I Regret Being a Slut", by Bridget Phetasy 

https://bridgetphetasy.substack.com/p/slut-regret

"The Great Conversation", Robert M. Hutchins & Mortimer Adler 

https://ia801600.us.archive.org/11/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.150395/2015.150395.Great-Books-Of-The-Western-World-The-Great-Conversation.pdf

#religion #culture #morality #politics #economics #society #founding #unitedstates #liberal #liberalism #conservatism #aristotle #johnlocke #marvel #drstrange

The United States Declaration of Independence mentions three inalienable rights. "Life" and "liberty" seem fairly intuitive, but “the pursuit of happiness” seems a bit more vague and subjective.

In reality, it refers to a specific way of being described by Aristotle around 350 BC and painstakingly developed by many others over the 2,000 years that followed. It gives rise to a particular meaning of “life” and “liberty” and is the end goal behind both the Declaration and the Constitution. It insists on a particular view of morality, government, economics, and society unfamiliar to many Americans. Our departure from that view explains much of the turmoil facing our nation today. Increasingly we are a people with a morality (software) incompatible with the structures (hardware) our nation was founded on.

In this essay, I explore the lost meaning of “the pursuit of happiness.”

Text version available at https://www.culturestack.online/post/pursuit-of-happiness

Only in recent years have Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings become contentious. Justices Scalia, Kennedy, O'Connor, and Stevens all received 100% votes in favor of confirmation. Ruth Bader Ginsburg? 97%  

More recently, however, nominations have become much more contentious and partisan. Neil Gosuch (2017) received 55% and Brett Kavanaugh (2018) received just 51%. In 2020, Amy Coney Barrett received zero votes from Senate Democrats.  In this episode, I discuss how corruption of the court, the move from Originalism to Living Constitutionalism, has made confirmations and our politics in general much more volatile and contentious.

A text version of this podcast is available here.

Seventy years ago, the faculty of the University of Chicago published a 54 volume series entitled "The Great Books of the Western World" - an attempt to identify and make readily available the most important ideas that made our civilization possible. In the introduction to that series, the editor wrote:

"It is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is to leave them unread for a few generations."

Western Civilization was built on dialog and the exchange of ideas. Cancel culture and book banning are anathema to the liberal tradition. Both sides of the political aisle point fingers at one another. The removal of those books from a place of primacy in our classrooms and conversations endanger what is most important to us. The removal of one book is particularly egregious. The Judeo-Christian Bible is foundational to classical liberalism and representative democracy - the keystone of our civilization. From it, we derive human dignity and human rights, equality theory, justice, even science. For all the clamor in recent years about content missing from our history lessons one "banned" book remains the elephant in the room. 

In spite of his absurd and often offensive outward behavior, Trump has governed like an actual conservative. I believe Trump will win the election and if he doesn't, it will be his own fault. His record makes a reasonable case for reelection, even though his personality and conduct do not.   

In this episode, I explore what Trump has done well, what he has done poorly and the impact this election will have (or won't) on the real issues dividing our country.

A text version of this podcast, including links to citations is available here: https://www.culturestack.online/post/election2020