The Exodus Frame of Mind

[coberst]

The Exodus Frame of Mind

Recently David Brooks wrote for the New York Times an article labeled “The Past Meets the Future.

This was an imaginary conversation between Mr. Past and Mr. Future.

Mr. Past focused upon our failure to understand the past and in so doing we make egregious errors. He admonishes us not to take insane attempts to solve historical problems when such matters must heal themselves slowly in the course of time. He admonishes us to seek the happy mean, as Aristotle would say. He suggests that we just try to get by today and maintain some decent order that one thing will lead to another and we will all get by.

Mr. Future reminds us of the Exodus story and how this story indicates what a people can accomplish if they never give up. Generational journeys are possible and they can account for revolutionary changes. The ‘Exodus frame of mind’ gives us the power to ‘move mountains’. Examples are M.L. King, Gandhi, and Moses in the Promised Land.

“Tocqueville gets at this when he writes that freedom "is ordinarily born in the midst of storms, it is established painfully among civil discords, and only when it is old can one know the benefits." The adolescence of freedom is painful, but what is the alternative?

I think that we are in a period that might be called a “fork in the road. If we do not find a better path into the future there very well may not be a future for humanity.

I think we have the capacity, i.e. brain power, but we lack the sophistication and will to do the things that will lead to a revolutionary adjustment. This is, I think, a time when young people either get off their ‘intellectual couch’, ditch their intellectual ‘Twinkies and chips’, and get an intellectual life or their children my not have an opportunity.

I say that an ‘intellectual life’ is necessary but not sufficient for their future. I say that the day when the ‘happy mean’ is sufficient is dead and gone.

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/op ... ref=slogin

[Little U.S Dreamer]

*puts down chips*

I'm one of those new generation spawns - But I'm getting real - fast.



"This is, I think, a time when young people either get off their ‘intellectual couch’, ditch their intellectual ‘Twinkies and chips’, and get an intellectual life or their children my not have an opportunity."

Like you said it's not that people are being intentionally ignorant and lazy it's the fact that they don't know it anymore. Aren't we the children of people who never taught their kids anything more than 'go to school' and 'work.' (all my father has ever said to me)

And that's far more than most of my friend's parents have to them. Being raised by a T.V and mass media is more common in this time apparently.

I work two jobs and I'm a full time student and I still can barely afford to get by... and I know I'm not the only person in this country who does the same thing - but I still cannot ignore what is happening in my own nation.

Maybe I won't be the only one but who knows right?

Thanks for posting that article Coberst

"I think that we are in a period that might be called a “fork in the road”. If we do not find a better path into the future there very well may not be a future for humanity."

My response - I'll let Frost take care of it.

"Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back. "