Lately I have been going through the book "A Patriot's History of the United States" by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen and they mentioned something interesting.
The government started incentivizing news papers. They made it so cheap to transport newspapers that people could get ahold of a newspaper much easier than they could books. This may seem like a little thing but the effect was much larger then you would think.
Historically the people who could read learned to read from great text. They read The Bible. They read Aristotle, Plato, and Shakespeare. Anything that was read, had to be good quality otherwise no one would take the time to record, pass along and pay for it.
Newspapers were so cheap that for the first time people were learning to read without any sort of deeper foundation. This gave incredible power to the news outlets who were heavily dependent on the US government for the provided incentives.
As I was thinking about this I thought of how twitter, though it is valid for any form of social media, is the natural evolution of this problem. There are other steps between, but look at the state of our public discourse. There are conversations where both parties are saying what they view as self evident truths but there is no common foundation to build from.
A common foundation of enlightenment principles built our society. If we are unwilling to invest in learning about them through the bible, through great literature and philosophy then you are unequipped to propagating our culture and society to future generations.
If you don't know where to start, go to church. Find a church who teaches from the bible directly. Find a church that teaches you how to be a solid individual first, becoming better for yourself before you try to solve other's problems, or societies problems. Faith in God is the first step in building a better society. In the absence of faith hedonism rules. Where hedonism rules, society crumbles.
God bless
Fred.
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