Sunday, March 22, 2020

Hmm …

… The luxury of apocalypticism - spiked.
From AIDS to climate change, from swine flu to Covid-19, it has been one apocalyptic scenario after another. The irony is that the elites who readily envisage catastrophe think they are showing how seriously they take genuine social and medical challenges, such as Covid-19. In truth, they demonstrate the opposite. They confirm that they have absolved themselves of the reason and focus required for confronting threats to our society. It isn’t their apocalypticism that captures the human urge to solve genuine problems – it is our anti-apocalypticism, our calmness, our insistence that resources and attention be devoted to genuine challenges without disrupting people’s lives or the economic health of our societies.
What I don't understand is why they don't see this as Almghty Evolution acting to bring about what they so often seem to want — the end of humanity.

5 comments:

  1. You do recall that the swine flu business occurred during the Ford Administration, don't you? According to the usual rhetoric of elitism, Ford's Yale Law credentials ought to have been canceled out by the his service as a Republican congressman from Grand Rapids.

    And honestly, I don't see how AIDS fits into this conversation.

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  2. Jeff Mauvais10:58 PM

    Who exactly are the "they" to whom you refer, Frank?

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  3. Hi Jeff,
    The evangelical evolutionists, such as Jerry Coyne,.

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  4. Hi George,
    Back before we knew much about AIDS, people were getting it — as Arthur Ashe did — from blood transfusions. I think that's the connection being made. It looked at first as if it might have been a plague. And no, I didn't think of the Ford administration or Ford. Politics and politicians do not take up much space in my mind.

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    Replies
    1. Actually, there has was a swine flu in 2009 and 2010, which presumably is the one he means.

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