Point of Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry’s radio show and podcast. The Center has made available (iTunes or MP3's) interviews with many of the leading minds of the day including Nobel Prize-winning scientists, public intellectuals, social critics and thinkers. Topics include religion, human values and the borderlands of science.…
The Missouri legislature is entertaining a bill that would require a signed permission from a student's parent(s) before the student may receive sex education. A few weeks ago, while listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR, I learned that, according to recent polls, Americans exhibit NO MAJORITY CONSENSUS on the…
Today, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said: Gasoline prices have soared an average of 60 cents a gallon in less than a month because suppliers are unable to keep up with demand, a situation that could persist up to three more years. Bodman went on to suggest that stablilizing Iraq is…
Erich’s post about George Washington and not prejudging the opposition reminded me of a superb essay written by Benjamin Franklin about Native Americans, titled: “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” (1784). The essay is reproduced below and I think it illustrates why Mr. Franklin is considered one of America’s most important individuals.
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Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.
Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as to be without any rules of politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some remains of rudeness.
The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors, when old, counselors; for all their government is by counsel of the sages; there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory, the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honorable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the learning, on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An instance of this occurred at …
I recently dug out three interesting quotes of George Washington, our first president: A historical revision on a unique scale has been imposed on us by the Creator. Only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd. I go the way that Providence…