social contract

The Forest for the Trees

“For every palace that I see rising in the capital, I seem to see a whole rural district laid to waste.” -Rousseau, The Social Contract

While there is a beautiful world “out there” there are people in it that are not so good. It is these people that we meet that seem ready with easy answers. They seem to be blind to the beauty in the world, only seeing it as a resource, a thing to use.

They come in many forms: rich and poor, educated and ignorant, friend and enemy. They intentionally or unintentionally argue that they have the answers to your worries, to your concerns, and will sell you answers that are opposed to Truth.

Free yourself from this riff-raff and the traps that they set forth. Turn away and remember that the world is not “out there” but everywhere, and is a beautiful place. Look beyond the lights and the cement and the merchants. Look out beyond the horizon and to the trees in the distance.

To Do Good

“The limits of the possible in moral things are less narrow than we think; it is our weaknesses, our vices, our prejudices, that contract them.”           -Rousseau, The Social Contract

We can be as good as we’d like if we are willing. It takes work in the form of discipline and understanding, but mostly a willingness to do good, to be good in the virtuous sense of the word.

The willingness to be good is often cut off by the belief that doing and being good is to be a pansy. It is claimed that such people live in an unreal world of polyannas and posies. But it isn’t this way. Good demands that we stand up and defend it; that we are willing to fight for it.

Good demands that we sometimes do what is difficult and uncomfortable. Good requires us to put aside our own comforts and give over security. Don’t be misled into thinking that good is all sunshine and roses. For those things come from manure and darkness.

Government

“Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of…private interests on public affairs; and the abuse of the laws by the government is less evil than the corruption of the legislator, which is the infallible result of the pursuit of private interests.”           -Rousseau, The Social Contract

If there are those who come complaining of government evils, dismiss them as ignorant if not stupid. The government is what we make of it. If we make nothing of it, then a void is lay open to be filled by the most vile and despicable of corporate shills who will lay waste to all that is good for the price of a few trinkets and the illusion of power.

Those that blame governments are not willing to blame themselves for the problems that they create. Instead, they look to others and other things. But if beauty is in the eye of the beholder then so is evil.