We know that it was, in literal truth, to make the world safe for democracy that we took up arms in 1917. It was, in simple truth and in literal fact, to make the world habitable for decent and self-respecting men that those whom we now remember gave their lives. They died to prevent then the very thing that now, a quarter century later, has happened from one end of Europe to the other.
Now that it has happened we know in full the reason why they died.
We know also what obligation and duty their sacrifice imposes upon us. They did not die to make the world safe for decency and self-respect for five years or ten or maybe twenty. They died to make it safe. And if, by some fault of ours who lived beyond the war, its safety has again been threatened then the obligation and the duty are ours. It is in our charge now, as it was America's charge after the Civil War, to see to it "that these dead shall not have died in vain." Sergeant York spoke thus of the cynics and doubters: "The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them."
The people of America agree with that. They believe that liberty is worth fighting for. And if they are obliged to fight they will fight eternally to hold it.
This duty we owe, not to ourselves alone, but to the many dead who died to gain our freedom for us-to make the world a place where freedom can live and grow into the ages.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Armistice
From Franklin Roosevelt's Armistice Day Address (November 11, 1941):
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Anonymous
0 points
13 years ago
What would it mean to "think with one's body"?
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branemrys
0 points
13 years ago
The real question is what it would mean not to think with one's body. Some ways in which we do:
- We estimate heights relative to eye-level.
- Goal-directed movement involves constant kinaesthetic feedback -- it's not a mere brain-to-hand thing, for instance, but a complex interaction.
- We develop motor learning skills.
- We count with our fingers, thus using our bodies directly as cognitive instruments.
- When trying to rotate imaginary shapes, we can use our hands to simulate the rotation, thus keeping track of the sides.
- When trying to understand what someone else's feelings are, it often helps to go physically through the same motions and facial expressions.
- We make use of 'gut feelings'.
- We analogize things to our bodies (Roger Scruton has some good discussion of this, if I recall correctly, in the context of music).
In other words, we measure with our bodies, simulate with our bodies, train our bodies to give the right solutions to problems, use our bodies as metaphors, not to mention sense with them. The list could be made very long. Despite the fact that we do this a lot, we don't do it very systematically, nor do we take full advantage of the potential. And despite that only very specific kinds of cognitive activity, a much smaller number than our full cognitive panoply, can be located wholly in the brain, we still tend to think of ourselves as stuck inside our skulls somehow. But when I am counting with my fingers, my cognitive act of counting is not in the brain; it's a brain-nervous system-muscular system interaction involving brain, arm, and hand.
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branemrys
0 points
13 years ago
Hmm. MrsDarwin had a comment, but it seems to have bypassed Disqus somehow. Here it is:
I was going to protest "Love is drama", but on further consideration this makes sense. Drama is change, and love (at least human love) requires constant change and alteration to thrive. Even an externally happy, peaceful love demands constant internal self-abegnation and readjustment of priorities on the part of the individual lovers - "dying to self" is the traditional religious description of the drama of love.
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Anonymous
0 points
13 years ago
For research purposes: sent that comment from my cell phone.