For Thomas Reid, accepting first principles in a pious spirit; with trust, hope, and gratitude, means accepting a certain picture of ourselves as creatures whose true good lies in a confident and whole-hearted submission to the laws of the constitution which the benevolent Author of our being has seen fit to give us.
What deeply surprised me when I first discovered the Enlightenment Philosophy of Scottish Common Sense Realism was that it was not antagonistic to Religion. That it shared metaphysical foundations with Christianity in addition to upholding the integrity of Scientific Method. This contradicts the Media messaging tropes of Enlightenment Principles being ‘anti-Faith’ and that they were the means of spawning Atheism, Hedonism, illiberalism, Scientism and many other corrosive ideologies which animated the Progressive and Utilitarian forces in play through the intervening centuries.
In fact Scottish Common Sense Realism (SCSR) established itself specifically to refute that which gave rise to those destructive forces; the Theory Of Ideas, because Thomas Reid astutely perceived the grave threat it posed to Individual liberty, including the relationship to duty of conscience. So concerned was he that he relinquished his ministerial position to take up arms (via the pen) against the primary mode of attack; the Academic Treatise on Human Nature written by David Hume, whom Reid knew and liked personally, though deeply refuted regarding the understanding of human nature, our given individual constitution and Reid’s refutations of Hume have deep resonance for us today in the battle against Social Reconstructivism & Critical Constructivism - the top down pedagogies deployed by the UN/UNESCO for Global Governance, Natural Asset Wealth Consolidation/Control & the final subjugation of domestic population.
The main mode of attack from Reid’s day through to this has been Ontological - though cloaked in language which veils this scope and depth, combined with incentives baked into Education, Culture and the Workplace which invite us to participate in our own destruction through praxis below the level of our awareness; stimulus-response.
You may be thinking; if the analysis of Reid et al was so great, their warnings so astute, then why did society end up here? Broadly speaking, for 2 main reasons:
SCSR was suppressed, scorned, dismissed & largely rejected in the Academy (this had much to do with the dominance of Kant.
The threat Reid et al perceived is not limited temporally to specific historical context (as we are encouraged to believe about many tyrannical forces) but rather, an ever present eternal threat which must be defended against with each new, successive generation. This is the active role of Tradition and its necessity as the cornerstone of Education Philosophy and Pedagogy. Not an education predicated on passive nostalgia, but one purposed to defend each new generation against the perpetual forces seeking to enslave them. Education for Cognitive Liberty.
Throughout this SCSR series I’m drawing heavily on and often quoting in the audio pieces from ‘The Rise & Fall Of Scottish Common Sense Realism’ (by Douglas McDermid). I am not an authority on SCSR so I do encourage everyone to explore sources themselves. I can only share my experience of the huge benefit it’s been to learn about SCSR for me, specifically with regard to the crisis in Education, its roots and the long range campaign of weaponizing Academia and State Education infrastructure. Progressivism and Critical Constructivism (Woke) did not come out of nowhere and the assault did not begin with Marx. Though we have to understand those phases of The Operation, it’s essential to recognize how we were cognitively groomed long before that. Otherwise our response to the current situation will take us out of the frying pan and into the fire. Thank you for supporting my work in bringing this to general awareness. Our institutions currently have little appetite or incentive to do so.
For those interested, here are further useful resources for SCSR:
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/diss/historic/Thomas_Reid/index.hti
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