Dr. Theodore Dalrymple’s (a pen name) analysis of the chaos going on in Great Britain goes like this:
“In modern welfare states, the struggle for subsistence has been abolished. There are large numbers of people who are devoid of either ambition or interest. They thus have nothing to fear, and nothing to hope.”
He has a succinct label for this problem – Learned Helplessness. Of course, his premise came out several years ago, and he subsequently moved to France. I don’t know whether this was a smart decision or not as we observe that country is having its problems, too!
What with ISIS spreading terror all over the world, MS-13 on the
East Coast, and the Charlottesville hooliganism (a woman died in the melee) and the fascist hanky-panky in California, let’s consider the idea that violence solves problems. Revolutions, at first, are always fun!
Unfortunately, that zeal morphs into events like the bloody French Revolution. In Galatians 4:18, the Apostle Paul liked zeal – “It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good.”
The disillusion was great of naïve supporters of the Bourbons, first the French queen (remember she said, “If they can’t eat bread, let them eat cake!”) Madame Guillotine swallowed her up, followed by Royalists and the moderate Girondists, Camille Desmoulins, and Maximilien Robespierre – the architect of the chaos and thousands of others.
Are we learning anything from history’s harsh lessons?
Bruce King
Hamilton