Jack Kemp forwards this:

Explaining the Left, Part V: Left Vs. Right Is Brain Vs. Mind

From Dennis Prager:

"When I talk to young people, I try to offer them what I was offered when I was their age but is rarely offered today: wisdom. I was given wisdom largely because I went to a religious school -- a yeshiva, a traditional Jewish school in which the long day (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.) was divided between studying religious subjects (in Hebrew) and secular subjects (in English).With the increasing secularization of society, less and less wisdom has been conveyed to young people. One particularly obvious example is most secular people, especially on the left, believe human beings are basically good. It is difficult to overstate the foolishness of this belief. And a belief it is: There is no evidence to support it, and there is overwhelming evidence -- like virtually all of human history -- to refute it. Jewish and Christian kids who study the Bible know how morally flawed human nature is by the age of 10.

Another thing I tell young people -- which, if they take seriously, will make them immeasurably wiser, finer, happier and more productive -- is life is a daily battle between the brain and the mind. The brain wants an ice cream sundae; the mind knows too many sundaes will make a person overweight and eventually diabetic. Similarly, the brain (especially that of the male) wants sex with anyone it finds attractive; the mind knows the trouble doing so will likely lead to.
The brain is instinctive and feelings-based; the mind is thoughtful and can be reason-based.

Tragically, since the 1960s, the brain -- i.e. feelings and instincts -- has been valued far more than the mind."

Read the rest.

A word from Tim:


When I was in college I had to take a English course which emphasized feelings over thoughts. This was the mid eighties, when colleges were really ramping this up. But the upshot of the course was a fundamental anti-rationalist argument, one that said the West had been promoting rationality over feelings for too long and it was somehow detrimintal.

I remember thinking then that this is a recipe for disaster; Mankind had spent millenia trying to put unreasoning passion in a box, and we still devote a great deal of time and effort in educating kids to control their emotions, then are trying to dismantle the very carefully constructed dams and flood walls. But the Left in academia wanted it that way, and now we are reaping the fruits thereof. No society that eschews wisdom can survive, and ours will crash if we don't wake up to the dangers of this

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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