9 Comments

I think we’ll need to raise a glass to “colewarts and chariots” tomorrow night.

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Your Liberty Fund link is to the physical book to purchase. Here is the pdf link:

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/trenchard-catos-letters-vol-1-1737-ed

The PDF button is near the bottom.

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Are the lessons from the past enough to keep us from another colossal fall? Virtue over vice... how do we the people reclaim it?

I write about using kindness to make a difference for self and others. I'd love to hear your thoughts about how to elevate kindness to the status of 'virtue' and how that could be perceived as more powerful and beneficial to the self than 'vice'. Surely there is a way to reverse the trend.

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Heather,

Frankly, I think kindness (and especially fairness) is soft-pedaling virtue. I would refer to Machiavelli's definition and use of the concept of virtu. Virtu is based upon a higher principle than personal relationships. Robinson Crusoe alone on his island could be virtuous or debased. At the same time he could be kind to his new friend Friday.

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Didn't Robinson Crusoe enslave Friday?

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My point was hypothetical, as if he was wont to extend kindness to Friday, whether he himself could be considered virtuous or not. In the antebellum South many slaveholders treated their slaves with great kindness, like family, but that hardly made slaveholding virtuous, right? My larger point is that kindness is insufficient to define virtu.

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Very well written. I thought the format was a good choice and the words flowed effortlessly.

Would also love to learn how Cato suggests bringing virtue and honor to individual’s lives. Are there practices or heuristics he suggests for men to use, in a grassroots movement? What were his calls to action?

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Perhaps the greatest concern is that these concepts are no longer part of the public education system. The very foundations of this great nation are hidden from at least one generation, and concerningly, perhaps two. Can we, as a nation, survive this loss?

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Great post!!!!! How can translate to Spanish? Thanks

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