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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 4h

At the risk of attracting anyone's ire, no he did not. Lee had nothing whatsoever to do with that part. He commanded a detachment of marines (the only troops available) who stopped Brown's and captured him.

Brown's execution came months later, after a trial in Virginia Court (not Federal).

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 13h

The problem is that Microsoft broke compatibility with its Trusted Platform requirement - hardware released before 2021 or so didn't have it, so people can't upgrade.

Also Windows 11 just doesn't offer anything. There's no value - except a worse interface and irritating AI "help" stuffed in.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Live as though you might be the most important being, because to somebody out there, you are. Do what you can to make the world batter, but if you can't, well, live all the same. It's good practice, and the rest of us could use a fine example.

Also, life is worth living, because you can pet dogs.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

In any event I apologize for droning on so much, and because I can't write on such topics without badly imitating the style of a much better writer.

My point is that if the universe says you have no value, feel free to agree - but go on living as if you did.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Either way, it may be, if the Lord wills, that one day we will see Eternity as well. That is what chiefly concerned the Church then and now, and we will see then what all the little things add up to. We should expect to be quite surprised! Long-forgotten men and women will have shaped all things.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

But even today, you matter enough that I sat down and started writing this, because big questions deserve worthwhile answers. That's the problem of the nihlistic response: it is not so much wrong as unworthy.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

I do not believe in the notion of a fixed, and unchangeable future - predestined in either the scientific or Christian sense. I do believe that we will not see the real fruits of our work. I only have faith to trust that it will matter - that the little things and little lives matter.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

The crop harvested by a struggling subsistence farmer eons ago, who could not imagine where any of it might lead and simply tried to provide for a family, led to today, when I may buy a feast of cheese and wheat biscuits for a few dollars.

That farmer probably wondered if there was any point, too.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Everything you have done, or are doing, or ever will do is written into the history of all that ever was or will be. Every single kindness or cruelty, no matter how trivial, is fixed forever. That is a power of which we casually dismiss, but it is awesome in its importance.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

And you, like myself and everyone else, have been given the Infinite Gift: literally, the gift of existence for however brief a moment we do live. There are many things that can end it, but nothing to revoke it. We cannot turn back a single second of time.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

But the Church Fathers did *not* stop there.

In all the worlds of the entire universe, there has never been, nor will there ever be, anyone quite like you. You have something unique to offer, which by the inherent nature of the universe, no one else can.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

One wonders whether the Anthropologists will believe if "MrBeast" was real or some kind of elaborate cultural dance, and they won't be wrong. It's hard to understand even very famous men in their own time, and harder still a century later.

"Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!"

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

And while some may be more famous, the reality is - do you remember rich or powerful men who died ten years ago?

I think of my own family who have died fairly often, but even that will fade. Only a few powerful figures will be remembered, and that not so as well as our egos might like.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Take them both, and things become rather more clear: Frankly, our present difficulties, and in every age we shall have them, are no very great matter. We are none of us disposable, and all shall, as the saying goes, be dust returning to dust.]

Billionaires and penniless alike, all dead, in time.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

But from its birth, Christian thinkers had to acknowledge two agonizing answers.

You don't matter, and you don't have any worth.

You do matter, and your worth is infinite.

Take the former only, and you will be a sad philosopher or a nihilist. Take the latter, and you have Christianity-and-Water.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

There is, as C. S. Lewis put in, "Christianity-and-Water," the sentiment of cheap greeting cards, which posits a cheerful but vacuous statement that everything is all right. All decent people can happy buy such cards which may be discarded as convenient.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

I won't go into Existentialism, because while it is not, I think, strictly wrong, it also doesn't tell us anything about how we ought to live, or think, or really do anything.

So then I must turn to the Christian answer, which in the irritating Christian sense, is quire innately contrary.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

To, I think, the average man or woman, the question wasn't any easier, but then we always had work, and more work, and then more work. We had family and friends and fears and famines to worry about, so the abstract questions of existence might be pushed off.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

To the intellectual or philosopher, one might apprehend one's own worthless in theory, and be satisfied with that kind of negative answer. The Stoic and Epicurean - not really as dis-similar as we might think - simply said we ought to get on as best they could.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Turns out the answer is pretty difficult! The easy answer has always been a kind of selfish nihilism. And yet the vast majority of us find, and always have found, that response singularly unsatisfying. And the selfish nihilists have never been popular or admired for their philosophical rigor.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

I am a disturbed Catholic, which means I am Catholic, and annoyed, and annoying, and half-mad on a good day. But I already said I am Catholic. I will come back to this point, but that is where I am going.

Even in ancient times, we asked, "What is the point of all this?"

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

It's late, and I am tired, but that is sometimes the best time to work. or maybe the best time to answer this question is always "right now".

AN/PRC-148 MBITRsweet Symphony @classywarfare.gobirds.online · 1d

Okay this is a weird ask but:

Does anyone know of any writing that explains exactly how/why people have inherent worth and value? Because I’m really struggling with feelings of self-loathing.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 1d

Well, you asked *the* question, I suppose. It's more or less the question posited by all philosophy and religion with a modicum of thought.

I shall have to think about how to answer.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 3d

This is not evidence of failure: new advances are hard, and every new advance means the next advancement is even harder! But the post assumed its own correctness from the outset instead of arguing it.

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The American Civil War Podcast @uscivilwar.bsky.social · 3d

Am I the only one who immediately saw the question-begging implication?

Is STEM actually generating substantial new knowledge? I think there's an unassailable argument for biology and chemistry. But I might be hard-pressed to really say we were getting anywhere fast on physics or math.

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