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Read a book for free (and for freedom)
Phi Beta Cons, in a post about this article, reminds us of the virtues wrought in a soul by spending time with the great works of Western Civilization. The article compares Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Frederick Douglass, and how their experiences reading the great works of the West was vital to their discovering a better way of life. One, from Muslim Africa. Another, up from slavery.
[F]reedom does not float on the ether, but is conveyed through cultural forms. Neither [Hirsi Ali nor Douglass] read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Neither was inspired by abstract ideals of freedom and equality but rather through the concrete embodiment of these ideals in literature.
Topic: Culture, WorldMagBlog
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Excellent article. I had heard of Hirsi Ali but knew little about her history. And I learned about Douglass in elementary school but not in that detail, and didn’t remember much of what I had learned.
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I was also thinking, in connection with the “Christian realist” thread, and my comment about my son saying we had freedom because of how our country got started, that sometimes “abstract ideals of freedom and equality” do play an important role. Looking on my bookshelves to see if I had anything about Douglass, I came across a book called Books that Changed the World, which includes a discussion of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. It is pretty much about the idea of freedom, not the “concrete embodiment” of it, but that book had a great influence on the colonists to fight for their independence.
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