Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by William Kristol.

The misinterpretations of Hobbes’s philosophy contributed to his reputation as an atheist. And it is not surprising that it was misinterpreted. People find it difficult to assimilate conceptually new information for the simple reason that it has no preexisting place in their scheme of beliefs. Rather than understand the material to be genuinely new, they tend to relegate it to a familiar, if inappropriate, category. Since Hobbes’s treatment of Christianity was obviously not a familiar one, many people thought of it as atheistic. Even the early Christians were thought of as atheistic because they denied the existence of the Roman gods.

(A. P. Martinich, Hobbes: A Biography [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], 351)

To the Editor:

Schools are suffering because our youth are suffering.

Youngsters in this nation wake up without breakfast each morning, go to school with waning energy and are then expected to do well. This equation is absurd.

Recently, the insightful hip-hop artist Mos Def spoke on “Real Time With Bill Maher” about the growing nihilism among young people in this country. In the small town of Cathedral City, Calif., adjacent to my hometown, I would always see young people ditching school to roam the streets. You could sense that this was because they felt their lives had no meaning.

Mos Def pointed to the disrespect police officers and other authority figures show toward young people. In return, most young people lack appreciation for authority because they’ve been shown no form of common courtesy on the streets, or at home.

Sadly, these young people don’t care. Lacking companionship, they’ve sought new families, such as gangs. Where is the love?

Christina Palmer
Los Angeles, Oct. 2, 2007

Here.