In Praise of the Invisible!
HIGHLAND, UT | 21 August 2008 | Pop quiz! What do William F. Buckley, Tom Lantos, Charlton Heston, Tim Russert, Jesse Helms, Tony Snow, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have in common? If you’re paying any attention of to the news this year, you would recognize at least a couple of these names on the death lists for the year. And you’d be absolutely correct. All of these individuals have passed away this year. Extra Credit: what does a writer, a Democratic Representative of Congress, a former Democrat and believer in gun control turned NRA president, a moderate Democratic journalist, a Republican Senator, a speech writer, and a former Soviet labor prisoner also have in common? They were all stalwarts in the Cause of Liberty in this country and around the world.
In an August 10, 2008, American Thinker piece, Bruce Walker memorialized these seven icons and then lamented, in ways people often do when a list of greats depart this earth, that they were irreplaceable. Walker concludes his essay:
We live in an age filled with convenient platitudes.…We can no longer smell the stench of sin or of dishonor. We have lost our sense of moral purpose in life. We can replace almost anything in our lives—human organs, currency and credit, electronic records and documents—but ultimately these things do not define life.
What matters in life is the yearning of the human spirit for goodness and truth and the courage and grit to make that yearning into deeds and words that matter. Men who personify these values, unlike hearts and dollars, are irreplaceable. It is not they who have died: They are immortal. It is rather us who die each time one of these rare few leave this world. We have forgotten, in our busy rush to nowhere, how to replace the irreplaceable.
Throughout his essay he reflects upon this question: Do the institutions these great men arose from produce more such souls today? His answer is always the same. “If they do, these [newly produced icons] are invisible.” Well, maybe invisible is what we need.
Key Points
- Being invisible means waking up and turning your own brain on.
- Being invisible means recognizing your self-interest in determining a definite major purpose for your life.
- Being invisible means living a life of self-reliance based upon true civic service that begins first with fixing yourself, politically, economically, and most important morally.
- Being invisible means turning outward to effect lasting change in your neighborhood and community by entering into voluntary mutual value-creation based upon individual self-interest.
- Being invisible means building communities of principled individuals by helping others to awaken and to fix themselves.
Conclusion
The Founding generation of this nation was a population of only three million common farmers. They came to or were born in this land to work the land and to build society upon the principles of freedom they understood and subsequently discovered. A small, statistically significant number of these regular people (about 3% of the population) effectively changed the course of history in the matter of only a few years. The political revolution they achieved has directly or indirectly affected every nation in the world. But the moral crisis we face today is challenging those political achievements. The call for a moral revolution is real and it is immenent.
But the great tribal leaders—those memorialized by Mr Walker and many others—stood at their respective helms intending to inspire the masses and still our world is in a downward slope into a “shallow, silly, and scared society” where principles are discarded for the whims of polling data and focus groups. Heads of the tribe, no matter how great they are, will never generate the change our society is looking for. The moral revolution must come again from a small, statistically significant group of people. When they begin to change their lives, amazing things can result. It is time for the invisible to rise up with principled living to effect the kind of life Mr. Walker recognizes as important. Perhaps Walker is right. Perhaps the next wave of greats is invisible.
Action Items
- Begin your awakening process, by finding a wise, brain-on mentor, or listening to FreeCapitalist Radio.
- Learn to read—study with a purpose.
- Begin to associate with like-minded individuals and discuss your ideas.
- Start a blog where you explore your ideas in the written world.
- Discover your Definite Major Purpose and begin today to work towards achieving that purpose.
- Resolve to stand up for truth in all places and in all situations (it will save your soul, and it might just save the nation).
MRFC Principles: 1 (1, 2, 4)
Sources
Bruce Walker, Replacing the Irreplaceable, The American Thinker, August 10, 2008.
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August 23rd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Mr. Walker’s lament that these men are irreplaceable is correct only as far as their personalities are concerned. Each of us has a personality that is unique to us, which enables us to accomplish certain things in our own lives and lives of those around us. We are right to mourn the loss of these personalities, however, we must not lose sight of the fact that their ability to accomplish the tasks that they were assigned is not irreplaceable. There are always others who will arise to the challenge and continue the fight. We have lost much of the human life value of someone when they leave us, but they also contributed to the human life value of many others while there were here, and that stays with us.
August 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Jason–great insight here.
It will take a statistically significant number who understand freedom and truth correctly and who live according to principles to make the difference we are looking for. Ironically, however, that group can’t wait until they are perfectly ready to begin making that difference. While we don’t need brain-off activity as part of this revolution, waiting until we all have a perfect grasp on the principles and their proper application in our lives is not a feasible plan, either. Only by taking action can we begin to gain that perfect grasp on the principles. Only by coupling intense and effective study of the 13 principles with active application of that learning can we master them in theory and in results. As we apply the principles in our lives, our insights will broaden. As our insights broaden, our application will improve.
Today is the day to begin to act. The battle for freedom is already raging and there are only two sides in the battle. Unless we actively work to be a part of the side that fights for freedom through study and application of the principles that foster freedom, we are fighting for the wrong team by default. Regardless of the seemingly patriotic efforts that we put forth, if we are brain-off in this fight, we are helping the enemy.
Each of us does have the power to make a difference in this fight. But that difference doesn’t begin with party affiliation or who we vote for. This country will never be put right by picking the right policy or president at the federal, state, or local level. It can only be put right by picking the right principles at the personal level. Human rights are individual rights and need to be lived and defended on an individual level.
While we may not all be highlighted in public circles and media for our civic service, we will be rewarded with prosperity and peace in our private lives as we seek to learn and do what is truly right. While there is cause to mourn the loss of the individuals listed, there is greater cause to mourn the loss of individual freedoms in the lives of all who have yet to turn their brains on.
August 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Way to get me all fired up for the cause, Jason! Thank you!
Inspiring comments Matthew! Like you say, we can’t wait until our 3% are on board, or until your own life is perfect to get involved.
Some people say, your group is really small right now so I don’t know if it’s a good thing. I’ll just wait and see if your group gets popular, then I’ll think about joining. However, collective action has no unique moral authority. Just because something is popular does not make it good, and just because something is unpopular does not make it bad.
You can use your own brain to decide if something is good or not, even if no one else around you is doing it. That’s what leaders do, even if it is lonely. Be a leader in your own life, even if you are “invisible.”
September 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I read something in Les Miserable the other day that put me in mind of this article.
“For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life. There is a determined though unseen bravery, which defends itself foot to foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessity and of baseness. Noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees, which no renown rewards, which no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, somtimes greater than the illustrious heroes.
“Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect’ misfortune is a good breast for great souls.”
Then I read the latest edition of Dr. Paul Jenkins’ M-Power newsletter (http://www.drpaulsmpower.wordpress.com/) about how every difficulty in life is just the middle part of a great success story. Instead of becoming discouraged because we are not recognized for the great things that we do and the value that we create, we can learn from the experiences that we have and become the invisible heroes that are “greater than the illustrious heroes.”
October 9th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I really enjoyed this article. You are right, there are many known heros, but there are a far greater number of invisible heros. Men who stand with those known heros. Silent heros, without which, these known heros would only have been a voice risen for a moment in time only to fall into the pages of an unknown history. Without these unknown heros, the great heros of all ages would have never really become great heros.
It is time for heros to rise. Not only the great speakers, the known advocates of freedom, and the wise teachers of principle, but the silent heros. Those that hold strong to these principles, that lend their voice to liberty’s chior, and will not stand and watch the honorable dreams of the moral society fall never to be realized.