Post #3

The recent high school shooting in Florida really coincided with recent school discussions we have had about Rene Descartes.  But the fallout of this is showing to me that we might be straying further from what Descartes talked about, not closer to it.  I have many friends on Facebook.  It is an almost instant form of free, worldwide communication. This should enable the world access to almost instant, free learning and education.  I'm seeing that the opposite is coming forward.  I was sickened by the shooting: still am.  I believed before the shooting that we need stricter gun control.  My belief is stronger.  But the most vocal people for gun control are going against facts, statistics, and truths to promote gun control.  It is almost as if they are openly defiant of science and reason, that they feel they are right strictly because they feel they are right.  The science of mathematics (considered by many to be the truest science), shows that this type of massacre occurred when there were stricter laws against these weapons.  It also shows that more people are killed weekly from drunk drivers.  It shows that the areas with the most gun control laws in this country have the most gun violence.  Science and reason show that our response to the high school massacres is out of proportion to the amount of actual deaths.  I'm sure Descartes had none of these present realities in his head when he talked about universal reason.  But I think he knew about horrors when he talked about our reliance on Mr. God.  Maybe the bourgeois need to stand up to the government sometimes.

I'm torn.  I feel he sometimes straddled the fence between feeling and reason, and we are doing it now.