We must see through the folly

Re: Revisionism’s problem — Nov. 3

Democritus of Abdera spent most of his life teaching the atomic theory of matter. He spent the last part sitting under a tree, laughing uproariously. Fearing that he had lost his mind, the residents of Abdera sent for the renowned physician Hippocrates, who attended and reported that Democritus simply couldn’t stop laughing at the folly of the world.

Jesus of Nazareth took a different approach. He wept.

The history of civilization is a story of unremitting folly. What happened to the teachings of Democritus, Hippocrates and Jesus serves as a paradigm.

Literature breathes life into the folly. Letter writer Markus Poetzsch is right; revisionism is itself folly.

The follies of the present are enormously dangerous. At least twice in 60 years, humanity has been on the very brink of global nuclear holocaust. And that may not be the greatest worry.

Humanity’s best hope of liberation from folly and ultimate doom is to learn to think, to learn to distinguish clearly and discriminate correctly, to understand the difference between price and value. That cannot be achieved by obscuring the follies of the past and present. The ancient Chinese ideogram for ‘thought’ combines the symbol for ‘head’ and ‘heart.’ Let’s start there.

Arvo Ranni

Kitchener