Ilana Mercer was born and educated in one of my most favorite places, South Africa. I usually side with both her and Dinesh D’Souza but Mercer claims D’Souza commits such a huge mistake in the premise for his film that serious thinkers should give it no quarter. The film has much to recommend it. Mercer did spot a serious omission but the film is still well worth viewing.
Both Mercer and D’Souza however fail in the same way. Neither roots America in “Capitalism”. The serious thinker would know the film would be far better if it rested on a proper set of philosophical values but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching. Most intellectual endeavors fail to be based on the proper values from Metaphysics, to Epistemology to Ethics and Esthetics. Jefferson failed to include them in the Declaration of Independence so let’s not go around condemning everything that’s not based on a correct philosophy. It’s going to take time before the world follows the correct philosophy. In the meantime we must learn the correct set of values and virtues based on the correct philosophy and live our lives with the knowledge that few will grasp those principles.
It’s not much different today in regards to philosophy than it was about the shape of the earth before is was finally understood to be a sphere.
A correct philosophy is available. It’s Ayn Rand’s Objectivism but not only is Objectivism relatively unknown it’s also condemned by people who should know better. Objectivism has the burden of requiring a correct philosophy before it can be understood and it has to be well understood before it can be practiced. Get a short Synopsis of Objectivism HERE.
To understand how primitive the human race is so far as philosophy is concerned, consider a correct basis for all knowledge. That’s what metaphysics is supposed to provide but it doesn’t. If it did the human race could move into Epistemology which should be based on a proper metaphysics. Se the problem? Step two requires a correct step one but since most people don’t grasp step one it’s impossible to grasp step two.
So, … back to “America; Imagine A World Without Her”. Since it’s like most things, philosophically flawed it will have to be evelauate on less than perfect philosophy. Better to advise people to learn the correct philosophy but thats a major undertaking. Best to just watch the movie on it’s own merits. It’s well worth the time.
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