About this user
Erasmus in 1536 in the Renaissance period stated in his book in praise of folly (weak and foolish thinking), that striving for happiness as the object of life is based on delusion and stupidity. This is because in order to be happy we must delude ourselves through exaggerated conceit, self-love and flattery. Even friendship, winking at your friends faults passing over them turning a blind eye building up illusions treating obvious faults, as virtues- isnt that all related to folly. However if one attempted to live life by wisdom alone one would never consider the virtues of a married life: What man would give his neck up to the altar of matrimony if he applied the usual practice of a wise man and first weighed up its disadvantages as a way of life? Or what woman would ever agree to take a husband if she knew or thought about the pains and dangers of childbirth (although women have got that under control now using aids fears to enforce condoms) and the trouble of bringing up children. So if you owe your existence to wedlock, you owe the fact of wedlock to madness. For Erasmus the wisest man is furthest from happiness and pokes fun at scholars searching for knowledge. Those scholarly ambitions are flawed because one cannot hope to master the totality of any subject. He said that bare facts and complicated formula have a temporary existence in the memory and teaching them should be secondary to reading the classics where one can note oratory eloquence argumentative style and beautiful maxims. So he actually promotes anti intellectualism and scientific learning over poetic phrases. How romantic, maybe thats all we should want eat drink and be merry, we tried that in the sex revolution but governments were threatened that consumerism would crumble and I believe created aids to stoop this free love and no desire to work, to keep the fear of god in people to purge their pockets of cash to church coffers, promote feminism to create a civil war within the sexes so people would be distracted from political affairs and become politically apathetic and no longer partake in the radical marches and riots of the 60s. To ad icing on the cake the media pump out mind numbing sitcoms and soap operas to regenerate and reinforce the meaningless and futile existence of peoples life and how searching for happiness is only achieved by pulling the wool over ones eyes to believe in authority without question and blindly go along with consumerism promoting greed and hunger throughout the world and class distinction and honor to motivate people to better themselves in education to distinguish themselves from the fellow pack.
Age
42
Country
Australia
