Dension Forum
Dr. Jim Denison
What do these stories have in common?
- A man cooked and ate a poisonous pufferfish that had been given to him, fell into a coma, and died thirty-five days later.
- A nineteen-year-old hiker was taking photos at a scenic overlook in Utah when the cliff he was standing on crumbled beneath him and he plunged to his death.
- A thirty-four-year-old man in Colorado was bitten by a Gila monster he kept as a pet and died four days later.
- A man in India jumped into a zoo enclosure to take a selfie with a lion who then mauled him to death.
Obviously, none of them knew their decisions would lead to their deaths. They sincerely believed they were doing the right thing at the time.
However, can someone who is sincere be sincerely wrong?
Can a nation?
“Is it true that man is above everything?”
I came across an article this week highlighting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 commencement address at Harvard University. When I reread the exiled dissident’s words, I knew I needed to share some of them with you today.
How well do they describe America’s culture forty-six years later?