You're joking right? We live in an age where the left is busily trying to destroy many good ideas. The nuclear family being chief among them. To me it seems as though you're feigning ignorance here.
Secondly, for an idea to be dead it doesn't really matter if it was a good idea or not, merely that it's not espoused seriously anymore. The Aztec religion being a great example.
Ah, take it easy; I was not sure your comment was in good faith.
The nuclear family is an idea currently being fought for, however successfully or unsuccessfully. The idea remains alive and important As for the Aztecs, our world is enjoying a revival of sacrificing the young and weak for the betterment of those walking about. I mean, really, Canadians are sacrificing trauma victims to their idea of Altruism.
I'm not trying to be silly here. Changes in culture and the outward effects of an idea can change, The idea remains.
The idea didn't remain. Some vague similarities remained, but then no one culture has a monopoly on the concept of unwilling sacrifices.
And given that cultures themselves are an idea, that alone suffices to make the point. There are no Hittites or Capadocians anymore. Many cultures and polities lie dead in history.
Ok. May I suggest you consider the idea of an idea.
Some cultures have supported the sacrifice of the weak for the benefit of the populous, others have rejected this concept.
An "idea" might, in this context, be the proposition that it is good to sacrifice the lives of some for the benefit of others. Others might propose this is unacceptable; as on the case of ant-abortion activists.
An "idea" is nothing more than a proposition. And propositions don't necessarily require human input. "Leafs are green" would be true if no human person had ever seen a leaf (don't get bogged down in the use of vocabulary in this case: leafs would have whatever you call color with or without anyone's observation)
You're joking right? We live in an age where the left is busily trying to destroy many good ideas. The nuclear family being chief among them. To me it seems as though you're feigning ignorance here.
Secondly, for an idea to be dead it doesn't really matter if it was a good idea or not, merely that it's not espoused seriously anymore. The Aztec religion being a great example.
Ah, take it easy; I was not sure your comment was in good faith.
The nuclear family is an idea currently being fought for, however successfully or unsuccessfully. The idea remains alive and important As for the Aztecs, our world is enjoying a revival of sacrificing the young and weak for the betterment of those walking about. I mean, really, Canadians are sacrificing trauma victims to their idea of Altruism.
I'm not trying to be silly here. Changes in culture and the outward effects of an idea can change, The idea remains.
The idea didn't remain. Some vague similarities remained, but then no one culture has a monopoly on the concept of unwilling sacrifices.
And given that cultures themselves are an idea, that alone suffices to make the point. There are no Hittites or Capadocians anymore. Many cultures and polities lie dead in history.
Ok. May I suggest you consider the idea of an idea.
Some cultures have supported the sacrifice of the weak for the benefit of the populous, others have rejected this concept.
An "idea" might, in this context, be the proposition that it is good to sacrifice the lives of some for the benefit of others. Others might propose this is unacceptable; as on the case of ant-abortion activists.
An "idea" is nothing more than a proposition. And propositions don't necessarily require human input. "Leafs are green" would be true if no human person had ever seen a leaf (don't get bogged down in the use of vocabulary in this case: leafs would have whatever you call color with or without anyone's observation)
That's unnecessarily vague. In this context we're talking about the practice of human sacrifice to a specific set of arguably demonic entities.
This idea has ceased. Because Cortez killed it. He did so by killing virtually everyone who espoused it.
No believers, no idea. To kill an idea requires death, a lot of it. And that's something human history has in spades.