Day 156 – Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I thought a little bit this evening about how much Hillsdale has challenged and changed my ideas, just over the last year. What started this tonight was that I read a note from my friend Matt Stone, who is interning in DC this summer. He went to a lecture hosted by the Leadership Institute, and the speaker, Ian Ivey, stated that Bastiat’s The Law was the greatest book written in the history of mankind. When I read this, I immediately thought, “how absurd!”. I like The Law, but is it the greatest book in the history of mankind? Of course not!

Anyway, before I went to Hillsdale last fall, I would have agreed with Ian Ivey. In fact, I think I did agree with him even though he did not make that statement yet. I was also a big fan of Ayn Rand–a position which I have also rethought and dropped since going to Hillsdale, reading some of the Great Books, and beginning my study of the permanent things. These are just a few of many of my ideas that have changed. I now frequently find myself debating my friends about things I did not think about, or that I would have agreed with them on a year ago. Thank you Hillsdale, Dr. Birzer, Prof. Siegel, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Freeh, Matt Stone, David Wagner, the honors program, and all of my friends, for starting me on the path to becoming more humane.

Oh, and Matt: I think I am coming around like you hoped. I may not be a history major, but I am coming around. Keep pushing me. I think it is working.

On a different topic, I spent the day taking photos at different schools around the Amherst school district, at the request of one of the administrators. View the full 154-photo gallery at the Amherst site. The photos are entirely unedited, so many of them may be a little dark or have a bad crop. I think they are pretty good for being straight out of the camera, though.

Plans for tomorrow: I am going either trap or sporting clays shooting in the morning, then hanging around the house in the afternoon, preparing for a birthday party we are having here for one of my cousins.