This site will start building off of the “Pop’s Letters” series to portray other middle class lives in personal accounts and poetry. Please contact me at kirk(dot)sinclair(at)middleclassforum(dot)com if you would like to share your own middle class experiences or if, like me, you have material from a relative and you want to use this forum [...]
Continue reading about Looking for Middle Class Memoir Material
Another long, two part letter from Pop to Newton Mfg. The first part touches on what it was like fighting on a battleship in World War II. December 27, 1964 Beth Murphy Newton Mfg. Co. Newton, Iowa. Dear Beth: I have just been going through my big old roll top desk and sorting out things. [...]
Rousseau is fascinating to me. Based on faulty information he often draws similar conclusions as I have from my own wilderness experiences and from reading ethnographies about hunter-gatherer societies, with one important exception. His following quote about human nature, with metadata from Quotationary by Leonard Roy Frank, reveals the differences in our views towards human [...]
Continue reading about Human Nature and Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I originally was going to call the new book I wrote Restoring Balance, intended as a much shorter, inspirational sequel to Systems out of Balance. However, the marketing coaching I’ve been receiving nixed that pretty early and emphatically. After a bit of market testing the new title is The Five Forgotten Truths, with a subtitle [...]
In this second half of his December 20 letter Pop describes a different social era from our own. Speaking of Counties and Towns. Another thing that we did was “to take care of our own.” Every child in school knew of the children that were very poor, or who had parents who were sick and [...]
Continue reading about Pop’s Letters – December 20, 1964 part 2
Since I’m a fan of John Stuart Mill why not throw in an extra quote by him about human nature? Once again, metadata is from Quotationary by Leonard Roy Frank. After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). The Subjection of [...]
Continue reading about Human Nature and John Stuart Mill (again)
I’ve criticized many Enlightenment philosophers, and even John Stuart Mill had his paternalistic leanings, but for the most part there is no Enlightenment philosopher I’m in closer agreement with. Here is one of two quotes from Mill pertinent to human nature, with metadata from Quotationary by Leonard Roy Frank. Human nature is not a machine [...]
In this “two-parter” Pop writes about life growing up in Maine. The first part is about food preparation back then. December 20, 1964 Mr. Harold Lufkin, V.P. Newton Mfg. Co. Newton, Iowa. Dear Mr. Lufkin: Having been one of those “State of Mainers” like your Grandpappy, your Christmas letter was of special interest to me. [...]
As I proclaim on a regular basis I consider myself beholden to no political party, no ideology. However, had I been born in colonial times I might have joined those states rights agrarians that started the party known as the Democrat-Republicans, with Thomas Jefferson as their figurehead leader. The reason for this affinity is embedded [...]
Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, led a fascinating life that included a battle with blindness, farm labor, pacifism and psychedelics. The quote below, obtained from Quotationary by Leonard Roy Frank, provides insight as to how and why interest groups function. Human beings have a strong tendency towards rationality and decency. (If they had [...]