Two E's Below Middle C: A Sound Made By History Revealing Freedom and Reason

Hegel the great professor. Hegel the mind who offered us a way to understand in a way, that reason dispelled the familiar tones of religious superstition but not belief. Those individual freedoms were not the prerogative of France but of humanity and just in time to juxtapose such beliefs at the doorstep of the Great War and wars ever after.  Can we? Should we discuss Masonic history as an outlier of such radical thinking, or continue to examine it from the safety of middle-class existence?

When Masonic foundations were being laid, the middle class didn't exist. That group that life according to rules, had not become a lifestyle.  By coinciding with powerful political and social forces, masonry avoided life-ending conflict.  But such a price we paid and pay.  No longer content to challenge capitalism, electing leaders who were generally caretakers, has become the norm.  Compliance became a point of familiarity; Roles within the dominant wind class became accessible, safe, predictable and sought after. Group goals in exchange for willingly giving up a freedom for liberty.  So at a time when it was safe to discuss radical ideas and when one could draw whatever inference he or she felt evident.