Who was killed under the Cambodian genocide? What sort of Utopia did the communist leader of Cambodia envision for the country?

from thales, who is often considered the first western philosopher, to the stoics and skeptics, ancient greek philosophy opened the doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. we find proto-scientific explanations of the natural world in the milesian thinkers, and we hear democritus posit atoms—indivisible and invisible units—as the basic stuff of all matter. with socrates comes a sustained inquiry into ethical matters—an orientation towards human living and the best life for human beings. with plato comes one of the most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. plato’s student, aristotle, was one of the most prolific of ancient authors. he wrote treatises on each of these topics, as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of animals. the hellenists—epicurus, the cynics, the stoics, and the skeptics—developed schools or movements devoted to distinct philosophical lifestyles, each with reason at its foundation.

with this preference for reason came a critique of traditional ways of living, believing, and thinking, which sometimes caused political trouble for the philosophers themselves. xenophanes directly challenged the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, and socrates was put to death for allegedly inventing new gods and not believing in the gods mandated by the city of athens. after the fall of alexander the great, and because of aristotle’s ties with alexander and his court, aristotle escaped the same fate as socrates by fleeing athens. epicurus, like xenophanes, claimed that the mass of people is impious, since the people conceive of the gods as little more than superhumans, even though human characteristics cannot appropriately be ascribed to the gods. in short, not only did ancient greek philosophy pave the way for the western intellectual tradition, including modern science, but it also shook cultural foundations in its own time.

explanati“there were many such dangers, in which the odds were all against them. their children were not as well as they had been at home; but how could they know that there was no sewer to their house, and that the drainage of fifteen years was in a cesspool under it? how could they know that the pale-blue milk that they bought around the corner was watered, and doctored with formaldehyde besides? when the children were not well at home, teta elzbieta would gather herbs and cure them; now she was obliged to go to the drugstore and buy extracts–and how was she to know that they were all adulterated? how could they find out that their tea and coffee, their sugar and flour, had been doctored; that their canned peas had been colored with copper salts, and their fruit jams with aniline dyes? and even if they had known it, what good would it have done them, since there was no place within miles of them where any other sort was to be had? the bitter winter was coming, and they had to save money to get more clothing and bedding; but it would not matter in the least how much they saved, they could not get anything to keep them warm. all the clothing that was to be had in the stores was made of cotton and shoddy, which is made by tearing old clothes to pieces and weaving the fiber again. if they paid higher prices, they might get frills and fanciness, or be cheated; but genuine quality they could not obtain for love nor moneyon:

toi khong biet cau tra loi

the u.s reacted by sending the first man to the moon