Sunday, June 21, 2009

Dangerous companions ...

... From friendship to fascism in one short step.

Characteristically outstanding work from Bryan.

Some random afterthoughts of mine:

Sunnstein himself seems safely ensconced in a like-minded set, and his book sounds like another Malcolm Gladwell-style offering of cocktail-party talking points.

I worked for 28 years at a paper where most of my colleagues would cheerfully describe themselves as "liberal," and would describe me, not quite accurately, as "conservative." But during most of those years I led a life far more unconventional than my colleagues and hung with people - with whom I tended to disagree strenuously - who would cheerfully have described themselves as "radical." I have also known - and known very well - a good many people known to the public as "conservatives."
It would almost seem as if I prefer the company of those I disagree with, but I think it is more the case that most people tend to conform and do so by following the course of least resistance. I am reflexively nonconformist. "Which way are you going?" someone once asked Albert Jay Nock. "The other way," Nock replied. My sentiments exactly.
"Most people think little," Somerset Maugham observed, and most people's views are fashion statements of one sort or another. I know plenty of people who get their opinions from the New York Times exactly as they get their suits from Brooks Brothers - because both are presumably high-end, fequented by the "best people," etc.
"Belief is clinging to a rock," that oddly wise fellow Alan Watts once said. "Faith is learning how to swim." We need faith if we would plunge into the sea of uncertainty that is life, but most people are timorous and cling to the bogus certainty of cherished formulae.
Finally, I would draw your attention to some questions raised by Larry Lamb, one of Bryan's commenters: "What about legitimate convictions? What about bona fide absolutes? What about true values that require stalwart defence?"

No comments:

Post a Comment