Posted on 10/13/2003 9:03:14 AM PDT by Helms
Betrayers of The Mind- The Postmodern Left and Intellectual and Other Elites
The following are excerpts taken from Karl Popper and regarding the betrayal by those in society which have been gifted by upbringing, circumstance and in some cases the genetic or heridetary lottery. These are the individuals that populate media organs like the BBC, NYT, LA Times and the organs of Cultural Production in Hollywood, Madison Avenue as well as Ivy League Academic Institutions.
Sir Karl Poppers words have unusually strong resonance today as we battle forces which undermine Amerrican and Western Institutions and Values.
"Each time it has been the intellectuals who, from cowardice, prejudice or pride, have done the most terrible things. Who have a special responsibility to the uneducated are the betrayers of the mind, as the great French thinker Julian Brenda has put it."
". …That everyone who has set out to create heaven on earth has brought only hell." "…. Intellectuals have caused the most terrible harm. Mass extermination in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory-that is our work, our invention, the invention of intellectuals.'
"…… irresponsible intellectuals have managed to see only evil in our Western World. They founded a new religion, which teaches that our world is unjust and will inevitably decline. They began teaching it with Otto Spengler's book The Decline of The West", because they wanted to be original and to say things that fly in the face of the evidence. And they succeeded in overturning not only the evidence but the objective truth."
"The Western ideology-despite all the denigration and often mendacious abuse to which it is subjected-was the truth. The West fought for peace and achieved it not only in Europe, which from the beginning of human history had always been wasted by wars, but also nearly everywhere else where West Europeans had had an influence.
PAGE 89, 87,86, Freedom and intellectual Responsibility LESSONS OF THIS CENTURY, With Two Talks On The Democratic State, by Sir Karl Popper
Hard to argue against that. Many times the left have accused religion of being responsible for the human catastrophes of the 20th. Century. The reality is, it has been economic theories, espoused by "intellectuals " that has caused the most human suffering. Makes me proud to say; I am not smart.
Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
Interesting comment. Postmodernists want to change the world, by making it go much faster in the direction it's already going. But they don't seem to know or care what the result will be. It is all academic. Responsibility is dead.
They began teaching it with Otto Spengler's book The Decline of The West, because they wanted to be original and to say things that fly in the face of the evidence.
Postmodernism doesn't fly in the face of evidence, because there are no standards (by its nature) by which to collect evidence. It's valuable as commentary, the only commentary on what's happening, not what should be happening, or what used to happen.
Consider also the prospect that it is, like art, ahead of its time. Postmodernists have gleefully noted that their seemingly disconnected ideas about language, flatness, and random and arbitrary associations of words have found applications (i.e., reference) in the web's hyperlinks and search engines.
ROFL. Don't down yourself. These people hold far less intelligence than the average man on the street who holds common sense and a regard for the lessons of history.
The intellectuals only goal or aim is to become more famous than their peers, to do that they have to make ever more outrageous claims to top the last intellectual's outrageous ideals in order to attain to the top of the dung heap. They are distructive, and suffer from self inflicted ignorance of the historical evidence of what works and what doesn't, what is right and what is wrong.
They can't even change their automobile oil, much less come up with a workable answer for any problem other than how to line their pockets, ego's, and reputations within their own shallow, useless, ego driven, little group of sumps.
The only real function they serve is to give an excuse to point to, to those that wish to rip off the human race for their own profit and agendas of power, who promote this group of idiots that no one should ever listen to, much less embrace their insane ideas.
additionally, please also include the incideous substitution of "democracy" for participatory representative government with an expansive, but prized, franchise.
Berrtrand Russell (98)1872-1970
Karl Popper(92)1902-1994
Popper stands in stark contrast, a bit like Ayn Rand, to the Postmodernist assault on Enlightenment philosophy upon which our Republic is built. Popper took on Wittgenstein as well as chewed up Marx and also Plato.
Popper is a towering figure in both Philosophy and Science. He witnessed the ravages of War and the historicism of Hegel, Marx and their ilk.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.