Posted on 11/10/2001 8:15:53 AM PST by Anamensis
There are ugly warts talked about in that book, but they fit. Marx was a madman, a foul madman...I;v emet smelly intellectuals just like him...it's good to know the personalities behind the ideas. After all, the Personal is the Political, as they say.
While the rest of us go on living and trying to raise a family, these people engage in empty philosophical discussions and add nothing to the quality of our lives.
One question always begets another question with them.
They epitomize the adage "those who can, do, those who can't, teach. They need a "mental enema" to get the crap out of their minds.
But, what do I know, I'm one of their masses.
It's been some years since I read it, but I am quite sure I remember Johnson going on at length about Russell's sex life, his halitosis, all this other stuff that is, while interesting at the gossipy level, not really an engagement of his ideas.
Contrast the centrally planned system with a capitalistic democracy. All the intellectual gets to say is, "Leave things alone, the people can generally take care of themselves." That's it. No central planning, no grand schemes to remake the world, just a simple, "let it be." And whereas an intellectual can spend decades trying to mold his ideal society, free-market democracy can be summed up in a few paragraphs. Not at all sexy.
Of course, then you've got rank idiots who talk about the cleansing effects of violence, and speak with glee about the actions of, say, Sandanista executioners. These would-be Genghis Khan's are just a collection of pathetic Walter Mittys who vicariously imagine themselves toting AK-47's and gunning down capitalists because they're pale, skinny men who in an actual fight would get their a**es kicked. Indeed, the impulse that applauds the Vietcong carrying out massacres is the same that causes an alienated teenager to play games in which he imagines himself a barbarian warrior. Okay, done rambling.
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