Posted on 05/30/2003 11:45:30 AM PDT by Remedy
Nope. Too much futurology, although, to be fair, I haven't actually read Wealth and Poverty, only his bit pieces.
As an aside, I was re-reading Revolt of the Masses in an Irish pub in Madrid, just after the 9/11 attacks, and some Irish putz came up to me and said that if I really wanted to understand why Bin Laden hated us (not that that is what I was attempting to do), I should read some Noam Chomsky. I decided to leave rather than smash my Guiness over his head.
The great thing about Ortega y Gasset is his view on "The Barbarism of Specialization," which made me realize that I wasn't a total loser for leaving grad school with only a master's.
You are missing something. What you are missing is a REASON for reading. Once you are on the trail of a huge mystery, there won't be time to read all the books you will pester your municipal librarian to dig out for you. Maybe there is a little nagging question about something that has been lurking in the back of your mind since 7th grade civics class. Maybe you will come across a link to your question and that will lead to a bigger question, etc., until one day you find yourself staying up late every night reading the very books on this list, and a lot more. Happened to Don Qixote, can happen to you.
Keep believing that if it helps you feel better. The nature of your "rebuttals" indicates that I'd be wasting my time trying to get through to you.
Hamilton ripped them to shreds, as he did anyone who tried to stand against him.
Of all the founders, Hamilton was the biggest "we have nothing to fear from a powerful federal government" advocate. The fact that you idolize him so extensively says much. I think history has put his naivete into proper perspective, even if you're unable to admit it.
OK -- so that explains it.
Gilder has turned into a bit of a loony-tune, in my mind. But Wealth and Poverty was written back in the 1970s and was considered the pre-eminent treatise on supply-side economics at the time. Gilder released a subsequent edition in the 1980s, after his original theories had been utterly vindicated during the Reagan years.
I would strongly recommend it -- it reads as a splendid mix of economics, philosophy, and politics.
In fact, I now have to buy myself another copy of it -- I lent mine to my company's financial advisor, and he's never given it back. LOL.
I have often said that Thomas Jefferson's vision of America could never apply to a modern industrial state, so the progression of the U.S. from rural nation to a modern one (at the expense of many of our freedoms) may very well have been a "natural" one. I'd be interested in getting anyone's take on this.
Two Treatese on Government -- John Locke (the philosophical father of the American Revolution, in my opinion)
Wealth of Nations -- Adam Smith
The Federalist Papers, and The Anti-Federalist Papers
The 20-30 years immediately following the civil war, 1865, saw a huge increase in immigration, a huge expansion of industry, and the rise of America from #4 or so in the world in industrialization to # 1 and bigger than #2,3,4 combined. Social changes were immense, not necessarily all good, and Bellamy's 'Looking Back' 1887 was a worldwide best-seller, still sells even now while H G Wells' works are kind of moldering in old boxes in the attic. Change was happening so fast that it outran theory. Theory still hasn't caught up. Founding Fathers couldn't have anticipated all that but they gave us this: the Constitution is the only anchor we have and if we lose it we will immediately drift into capital-C Chaos. It's already chaotic, in case you just got here and are confusing the bustle with the mere overpopulation like where you came from. It's way more than that and could easily become Chaos, Inc.
I would consider that we could produce a better, true "Liberal Arts" education in our teens by having rotating FR discussion threads on each of the Great Books.
This one should be on the list:
Got to have some math in the mix. Liberal Arts requires some math. Used to, anyway.
Two Treatese on Government -- John Locke (the philosophical father of the American Revolution, in my opinion)
And should have taken Plato's spot @ #5.
From Revolution to Reconstruction: Presidents: Thomas Jefferson: ... I am just returned from one of my long absences, having been at my other home for five weeks past. Having more leisure there than here for reading, I amused myself with reading seriously Plato's republic. I am wrong however in calling it amusement, for it was the heaviest task-work I ever went through. I had occasionally before taken up some of his other works, but scarcely ever had patience to go through a whole dialogue. While wading thro' the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? How the soi-disant Christian world indeed should have done it, is a piece of historical curiosity. But how could the Roman good sense do it? And particularly how could Cicero bestow such eulogies on Plato? Altho' Cicero did not wield the dense logic of Demosthenes, yet he was able, learned, laborious, practised in the business of the world, and honest. He could not be the dupe of mere style, of which he was himself the first master in the world. With the Moderns, I think, it is rather a matter of fashion and authority. Education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato. They give the tone while at school, and few, in their after-years, have occasion to revise their college opinions. But fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, and incomprehensibilities, and what remains? In truth, he is one of the race of genuine Sophists, who has escaped the oblivion of his brethren, first by the elegance of his diction, but chiefly by the adoption and incorporation of his whimsies into the body of artificial Christianity. His foggy mind, is forever presenting the semblances of objects which, half seen thro' a mist, can be defined neither in form or dimension. Yet this which should have consigned him to early oblivion really procured him immortality of fame and reverence. The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it's indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained. Their purposes however are answered. Plato is canonized; and it is now deemed as impious to question his merits as those of an Apostle of Jesus. He is peculiarly appealed to as an advocate of the immortality of the soul; and yet I will venture to say that were there no better arguments than his in proof of it, not a man in the world would believe it. It is fortunate for us that Platonic republicanism has not obtained the same favor as Platonic Christianity; or we should now have been all living, men, women and children, pell mell together, like beasts of the field or forest. Yet `Plato is a great Philosopher,' said La Fontaine. But says Fontenelle `do you find his ideas very clear'? `Oh no! he is of an obscurity impenetrable.' `Do you not find him full of contradictions?' `Certainly,' replied La Fontaine, `he is but a Sophist.' Yet immediately after, he exclaims again, `Oh Plato was a great Philosopher.' Socrates had reason indeed to complain of the misrepresentations of Plato; for in truth his dialogues are libels on Socrates.
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