I am currently reading The Master and His Emissary , which appears to be an excellent book. ("Appears" because I don't know the neuroscience literature well enough to say for sure, yet.) But then on page 186 I find: "Asking cognition, however, to give a perspective on the relationship between cognition and affect is like asking astronomer in the pre-Galilean geocentric world, whether, in his opinion, the sun moves round the earth of the earth around the sun. To ask a question alone would be enough to label one as mad." OK, this is garbage. First of all, it should be pre-Copernican, not pre-Galilean. But much worse is that people have seriously been considering heliocentrism for many centuries before Copernicus. Aristarchus had proposed a heliocentric model in the 4th-century BC. It had generally been considered wrong, but not "mad." (And wrong for scientific reasons: Why, for instance, did we not observe stellar parallax?) And when Copernicus propose
Thanks Bob. You are heroic.
ReplyDeleteThank you Gene, I truly appreciate your honesty and goodwill.
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I hope we all can move forward with decency and reasonableness while we forgive transgressions.
That Guido, Peter, and Joe have signed on to Mario's call for peace means I hope Tom Woods, Tom Palmer, and Tyler Cowen among many others will as well.
Joachim,
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear--the strategy does not depend on certain irredeemable carpers all "signing on." The strategy presupposes there will be such people; it counsels ignoring them, and focusing on productive work and healthy, substantive, mutually respectful dialogue and interaction.
In a way it is reminiscent of how we anarchists view anarcho-topia: we don't believe there would be no crime. There would be no public (state) crime, by definition, but there would still be private crime. We are anarchists even though there will be evil little criminals worming around to harm people on occasion. They just have to be dealt with as a technical problem, like the existence of wild animals, disease, hurricanes, and so on.
It also calls to mind something I heard on KCRW's Left, Right, Center yesterday--leftist Robert Scheer was objecting to Obama's 30,000 troop escalation in Afghanistan where there are apparently only about 100 reported Al Quaeda members. He said having 100,000 troops there for 100 Al Quaeda members gives them a significance they don't deserve. I think it is similar to the undue attention paid to the snipers and haters and defamers and liars. In Iraq and Afghanistan we ought to just declare victory and come home. Likewise with the internecine Ausro-libertarian wars: declare victory, withdraw the troops, ignore the insignificant popcorn farts on the sidelines, and work with serious, mutually respectful people to advance economic truth and literacy and the message of liberty.
Stephan,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately in terms of funding and geography, I think "we" (whether Austro-libertarians or even more so Austro-libertarians associated with LvMI) are the insurgents. :/
Bob, well this is the problem with metaphors and analogies. Sure, in that respect we are. But there are other sides to it too. The haters and carpers get attention from their targets and that goads them on and increases their visibility and importance. Hate is impotent without some cooperation of the victim. We should withdraw cooperation; like Atlas shrugging.
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