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| Subject: Hah, yes! | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 23:20:17 11/21/04 Sun In reply to: Nick (UK) 's message, "I don't think education prohibits extremism, I'm afraid." on 22:01:05 11/21/04 Sun Have you noticed that all educated Left-Wingers believe that conservatism exists only amongst ignorant people; and that all educated Right-Wingers believe that socialism exists only amongst the ignorant? I was talking to a charming Scottish fellow only the other day, and we got chatting about politics and, as you can imagine, my comments revealed me to be a die-hard Tory. This didn't surprise him - what surprised him was that someone who had until that point been talking [reasonably] knowledgeably about distinguishing between Platonic and Socratic thought in The Republic by comparing Plato's account of Socrates with that of Aristophanes, could possibly turn out not to be left-wing. He said as much. And I have the same sort of conversation all the time with my two closest friends, both of whom think that Karl Marx had some bright ideas and that people who still wear flannel suits and pocket-watches, like me, should be disembowelled and their corpses suspended from lamp-posts in Mayfair. They seem to imagine that at some point, if I continue reading, the scales will fall from my eyes and I shall cancel my subscription to the Spectator and start reading the Independent instead. They are going to be disappointed. I wish I could claim better open-mindedness from the 'intellectual' Right; but, alas, at Party Conference all too often I find myself listening to Tories deride left-wingery as something exclusive to ignorant and ill-informed people. Of course, "intelligent people presented with the same evidence" will hardly ever come to the same point of view; and this is a problem which logicians, psychologists, and philologists have debated for years without coming to any conclusion. So perhaps my statement that educated people are not fanatic extremists is something of a generalisation. I therefore hereby amend it to "people who are educated are usually not extremist fanatics". While there may be exceptions, such as Usama, Marx, Robespierre, Menachim Begin & Co., I think that, in general, I am right. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |