JohnGaltsRevolution (October 12, 2008 at 11:40 am)

Nicely stated.

BlackProteus (October 12, 2008 at 7:44 am)

Yup. And you know what else? Alan Greenspan was an Objectivist. And he's the genius responsible for the sub-prime crisis, and probably the next Great Depression. Rand was not an economist. She was a maudlin novelist with simplistic, black and white ideas that don't fit the complex real world.Compassion is good. Objectivism is a teenager's philosophy.

ipx4 (October 7, 2008 at 6:58 pm)

Ooops, no "s" in Lafargue

ipx4 (October 7, 2008 at 6:57 pm)

Fusiller les riches de but en blanc serait de la folie : il faut d'abord les mettre en prison et les affamer jusqu'à ce qu'ils rendent l'argent qu'ils ont volé. C'est seulement quand ils n'auront plus rien que nous les fusillerons.Jules Lafargues

WISEBL00D (October 6, 2008 at 9:20 pm)

Oh this 'great speech' sounds like everything else Rand wrote.Like an episode of Dynasty, The Colbys or Dallas. The rich and powerful are beautiful, pure and misunderstood. Everyone else that doesn't have a bright idea (i.e. not raping the world to make way for rail roads or horrendous housing projects) is a looter. Pop (pulp) fiction writ large and masquerading as philosophy.Objectivism.

HerrK77 (October 6, 2008 at 6:15 pm)

... The political consequences are volatile. The masters require servants, but they must beware lest the servants become masters. [I wonder if Alan Greenspan would agree.](excerpts from: Stanley Rosen, 'Hermeneutics as Politics').

HerrK77 (October 6, 2008 at 6:01 pm)

...At a deeper level, the desire to be a god is intensified by modern anticipations of the infinite power of science. But at the same time, there is a clear perception of the danger attendant upon launching this revolution. The Cartesian "firm and constant resolution" is a characteristic of the best or most powerful individual souls. But in order to do what they believe to be the best, these souls must also unleash the passions of the great multitude of unphilosophical beings...

HerrK77 (October 6, 2008 at 5:56 pm)

...Despite the exaltation of mathematical and experimental science as the mediate source of power, modern philosophy demotes the intellect by making it instrumental to the will. In so doing, it necessarily promotes what from the classical standpoint is the lower part of the soul. Modern man wills to be free because he cannot accept restraints upon his passions or desires. Wonder, or awe in the presence of the divine, is replaced by curiosity, or the desire to know "what makes the divine tick."

HerrK77 (October 6, 2008 at 5:52 pm)

... Nevertheless, there is a difference between the ancients and the moderns with respect to the relation between the will and the intellect. As Socrates puts it, the classical philosopher wills that the intellect be god. One could almost say that, from Descartes forward, the intellect resolves that the will be god. Somewhat more accurately, the intellect is an instrument of the will to freedom, and this accounts for the emphasis on power in modern philosophy.

HerrK77 (October 6, 2008 at 5:25 pm)

The uneasiness that accompanies the modern sense of freedom led at the beginning of the Enlightenment to relatively conservative doctrines. I do not believe that we can understand this conservatism as merely an exoteric accommodation to political authority. To the contrary, it expresses very well the inner harmony between traditional and enlightened authoritarianism. According to Leo Strauss, classical philosophy, no less than modern, is an act of the will. Nevertheless, there is a difference