Talk

Eco, Truman

Amazon.com: Books: The Name of the Rose (Reed Audio)

This was a good book. The mystery was ok, but the writing was excellent, and the narration impressive.
Truman by David McCullough.

I am a fan of McCullogh now.

Quotes

Ideology...is indispensable in any society if men are to be formed, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their conditions of existence.

Louis Althusser
--For Marx

Discontent, therefore, may be considered adaptive because it encourages the use of the imagination, and thus spurs men on to further conquests and to ever-increasing mastery of the environment.

Anthony Storr
--Solitude

There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contigent and their opposites are possible.

Gottfried Leibnitz
--Monadology

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Max Planck
--Scientific Autobiography

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

Arthur Schopenhauer
--Aphorisms

Zen koan

Koans | MetaFilter

Illiberal Democracy

Amazon.com: Books: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad

Fareed Zakaria echos the same thoughts as Amy Chua. We need to export the republic - protection of minorities along with the ideals of democracy. Otherwise, as Lenin once said Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority.