"Foreign despotisms only have to declare their passion to improve the condition of the poor, and many an academic is lying with his back on the floor waving his paws in the air."
~ Kenneth Minogue, on how too many intellectuals too often end up as unpaid PR officers for dodgy regimes.
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Saturday, 9 September 2017
Quote of the Day: On academics and dictators
2 comments:
We welcome thoughtful disagreement.
But we do (ir)regularly moderate comments -- and we *will* delete any with insulting or abusive language. Or if they're just inane or off topic. It’s okay to disagree, but pretend you’re having a drink in the living room with the person you’re disagreeing with. This includes me.
PS: Have the honesty and courage to use your real name. That gives added weight to any opinion.
I suspect intellectuals don't like capitalism much because capitalism is like evolution in that it generally sees winners progress and losers fall by the wayside. Intellectuals often appear to need someone else's money to get ahead because they are not producing anything a customer would pay for so they are nervous that one day the gravy train will stop - as it should do under Capitalism.
ReplyDelete3:16
One from one of PC's favourites
ReplyDelete>>The hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.<< Ayn Rand
I don't know why, but I seem to be running foul of one Government department after another. All I did was tell the people at the head of MSD they were dysfunctional femin nazis and thenall sorts of impositions flowed on. I get a specially reduced form of Superannuation because > well because I wander off overseas and have Thai girl friends. To the fzs this means I should have reduced super, a special write up in the citizens black book data base , I mean Social Investment data, and several onward encumbrances that come with that. I wrote to the OIA people to get my black book information > no reply. Big Sister doesn't like me.