Posted on 07/26/2016 12:25:25 PM PDT by poconopundit
On the Friedrich Nietzsche point, I think Mencken would find in Trump strong parallels to Nietsche's "Super Man" concept -- given Trump's career across many fronts: real estate, hotels, golf courses, television, publishing, and now politics.
Lots of great commentary to finish reading later on. Thanks.
Reed is quite the politician. Honest, articulate, predicts the future. He's a duck out of water in Congress :- )
I had to look up the term autodidact and I found an interesting article about it: The Self-Taught Master: How To Become An Autodidact.
It's much easier to self-educate yourself these days with all the resources on line. I learned object oriented programming without taking a course on the subject. But I ran into an international forum and people at the other end were more than happy to give advice. You could ask questions and get replies very fast. So it's not just the text, but also the support networks are out there.
And as I think back on it, I actually didn't learn that much in my college courses because it was something I had to do -- not something I wanted to do.
So I am working today at the library and just picked up a book by Eric Hoffer. Thanks for the recommendation :- )
What about HIllary Clinton?
This is a great read - thanks Poco. He’s one of my favorites.
No healthy movement can admire both poor rural Southern fundamentalists and the man who called them "gaping primates who believe degraded nonsense."
Thanks for the information, but it’s very difficult for me to reconcile that contempt with libertarian thoughts. Nietzche is also someone whose thoughts sound very liberal/progressive, mostly I guess because of the amorality.
I’m more of a St. Thomas Aquinas, kinda gal. A philosophy student that I met once told me that Nietzche saw himself as a Protestant Aquinas. So I guess even the intelligentsia don’t think entirely for themselves. Then they condemn people who support those who either think like them or can communicate successfully to them. Wah!!! Buncha crybabies ;)
bkmk
I would say it would more bore you and make you wonder at the type of people who take this kind of thing seriously.
But then I have always found Nazi sympathizers puzzling and just a bit dim.
This is because people tend to equate religiosity with conservative thought and atheism/irreligion with liberalism and socialism. This wasn't always the case. For example, Mencken's nemesis William Jennings Bryan championed both religious fundamentalism and egalitarian causes, which was hardly atypical at the time. The association of fundamentalist religion with the political Right is a fairly recent phenomenon in the US, less so in the UK, and not at all in continental Europe.
The fundamental divide between Right and Left has always been about whether one believes in some form of natural inequality vs. thinking that any non-egalitarian society is an artifact of our institutions, something that can be done away with through the right type of social engineering. Both egalitarians and anti-egalitarians had religious and non-religious people in their ranks. From this definition, the agnostic or atheist Spencer, Nietzsche, and Mencken (or, to contemporary audiences, a more familiar example would be Ayn Rand) were clearly Right-wingers.
Supposedly the dumbest 10% of voters decide the outcome of national elections, no matter the outcome, pub or dem, con or lib. So a very high % of campaign money is meant to sway the swing voters, the ones who reliably manage to vote, but will vote one way and then another and usually can’t give a rational reason as to why. It could be a debate flub, or really well attended rally, or liking or not liking how someone looks. And getting these folks to vote your way is supposedly the key to victory, along with things like suppressing the vote of the suppressible.
We haven’t had 65% eligible voter turnout since 1908. Most of the time it has been much less than that. But maybe that is a good thing. If turnout was higher, I suspect it would only result in a higher % of swing voters. I suppose that could potentially be really good or bad, like flipping a coin 10 times and accidentally ending up with a conservative utopia or a liberal dystopia.
Freegards
If he manages to win this and proceed to change our country back to that which was envisioned by our FF, he will have my deepest gratitude, commitment and loyalty.
Mr. Trump, WTP are watching you, moving forward with you. Please, sir, don't let us down and don't allow our country to be swallowed by those that wish to see us go down and under.
TRiUMPh
Thanks for the ping, Pocono.
Of course, what was written earlier is not intended as a slap. However, it does indicate a bit of tired and weary on this part. It’s been quite a year and will be a roller coaster ride for the next few months. Onward and upward.
Again...WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!! — and once again, Thank You Mr. Trump.
bmk
bmk
What, exactly?
Not enough intellectual horsepower there to refute, but resorting to hit and run (and incompetent) vacuous words?
There are certainly many Freepers we could get well enough without.
Note: this topic is from . Thanks poconopundit.
In his heyday, Mencken was the most widely read columnist in the country, and at the same time was also the foremost literary critic. He helped made F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsy) famous, for example.
Just now, visiting Mencken's quotes on Wikiquote, I ran into a beautiful gem — from "Liberty and Democracy" (1925) — that precisely pegs the Democrats and their agenda today:
A democratic state may profess to venerate the name, and even pass laws making it officially sacred, but it simply cannot tolerate the thing.
In order to keep any coherence in the governmental process, to prevent the wildest anarchy in thought and act, the government must put limits upon the free play of opinion [Twitter, Google].
In part, it can reach that end by mere propaganda, by the bald force of its authority — that is, by making certain doctrines officially infamous. But in part it must resort to force, i.e., to law.
One of the main purposes of laws in a democratic society is to put burdens upon intelligence and reduce it to impotence. Ostensibly, their aim is to penalize anti-social acts; actually their aim is to penalize heretical opinions [GOPe, Fake News, DNC].
At least ninety-five Americans out of every 100 believe that this process is honest and even laudable; it is practically impossible to convince them that there is anything evil in it. In other words, they cannot grasp the concept of liberty.[Or freedom to go back to work and not wear a mask].
Always they condition it with the doctrine that the state, i.e., the majority, has a sort of right of eminent domain in acts, and even in ideas — that it is perfectly free, whenever it is so disposed, to forbid a man to say what he honestly believes.
Whenever his notions show signs of becoming "dangerous," i.e., of being heard and attended to, it exercises that prerogative. And the overwhelming majority of citizens believe in supporting it in the outrage.
Including especially the Liberals, who pretend — and often quite honestly believe — that they are hot for liberty. They never really are.
Deep down in their hearts they know, as good democrats, that liberty would be fatal to democracy — that a government based upon shifting and irrational opinion must keep it within bounds or run a constant risk of disaster. They themselves, as a practical matter, advocate only certain narrow kinds of liberty — liberty, that is, for the persons they happen to favor.
The rights of other persons do not seem to interest them. If a law were passed tomorrow taking away the property of a large group of presumably well-to-do persons — say, bondholders of the railroads — without compensation and without even colorable reason, they would not oppose it; they would be in favor of it [Bernie, Pocohontas, AOC].
The liberty to have and hold property is not one they recognize. They believe only in the liberty to envy, hate and loot the man who has it. [Minneapolis]
That’s a great one.
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