Free Republic

The Budget Mess Is there a more tiresome, complex and confusing subject? Perhaps, but The New Terrapin cannot imagine it. The mere thought of being involved in “negotiations” with a cynical ideologue who spouts untruthful, jargon-laden slogans and makes demands that cannot rationally be met is immensely fatiguing. Just getting a man like Obama to understand the logic of one’s contrary viewpoint must be a Sisyphean task, for all ideologues find it almost impossible to suspend the self-censorship imposed by their partisan faiths. They don’t recognize the world out there, and they can’t deal with it without using force. For...

  The Art of Always Being Right Arthur Schopenhauer; with an introduction by A C Grayling Gibson Square Books, 190pp, £9.99ISBN 1903933617   Reviewed by George Walden   Schopenhauer's sardonic little book, laying out 38 rhetorical tricks guaranteed to win you the argument even when you are defeated in logical discussion, is a true text for the times. An exercise in irony and realism, humour and melancholy, this is no antiquarian oddity, but an instruction manual in intellectual duplicity that no aspiring parliamentarian, trainee lawyer, wannabe TV interviewer or newspaper columnist can afford to be without. The melancholy aspect comes...