Conservatives and Progressives

G. K. Chesterton on conservatives and progressives:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have the two great types—the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.

This passage is taken from an article entitled The Blunders of Our Parties that was published on April 19, 1924 in the now-defunct The Illustrated London News.

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Source:

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Volume XXXIII: The Illustrated London News 1923-1925, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1990.

Flowers from Rousseau’s herbarium

A wonderful passage from Ernst Jünger‘s magnum opus Eumeswil:

My genitor strikes me—to maintain Vigo’s image—as someone who delights in dried bouquets, in flowers from Rousseau’s herbarium. I can even sympathize with this as an academic. On the tribune, my old man’s self-deception becomes a deception of the populace.

On the other hand, my interest in the Domo’s squabbles with the tribunes is metahistorical; I am absorbed in the model, not the urgent issue. At the luminar, I studied the particulars of Rousseau’s visit with Hume, plus the misunderstandings that led to Hume’s invitation. Jean-Jacques’s life leads from disappointment to disappointment to solitude. This is reflected in his successors, down to the present day. It hints that something human was touched at the core. The great ideas spring up in the heart, says an old Frenchman. One could add: and are thwarted by the world.

I consider it poor historical form to make fun of ancestral mistakes without respecting the eros that was linked to them. We are no less in bondage to the Zeitgeist; folly is handed down, we merely don a new cap.

I therefore would not resent my genitor for merely believing in a fallacy; no one can help that. What disturbs me is not error but triteness, the rehashing of bromides that once moved the world as grand utterances.

Errors can shake the political world to its very core; yet they are like diseases: in a crisis, they can accomplish a great deal, and even effect a cure—as hearts are tested in a fever. An acute illness: that is the waterfall with new energies. A chronic illness: sickliness, morass. Such is Eumeswil: we are wasting away—of course, only for lack of ideas; otherwise, infamy has been worthwhile.

The lack of ideas or—put more simply—of gods causes an inexplicable moroseness, almost like a fog that the sun fails to penetrate. The world turns colorless; words lose substance, especially when they are to transcend sheer communication.

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Source:

Ernst Jünger, Joachim Neugroschel (translator), Eumeswil, Marsilio Publishers, New York, 1993.

Freeman Dyson on academic snobbery

A passage from an interview with Freeman Dyson:

Stewart Brand: One of the things I got from Infinite in All Directions – it was a delight to me, and I’ve been quoting it ever since – is that you honor inventors as much as scientists.

Freeman Dyson: It’s as great a part of the human adventure to invent things as to understand them. John Randall wasn’t a great scientist, but he was a great inventor. There’s been lots more like him, and it’s a shame they don’t get Nobel Prizes.

Stewart Brand: Is it the scientists who are putting them down?

Freeman Dyson: Yes. There is this snobbism among scientists, especially the academic types.

Stewart Brand: Are there other kinds?

Freeman Dyson: There are scientists in industry who are a bit more broad-minded. The academics look down on them, too.

Stewart Brand: Is that a weird British hangover?

Freeman Dyson: It’s even worse in Germany. Intellectual snobbery is a worldwide disease. It certainly was very bad in China and probably held back development there by 2,000 years.

Stewart Brand: How would you stop this intellectual snobbery?

Freeman Dyson: I would abolish the PhD system. The PhD system is the real root of the evil of academic snobbery. People who have PhDs consider themselves a priesthood, and inventors generally don’t have PhDs.

Stewart Brand: Are those getting PhDs rewarded in any other way than as an honor?

Freeman Dyson: It’s much more than an honor. It’s a ticket to a job.

Stewart Brand: So is anybody buying this? Are PhDs being abolished or disregarded?

Freeman Dyson: No. The stranglehold has gotten even tighter over the years. It’s become essentially like the MD – with much less justification. It’s simply a barrier you have to climb over before you can make a career, and it’s being imposed on more and more jobs. At even the smallest liberal arts college, nowadays, they say with pride, “All of our faculty have PhDs.” Many of the best teachers are thrown out because they don’t have a PhD. It’s a paper qualification that poisons the whole field.

I strongly suggest that you read the whole interview.

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Source:

Stewart Brand, Freeman Dyson’s Brain, Wired, Feb. 1998.

Andy Grove against the Zeitgeist

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove on today’s Silicon Valley:

Intel never had an exit strategy. These days, people cobble something together. No capital. No technology. They measure eyeballs and sell advertising. Then they get rid of it. You can’t build an empire out of this kind of concoction. You don’t even try.

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Source:

Steve Hamm, Whatever happened to Silicon Valley innovation?, BusinessWeek, December 31, 2008.