Quotes to ponder...

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“As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose.

Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 a.m. on October 7, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 am, the first bank was robbed. By noon, most of the downtown stores were closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home.

By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist)."

- Stephen Pinker
 
egb_hibs said:
“As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose.

Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 a.m. on October 7, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 am, the first bank was robbed. By noon, most of the downtown stores were closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home.

By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters (and offered a foretaste of life as a scientist)."

- Stephen Pinker
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Worst quote yet 😅

Wish Pinker was so reflective on the legacy of the enlightenment and liberalism...Canadian psychologists eh?
 
aggie said:
Weird response. Care to elaborate?
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Which bit? It's a bit wordy for a truly memorable quote? What I know of Pinker other than his anecdote posted above is he's a classical liberal whos surprisingly unreflective or tight lipped about it's failures and the impacts its adherents have had historically.
 
gun ainm said:
Which bit? It's a bit wordy for a truly memorable quote? What I know of Pinker other than his anecdote posted above is he's a classical liberal whos surprisingly unreflective or tight lipped about it's failures and the impacts its adherents have had historically.
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I’d say any “failures” the enlightenment and liberalism have had pale into utter insignificance when measured against their broad legacy.

Quite frankly, I’d consider anyone who claimed otherwise to be an ignorant moron.
 
gun ainm said:
Which bit? It's a bit wordy for a truly memorable quote? What I know of Pinker other than his anecdote posted above is he's a classical liberal whos surprisingly unreflective or tight lipped about it's failures and the impacts its adherents have had historically.
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It’s quotes R, not aphorisms ;))

I actually think Pinker has regressed in recent years, back in the direction of his youth. But the world being what it is, the decade or so since his ‘Better Angels’ has seen Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza, the rebirth of the the extreme right and left and more. Not quite a Fukuyama style debacle, but still. These liberals just cannot see that their world is ending, and it’s them wot done it (some time spent listening to BBC podcasts today underscores the same!)

Anyway, thread fork, so I’ll draw the line there.
 
aggie said:
I’d say any “failures” the enlightenment and liberalism have had pale into utter insignificance when measured against their broad legacy.

Quite frankly, I’d consider anyone who claimed otherwise to be an ignorant moron.
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“It’s too early to say” - Zhou Enlai
 
aggie said:
I’d say any “failures” the enlightenment and liberalism have had pale into utter insignificance when measured against their broad legacy.

Quite frankly, I’d consider anyone who claimed otherwise to be an ignorant moron.
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Nice😅 it's a very much mixed bag as far as I'm concerned partly that's probably a geographic perspective ( rural Highlands vs Edinburgh) but at least as an ignorant Moran I think it's debatable & maybe a useful other thread on enlightenment/classical liberalism so as not to hijack here? Be interested in your view and consideration
 
gun ainm said:
Nice😅 it's a very much mixed bag as far as I'm concerned partly that's probably a geographic perspective ( rural Highlands vs Edinburgh) but at least as an ignorant Moran I think it's debatable & maybe a useful other thread on enlightenment/classical liberalism so as not to hijack here? Be interested in your view and consideration
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Lol, reading that back, I didn’t mean that to be you were a moron! Would also agree that would be an interesting thread!
 
MrWilliam

I'm reminded of the adage that after several hours of wrestling in the mud with a pig, you eventually realise that one of you actually likes it.
 
“[Custom] quite often wears the mask of nature, and we are taken in, to the point that the practices adopted by nations, based solely on custom, come to seem like natural and universal laws of mankind.”

John Selden, Natural and National Law, 1640
 
"Get yourselves into computers, that's where the future is"

My Maths Teacher said to the class in 1983.
 
My teacher, a good Hibby called Martin O’Neil said Get your self a trade sun, buy your stamp every week and you will get a pension to live on at 65. Thanks to the Tory pr@s it is now 66 !
 
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