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This thread is for discussing Chapter 8 -How Reason Goes Wrong. You can post within this framework or create your own threads.Chris O'Connor "For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

Quote:...called the twentieth century the "ravaged century." But if it has been ravaged, it has been ravaged by the intellectual Ok, let's stop right there. why am I the only person on this board? i think we should all be outraged by this. Intellectuals have ruined the 20th century. So Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini (among others) were intellectuals. Why does Harris call them intellectuals? Because he wants to. Earlier, he did not say they had any brains, but that they were caught up in fantasy ideology. Mr. P: Earlier, you asked why the neo's are so infatuated with brining down intellectuals. This is why: anyone who actually thinks about the trash they present as ideas are a danger to them. Why? because their ideas are just plain wrong. If they can convince the masses that people who actually analyze these neo ideas are loathsome, they don't have to defend the ideas for the trash that they are. Quote: This does not entail, of course, that every educated person is a victim of ideological delirium, but it does mean that all are potential victims Is Harris looking in the mirror here? He should be.

Quote:This is why: anyone who actually thinks about the trash they present as ideas are a danger to them. Why? because their ideas are just plain wrong. If they can convince the masses that people who actually analyze these neo ideas are loathsome, they don't have to defend the ideas for the trash that they are. I did understand this when I posed that question, I was hoping for responses. `Gino, you are not the only one pissed here, let me assure you of that. If I were reading this book for pleasure, I would have put it down after Chapter 3.Harris is guilty of negative connotation when he exemplifies 'intellectual' thought by summoning Hitler, Stalin, et al. It is a tactic mastered by the neo con bunch and it stinks to high heaven.One thing I noticed in all the sections on the 'intellectual' is that Harris refers to 'them' in classic, paranoid fashion. 'They are out to destroy civilization...lol.Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of PainHEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

Quote:Why does Harris call them intellectuals? Because he wants toThey certainly thought themselves to be. I understand what Harris means, I think. By intellectual, he means the savants, the bien pensants, or what C.S. Lewis called the "Charientocracy". Mr. P. you seem to think reason (apparently,as defined by you) entirely sufficient to making everybody behave. Holding as I do, a far more pessimistic view of man than you do, I think reason, more often or not, just makes man a cleverer devil.

Quote:Mr. P. you seem to think reason (apparently,as defined by you) entirely sufficient to making everybody behave. Holding as I do, a far more pessimistic view of man than you do, I think reason, more often or not, just makes man a cleverer devil. Nope! I am too much of a realist to suggest that there is only one thing that will cure our ills. I do however see reason, meshed with a moral code as the ultimate potential of man.Reason does not make man a 'cleverer devil' it is the ignorance of the average person, who the 'clever devils' keep oppressed with low wages and day to day problems that prohibit intellectual growth and time to realize what these people are doing to their children's future. Dont confuse reason with cunning or chicanery. Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of PainHEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P