
“The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.”
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/browne.html
Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 64.
Context: My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.
“The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.”
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/browne.html
“I accept nothing on authority. A hypothesis must be backed by reason, or else it is worthless.”
“Reason”, p. 52
I, Robot (1950)
Speech given to the Unitarian Radio Hour, reprinted in [McKanan, Dan, A Documentary History of Unitarian Universalism, Volume Two: From 1900 to the Present, https://books.google.com/books?id=4FBUDwAAQBAJ, 3 July 2018, 2017, Skinner House Books, 978-1-55896-791-5, 105-7]
2010s, I don't know, so I'm an atheist libertarian (2011)
Context: Government is force — literally, not figuratively.
I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone. The fact that the majority thinks they have a way to get something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, I don't believe you really know jack. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.
“To exclude kids in formal education from science is bad for everybody.”
[NewsBank, J.D. Velasco, Study: California's elementary schools barely teach science, The Whittier Daily News, California, October 25, 2011]
“There is nothing in kids' education anymore that tells them to revere anything.”
Playboy interview (May 1995)
Context: The left constantly identifies the pro-life advocates as misogynists and fanatics, but that doesn't represent most of those people. They are deeply religious and they truly believe that taking a life is wrong. If the left were to show respect for that position and acknowledge the moral conundrum of unwanted pregnancy, the opposition to abortion would lessen. We must acknowledge that people should be a little troubled by abortion. Not to acknowledge that this is a difficult decision is wrong. The procedure snuffs out a potential personality. … You have a stronger case if you give due respect to the other side. An abortion should be something that is wrestled with. And herein is the point. Though most people agree that abortion should be an option, there is something attractive about the deeply moral position of those against abortion, particularly when the other side is in a spiritual vacuum. There is nothing in kids' education anymore that tells them to revere anything. Traditional religions, with all their moral codes, are becoming increasingly attractive in light of the alternatives: the Prozac nation, or heroin, which has come back with a vengeance.
“What is liberal education,” pp. 4-5
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)
Context: It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. … There exists a whole science—the science which I among thousands of others profess to teach, political science—which so to speak has no other theme than the contrast between the original conception of democracy, or what one may call the ideal of democracy, and democracy as it is. … Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant.