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Subject: VN's evaluations
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:52:45 +1100 (EST)
From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
Amidst all the recent conversation about VN and his evaluations of
others,
I was reminded of something that struck me a while back. It seems
strange
to me that VN, who all his life was a sincere 'old-fashioned liberal'
should have been so fond not only of Thomas Carlyle who (however good a
writer he was, which must be allowed to be more debatable than it has
been) held views seriously harmful to the health of a democracy (as
among
others, VN's good friend, Yvor Winters pointed out in a notorious
sentence in *In Defense of Reason*), but also someone like Hegel, who is
the acknowledged forefather both of Communism and Nazism, and who
besides
wrote prose that is hard to read, let alone understand or take seriously
(Popper carries out a brilliant demolition of Hegel in the second volume
of *Open Society*). I have thought that his appreciation of Hegel
atleast
is a left-over from a precocious adolescence. Any comments? This is not
to
call into question VN's tastes of course...
Kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiran Krishna
3rd yr physics
(Falkiner High Energy Physics)
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
--------------------------------------------
The five rules of Socialism:
1. Don't think
2. If you do think, don't speak
3. If you think and speak, don't write
4. If you think, speak and write, don't sign
5. If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: VN's evaluations
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:52:45 +1100 (EST)
From: Kiran Krishna <kiran@Physics.usyd.edu.au>
Amidst all the recent conversation about VN and his evaluations of
others,
I was reminded of something that struck me a while back. It seems
strange
to me that VN, who all his life was a sincere 'old-fashioned liberal'
should have been so fond not only of Thomas Carlyle who (however good a
writer he was, which must be allowed to be more debatable than it has
been) held views seriously harmful to the health of a democracy (as
among
others, VN's good friend, Yvor Winters pointed out in a notorious
sentence in *In Defense of Reason*), but also someone like Hegel, who is
the acknowledged forefather both of Communism and Nazism, and who
besides
wrote prose that is hard to read, let alone understand or take seriously
(Popper carries out a brilliant demolition of Hegel in the second volume
of *Open Society*). I have thought that his appreciation of Hegel
atleast
is a left-over from a precocious adolescence. Any comments? This is not
to
call into question VN's tastes of course...
Kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiran Krishna
3rd yr physics
(Falkiner High Energy Physics)
University of Sydney
NSW 2006
--------------------------------------------
The five rules of Socialism:
1. Don't think
2. If you do think, don't speak
3. If you think and speak, don't write
4. If you think, speak and write, don't sign
5. If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~kiran
--------------------------------------------------------------------------