Who do you think you are to criticize France as you are doing? How an American dare to say that France “inflicted” Rousseau and Sartre to the world? French people respect American great authors, who are few you must admit, so why do you despise France’s like that? What do you think of Moli?re, Voltaire, Flaubert, Maupassant, Balzac, Ronsard, Zola, Camus, Val?ry, Hugo, and the others?
– Marianne
To paraphrase the immortal words of the undead metal poet, I am the ripper man, an American-style locomotion mind, and I am not even close to being done. The fact that the mad syphilitic and student of Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, was quite possibly the finest writer of short fiction the world has ever known does not change the fact that Rousseau’s words shall survive as the preposterous droolings of a childish mind, as free of logic as they are of wisdom. Camus is the interesting and semi-literate aspect of existentialism while Sartre is the flip side of the coin that may or may not exist, the pretentious, sophomoric aspect which holds such appeal for Philosophy 101 students. Voltaire is amusing. Hugo is compelling, although his work contains more tangents than an algebra textbook. As I promised, Marianne, I will eventually get around to Zola. But, in the meantime, you’re quite right – there are few great American authors.
Like you, I am very much Christian in my philosophy and, by logical extension, libertarian in my political beliefs. We are in extremely dangerous times and most have lost sight of the truth. People don’t understand that mega-conglomerate global corporations don’t represent the best or the ideal of what capitalism is, or does, or means to those of us with a real conscience. We’ve gotten a raw deal, and it’s going to get a lot rawer.
– Chuck, California
Unfortunately, Chuck is correct. Global corporations and free-market capitalism have about as much to do with one another as chipmunks and integrated circuit design. The irony of mutations like phone book-sized tomes such as NAFTA is that a real free-trade agreement only has to be about a sentence long: Congress shall pass no laws with regards to trade with (fill in the blank here). Of course, we all know how much respect the three branches of the federal government have for simple, easily understood sentences written in this format.
Knowing the history of violence, radicalism, coercion and tyranny in socialism, the violent rhetoric and mischaracterizations by socialists deeply disturb me. Maybe it is paranoia. Maybe I am being ridiculous, but I just can’t see any good coming from this.
– Sarah, Canada
Very little good, if any, has ever come out of socialist philosophy. Socialism is the bane of man; it is the cancer of his dreams. Socialism has given us the gas chamber, the gulag and the Great Leap Forward, and has racked up a body count that would be the envy of any barbarian ruler. Show no more respect for a socialist than you would for a sociopath; indeed, all the sociopaths throughout history have probably done less damage than have socialists in any country in which they’ve come to unrestrained power. Which leads me to wonder if perhaps socialism is not a form of intellectualized sociopathy.
Hello, great king. You are great master of strong nation. I will be happy if we can create alliance between us. Are you interest? We can easy together rule the world! Please agree.
– Saxony
The sad thing is, this is an actual e-mail. Even sadder, I know exactly what he’s talking about. Once a gamer, always a gamer. Get behind me, Saxony, the mighty Sultan of Ayyub needs no friends! Crows and vultures shall feed until they burst upon the livers of his foes!
I’ve been meaning to e-mail you regarding Elliott Wave Theory for a while now, and when you mentioned it in your article, I got pretty excited (yeah, I know, I have to get a life)! I wanted to know your opinion of Elliott Wave.
– Rob
Elliott Wave Theory is intriguing. The short summary is that human action viewed collectively tends to result in progressions of five distinct waves – three trend, two countertrend – which tend to conform to certain specific patterns. The theory was developed for the investment markets, but has been applied to a number of different social concepts, including disease, among other things. Last week’s call of a Dow top at 8770 was particularly impressive, as it survived five serious challenges, including two that failed less than six points short.
From my perspective, the jury is still out, but I am very interested in the causal relationship the EWave theorists are attempting to make between fear and disease, which is the inverse of how one would normally think of it. What is particularly fascinating about this is that it is a purely secular description of a Christian principle of spiritual warfare, namely, that it is our sin and our fear which allows evil to exercise power over us, power that we inadvertently and unwittingly grant it.
