We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

Ah “intellectuals” – do you not just love them?

I do – especially with chips.

– Paul Marks

12 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Paul Marks

    Oh no – now the man in Kent will accuse me of eating people.

    Most unfair. I have not eaten human flesh in days.

  • Silly man, that Paul Marks character. Everyone knows that intellectuals are to be eaten with arugula.

  • Mr Ed

    There are restaurants in Kettering borough that do not serve human flesh, are Kettering is not yet North Korea.

  • RAB

    Mr Marks in an Omnivore. I know, I’ve watched him eat. Even Porcelain and cutlery are not safe. 😉

  • Brian Micklethwait (London)

    What was Paul Marks commenting on?

  • Andrew Zalotocky

    The whole concept of an “intellectual” is a thoroughly bad idea. It suggests that intellectual activity is the preserve of a particular social class, and that anyone outside that group is either incapable of thinking about serious issues or not entitled to do so. It implies a strict social hierarchy in which the elite think and the masses obey. It therefore encourages the “intellectuals” to see themselves as authorities on everything, when in fact they can only claim to have expertise in a few particular areas. It encourages hubris, which fully deserves the nemesis of public ridicule.

  • Nick (nice-guy) Gray

    Someone pointed out that when the French discarded the priests as sources of wisdom, they turned to the thinkers of the day, the ‘Intellectuals’, as presumed exponents of the Enlightenment. Why don’t they just think for themselves?
    Alisa, would eating intellectuals by kosher? They often call thinking ‘chewing the cud’. But intellectuals don’t have hooves, so does that disbar them?

  • Paul Marks

    Brian, it was in a long involved thread – although it was partly about the lad that irritated me a while ago (still got the marks on the backs of my hands – I can get very irritable, no doubt I will have a stroke or a heart attack in due course).

    Anyway the attack on (specifically subversion of) libertarianism (from the university creatures – the “intellectuals”) continues.

    Kevin C. is old hat now – he always (by a complex dance) tried to reconcile his lefitism with the tradtional principle of justice (i.e. to each their own, DO NOT STEAL – which libertarians call the “non aggression principle”) by arguing that the property he wanted to take was not “justly acquired property”.

    That is out of date now.

    Now the left openly reject the traditional principle of justice (they openly support robbing people – of their lives, as well as their goods) yet they still call themselves “libertarians” and use terms such as “we libertarians”.

    Z (in California – no shock there) appears to be the main mover of the Social Justice (i.e. death-to-justice) crew. But he has many supporters – including a person who is going to be the Charles Koch fellow at the University of Arazona.

    Mr Koch – you join a long line of business people in subsidising your enemies (it would have been better if you had spent the money on fine wine, and better still if you had spent it on new manufacturing, – never give money to fund an academic post, they tend to turn bad).

    I have got some of my anti university feeling off my chest in a long post on Counting Cats (no doubt full of errors – I just banged it out on this little notebook, I have not even seen it).

    As for “libertarian” becomming (like “liberal” a century ago) just another word for the collectivist enemy.

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

    Fight and carry on fighting – till one can not fight any more.

    Which is when one has stopped breathing.

    And, as Mr Ed knows, I do not even accept the end of breathing as a good reason to stop fighting.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Paul–Who is “Z”?

  • Paul Marks

    Julie.

    The leader of the “Bleeding Hearts” (reminds me of the Aztecs) a Californian academic (Z….ski something) interested in destroying the nonaggression principe.

    Turning libertarianism into its opposite – whilst still keeing the name.

    That was done a century ago in the United States – with “liberalism”.

    Most likely the same mistake will be made as was made with the Social Justice crowd who destroyed liberalism (such as the pro Soviet Union people who founded the ACLU – writing cute little letters to each other about how they would pretend to love the Consitution when, really, they detested its “capitalist” principles).

    People will try and “debate” with the Bleeding Hearts (with the Social Justice crew) – “answer their arguments” (and so on). That worked so well last time…….. (especially as they control the cultural insitutions).

    If someone makes it obvious he wants to destroy you then AGREE with their methods – in relation to THEM.

    “I see so you reject the nonagression principle – jolly good”.

    Then proceed accordingly.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Oh. Zwolinski. Yes, trying to square the circle. Thanks, Paul.

    “Social justice” is NOT just wealth redistribution (“distributive justice”!). It’s about fairness. Share and share alike. Everyone should have equal shares, everyone should be treated just the same, not discriminated against*. No “looking down” on some people. “Justice” not just in the legal sphere, but also in the economic sphere(s) and the social sphere (status: race !!!!!, career, position in social hierarchy: aristocracy, looks, accomplishments) and whatever other spheres you can come up with….

    *Unless they have Bad Ideas or a Bad Nature, of course.

    In fact, justice-in-the-proper-sense doesn’t lead the quest for righteousness — it’s the caboose.

    Watch out, my dears. What happened to “liberal” can and will happen to “justice.”

    Right is wrong, and freedom is slavery.

    Back to Zwolinski. There’s a 10-minute interview of him on the Bleeding Hearts by Reason at

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgESZW3dPcM

    The comments are interesting. So are some of the videos presented in the sidebar, at least going by the titles.

  • Paul Marks

    Julie – I do not think I will be watching the interview, it is now 2100 here – and I was at work at 0530. But even I was not tired I do not think I would watch.

    I do not want to listen to these people, I do not want to “hear what they have to say”, I have had a enough of them, I am fed up with their gentle sounding voices and little twisted smiles. If that makes me a bigot – so be it.

    Yes “Social Justice” is about more than income and wealth – as “Facial Justice” made clear (and that novel came out long ago).

    Abd yes – their objective is to destroy the traditional understanding of “justice”, to destoy “to each their own” and replace it with “to each what we think you should have”.