Flaws of Thinkers (Jefferson, Rand, Nietzsche, Voltaire, etc.)

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 10:54 PM 7/22/96, hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote:

>No, the argument is over whether a person should live by the ideals he
>preaches. I have more respect fot the likes of Kant and Russell who made
>rather more of an effort than Jefferson.
>
>The observation that history is made by rich people and written by rich
>people is not a new one. Until this century there were few countries
>where politics were open to anyone but the very wealthy. In the USA
>that is still by and large the case.
>
>Rather than attempting to excuse Jefferson it would be better to
>accept that not everything he said was valid when he said it and
>to try to engage ones brain rather than using his words as slogans.

I agree with much of what Phill says here. His original "throwaway line"
about Jefferson's slave-owning did not fully make this point. (As I see it,
this is a common danger with throwaway lines, which often look like
dismissive insults.)

The flaws of leaders and thinkers are well-known. From from what I've read,
Voltaire was a real cad. And my favorite aphorist/philosopher, Nietzsche,
had his share of bigoted views. And he was apparently not at all a
"superman" specimen.

But who cares? The ideas of a person are somewhat separable from their
quirks as persons. If we demand perfection from all thinkers--assuming
perfection could ever be defined and agreed upon--we'd likely have far
fewer thinkers to study.

(Phill also mentions Rand. She was about as deeply flawed an individual,
especially in terms of treatment of her supporters, as one can imagine.
She, for example, insisted that her followers smoke, as smoking is (she
claimed) proof of Man's dominance over nature. However, many of her ideas
were very influential.)

I rather suspect the U.S. would have had a more consistent moral stance if
a condition for a state joining the Union had been the freeing of all
slaves. Of course, giving womyn the vote would have been too much to ask
for.

(And there were many violations of the rights of Indians, including
land-use rights and treaties, which did little to polish the reputation of
the U.S. for adhering to its own stated principles.)


--Tim May


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