It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.
-Czeslaw Milosz, “The Captive Mind” (first sentence)
I cannot like this enough. Thank you for showing me this book. This is a big piece of western philosophy and history that I did not know I was missing.
Milosz is obviously talking about Communism and the philosophy it was based on. (If you haven’t read The Captive Mind, it’s pretty good albeit obviously dated).
The lesson is that philosophy can be Serious Business and you ignore bad philosophy at your own peril. To paraphrase the famous Trotsky paraphrase: You may not be interested in diseased Philosophy, but diseased Philosophy is interested in you.
-Czeslaw Milosz, “The Captive Mind” (first sentence)
I cannot like this enough. Thank you for showing me this book. This is a big piece of western philosophy and history that I did not know I was missing.
could someone please explain this one?
Milosz is obviously talking about Communism and the philosophy it was based on. (If you haven’t read The Captive Mind, it’s pretty good albeit obviously dated).
The lesson is that philosophy can be Serious Business and you ignore bad philosophy at your own peril. To paraphrase the famous Trotsky paraphrase: You may not be interested in diseased Philosophy, but diseased Philosophy is interested in you.
Money is the unit of caring; there’s a similar quote about “some dead economist” or the like I can’t quite recall.
In Soviet Russia...