21 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

You might be more right than wrong. "Redneck Intellectual" is not a contradiction however much the two may be like water and oil. In my opinion faith and reason aren't contradictions either as each has its place in the mind/brain. While slightly out of place "philosopher king" or "armed prophet" are similar juxtapositions.

I know no magical trick to eliminate academia from the republic, but if I were to try I would begin by banning writing taking the side of the Egyptian king, who feared writing was a techne that would dull memory. Without writing you would have oral history and greater "faith" would be put on memory. Without writing faith and reason would be seen/experienced as a single phenomenon. Reason processing a recollection, or acting more immediately outside history. That said you could have writing without having academia.

I am just here because I am working on an epic fantasy trilogy that quite differently from Ayn Rand sets foward a perspective on "God" or the relationship between omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence in quasi human history. In the scope of my novels such a question is taken up by a sect of people known as the "Browns", but contra the cliche that knowledge is power(Bacon belongs to the Greens) the "Browns" have very little in the way of omnipotence or "power" because they drone on incessantly.

Expand full comment