The Coming Authoritarianism.
luka
Well-known member
Because the Internet, like a library or an encyclopaedia, is an image of all human knowledge it does provoke fantasies of taking it all in and knowing everything there is to know. In the glory years of illegal downloading I found myself downloading everything ever recorded but you can't ever listen to even a tiny fraction of it and you develop meaningful relationships with almost none of it and sooner rather than later you decide it was all a terrible mistake.
version
Well-known member
luka
Well-known member
When I met droid there was this great bit where he started talking like Stan, this feverish techno-poetics of information flows, how he liked to push the very limits of what a human could absorb, right up against the white hot edge, all data at his fingertips. Like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, a bank of TV screens flickering in front of him. Forming a gestalt out of these myriad inputs.
Data is definitely not my strong point.
luka
Well-known member
He just meant you read stuff about politics
Guilty.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
well I take yr opinions seriously craner, but is it going to magically tell me something the Road to Serfdom didn't?
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
is it going to magically erase all his dealings with the Mont Pelerin Society, his support for Pinochet, the policies of his Chicago School disciples?
is it it going to undo the devastating effects of 40 years of uninterrupted and essentially unchallenged Western neoliberalism?
not that these are new talking points to anyone familiar with the area
but I have a hard time believing it will change my opinions about the Austrian School or neoliberalism
even just looking at the table of contents it sounds like the same bullshit as ever
is it it going to undo the devastating effects of 40 years of uninterrupted and essentially unchallenged Western neoliberalism?
not that these are new talking points to anyone familiar with the area
but I have a hard time believing it will change my opinions about the Austrian School or neoliberalism
even just looking at the table of contents it sounds like the same bullshit as ever
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
why are you telling to me read more Hayek? I read Hayek's most famous book
is this other book going to tell me something new about how Hayek thought?
I also Free to Choose, various histories of neoliberalism by economists and etc
is this other book going to tell me something new about how Hayek thought?
I also Free to Choose, various histories of neoliberalism by economists and etc
Last edited:
Yes, it would. It's probably a more representative text overall. Road to Serfdom was reductive and flawed, essentially an ideological weapon, as he was the first to admit. Constitution of Liberty is long and involved, mind you, so it really depends on how much you want to engage with the text or not.
Sorry, I don't mean to be annoying, but I agreed with your principle and then you completely violated it!
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
how exactly did I violate it? I've read Hayek and Friedman in their own words. I read some (truly strange) Gary Becker. and so on.
how much text is a person required, by yr standards, to engage before they're not violating their own principle
the entire canon of neoliberalism ca. 1944-present, or what?
I'm happy to add another book to my reading list, but I object to being told I'm doing the same thing as stan
he by his own admission uses "neoliberalism" as a totemic catch-all, I use it to mean exactly what its proponents advocated
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I could turn it around and ask if you've read Philip Mirowski's definitive history of neoliberal thought
I mean, Luke is right. There are ways of reading. One way (as taught to me at Leeds and KCL) is to start with an argument or an assumption and read (or manipulate) the text to fit it. Another way is to try to read the text as closely as possible to discover the intention or the argument of the writer. It's what I tried to do, for example, by reading Oliver Letwin's Hearts and Minds and Shirley Letwin's Anatomy of Thatcher in this essay:
guerrapittura.wordpress.com
It's a bit more interesting than just writing, "Errgh, they like Thatcher, the bastards!"
Why do they like Thatcher? What are they actually saying about Thatcherism, society, life?
The Letwin Amendment
His political ideas are already as antiquated as Noah’s ark. I do not know a single one of the younger men in England who is influenced by them in the slightest degree, though one hears of one occa…
guerrapittura.wordpress.com
It's a bit more interesting than just writing, "Errgh, they like Thatcher, the bastards!"
Why do they like Thatcher? What are they actually saying about Thatcherism, society, life?
Last edited: