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Bookmark this, and keep at it. You want to read the whole thing.
on 01/24/2008 at 08:49 PM
Drew one of my friends still has his johnny seven. I didn’t realise they fetched that kind of money. It’s missing a few bullet though and I doubt he still has the box. When I was in primary school (a long time ago) we had a record player and one of the records we listened to was Black Sambo. As it happens Sambo is a fairly common name in Ghana
Whoo. You’re right, this is a long read. His contentions are exhaustively documented. Thus far it’s reminiscent of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ which was also exhaustively documented. No doubt that was why Darwin’s work so so universally unread by the people who demonized it. You’ll forgive me if I expect something similar to happen with Mr. Atkinson’s work.
However, his view of management explains much. The incompetence, the con man mentality, the endlessly circular arguments, the sensitivity to criticism that prompts instant vilification of the critic WITHOUT ever addressing the issues of which he was critical… it all adds up. It explains why we all liked Fred, because he did NOT show these “stigmata”, if you will. It further explains why the very qualities that made him seem a competent choice for the actual JOB made him a poor choice for the process of getting elected. They make him appear a lackluster campaigner and virtually invisible to the media.But wait, there’s more!! GoF, keep reading. You will find points where you have an “Ah ha” moment that causes you to go back and reread earlier parts.
I think my 12 hours estimate was quite low. This has been my rcreational reading for the past couple days, and I’m nowhere near through it, and I am a speedy and avid reader. I’m keeping an open mind ... I might get to the end and decide he’s just a bitter old bastard. Then again, he could have hit on the right explaination for everything. His piece on gun control makes an awful lot of sense to me.
I’m about a third of the way through it. I think some of his conclusions are either flawed, shortsighted or both, but mostly I find him to be dead on the money. However, like you I’m unwilling to say more than “so far he appears to” until I’ve worked my way all the way through it. And even if it’s flawed.... ya know, so is the Theory of Relativity, but that doesn’t make it useless.
So far… I think the choice of “Patrist” and “Matrist” as labels are poor, and some of the conclusions drawn in the role of the sexes. There have been disciplined, dutiful matriarchies in human history. I also suspect that because *Western tradition* has the female as subservient, because that is the tradition he is *familiar* with that demonstrably worked, he’s thinking there are no others. But by his own arguments nearly any order will work as long as it is near universally accepted and law/custom/tradition hallow it to the point where conforming to it is automatic.
I’m also having trouble buying the idea of a civilization that is at once firmly based in achievement and yet is afraid of innovation.But again, that’s all “So far...” I’ve already have a few “ah-ha” moments out of this, I won’t be surprised to find several more as I continue.
And yeah, I think your 12 hour estimate may have been a little short. So far my guess would be around 25 hours or so for most readers. No, scratch that, most readers wouldn’t have the patience to finish it at all, any more than “Origin of Species.”Oops…
I think the bottom line, and one that he nails, is that we have destroyed the edifice of our own cultural traditions *and have not replaced them with anything equally workable and powerful.* I don’t know if THOSE SAME TRADITIONS are necessary, because right now we have NOTHING in that spot. You can’t claim superiority of wood houses over stone houses by comparing a wood house to a pile of rocks, if that makes sense.
I think Mr. Atkinson could have benefitted from reading Heinlein, and considering the arguments presented in “Starship Troopers” and “The Pragmatics of Patriotism” that duty and morality are extrapolations of survival instinct into areas beyond the individual.
I’m also beginning to think we’re gonna need a whole separate thread dedicated to discussing this one. Sheesh, this is a brainload and a half.
Just did a quick perusal and all I could think of was Oswald Spengler’s ‘Decline of the West’. Pulled my copy off the shelf, blew the dust off (cough cough) and yeah, much the same stuff. Yet worse. Spengler examined the arts, for instance, and found the West wanting. What would he think of ‘rap?’ Disco was bad enough, and I grew up with disco. I’ve outgrown it.
Ahh Grumpy. Starship Troopers. Wonderful book. The movie sucked. In the book, you became a citizen, with voting rights, after you served your country.
I’m most of the way through it, certainly far enough to see where he’s going, and two things keep popping into my head. I agree 100% with his analysis, but:
Liberty and security are antithetical concepts.
Or as Terry Pratchett in the person of Havelock Vetinari puts it:
“Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free people pull in all sorts of directions.”
01/25/2008 at 08:02 AM
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