One has to admire, on a certain level, A.C. Grayling's willingness to play up to the stereotype of a contemporary philosopher: a selection of five books on how to live a satisfying and morally good life that manages to include not one but two books written in the last 20 years, and only one before the height of the Enlightenment. What did all those people do for edification before Edward Gibbon and J.S. Mill taught us how to live? But this is not surprising: I trust no one's list if it includes Hazlitt, an essayist whose merits entirely escape me.
See also, especially: "The first question that any remotely inquisitive person will surely ask about these ‘new bibles’ is this: how massive must your head be, how unanchored your ego, to imagine that, in the space of a few months, ensconced in your office, you can rewrite the Bible?"
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
No comments:
Post a Comment