Sunday, December 21, 2003

A Sunday Afternoon Read

Though in the post immediately below this I have a jab a Richard Dawkins, this article, written by Jack Hardy, entitled "Memetics How Mind Viruses Influence Our Choices and the Way We Think," explores Dawkins idea of memes, which he published in the book "The Selfish Gene." Hardy believes memes have been regarded "too narrowly."

Via J. Orlin Grabbe.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/21 at 12:21 PM
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Still Missing the Main Point

Interesting piece written by Edward Rothstein in the New York Times. The piece is entitled “Reason and Faith; Eternally Bound." I, personally, have no argument with Rothstein’s title, and the piece itself, though shallow in thought provoking argument, is an interesting read, considering he quotes Dawkins, whose drum banging to create a new label for atheists, is mere juvenile clique formation.  Still, the main point is missed.

The main point to be considered is not that faith is bad, nor reason, but that using either faith, or reason, to coerce individuals to conform to perceived moral standards or behaviors is wrong.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/21 at 08:36 AM
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Read the Book

Joshua Zader, who blogs at Mudita Journal, notes and provides a link to an interview with screenwriter James Hart. Hart is evidently working on a new screenplay for "Atlas Shrugged." I’ve never viewed any of Rand’s work that has been turned into a film, and I am somewhat hesitant to do so, based on the visualizations created in my mind, as I read Rand’s books.  I think it may be possible for a good screenplay to be written and then produced as a film, but I do not think justice could be done to "Atlas Shrugged" in a film format.  Many individuals do not want to think that hard.  But that’s just my opinion.

Hart did make one very accurate statement in the linked interview,

"We’re on the threshold of what Ayn Rand predicted,” he noted. “Socialism has crept into everything and we’re penalizing the thinkers, the movers and shakers for being successful. In a way, the world that Ayn Rand created in Atlas Shrugged *is* the United States today."

Posted by John Venlet on 12/21 at 06:46 AM
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Can't Find Honest Work

I noticed the article yesterday about Gary Condit suing three tabloids for, as the suit says,

"The stories published in The National Enquirer, The Globe and The Star portrayed Condit as a “murderer” and “sexual deviant” and “caused him to be exposed to public hatred, contempt and ridicule ... for things that never happened,” according to the suit filed in Palm Beach, Fla."

Poor Condit, he just can’t seem to line his pockets with any honestly earned dollars.  Although Condit did honestly earn the public’s hatred, contempt and ridicule, for dissing his wife in favor of the young Levy.

Via Drudge.

Update: I couldn’t recall where I had read the quote below when I posted this earlier this morning, but, because I think it is appropriate, I add it now.  The quote, from the tome "Plutarch’s Lives," is spoken by Aemilius Paulus to Perseus.

"Why, unhappy man, do you thus take pains to exonerate fortune of your heaviest charge against her, by conduct that will make it seem that you are not unjustly in calamity, and that it is not your present condition, but your former happiness, that was more than your deserts?"

Posted by John Venlet on 12/21 at 04:58 AM
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