Setanta wrote-
Quote:In science, evidence can destroy one's entire thesis virtually overnight, and how difficult it is for us to surrender our cherished beliefs,
I have never had the slightest difficulty with surrendering any belief, cherished or otherwise, when faced with the evidence. Although I don't recall cherishing any of them now I come to think about it.
These days I have no beliefs. Even the notion that anti-IDers are digging a pit is only a balance of probability position. Pretending it's a belief helps provide a warning and thus makes the belief less likely to become true.
Quote:Quote:
In science, evidence can destroy one's entire thesis virtually overnight, and how difficult it is for us to surrender our cherished beliefs,
I have never had the slightest difficulty with surrendering any belief, cherished or otherwise, when faced with the evidence. Although I don't recall cherishing any of them now I come to think about it.
Yeah but how many of those beliefs were your theses? Setanta has a point -- it does suck when all your work, which is also your livelihood, is turned upside down.
Not to me. I'm only interested in where I'm going not where I've been. I've read Frank Harris.And at an early age too when it was banned.
(See final scene in Dr Strangelove-Wheeeeheeeeeeeee! You don't think he was sat on a bomb do you. It was a camera trick silly. It's a metaphor.
A damned good one too.)
Read that Rider Haggard-you'll soon get the idea.
xingu-
Have you ever read a banned book? They have a special mystique which doesn't half cause you to concentrate. There's a build up. Waiting list.And when you finally get it, after broken promises and lame excuses, it sits in your hand like a ticking bomb. The Harris, when I got it at the tender age of 18, had not two pages stuck together and people remarked how some of the pages had stains on them.
After that it goes into your head like you had lived it which is exactly what that lovely man intended because he had often said to himself, as you might have done and I know I have, "if only I had known then what I know now" and there you were at 18 knowing what he knew near the end.
And he died skint to do that for young men, properly, and I'm one of many who carry his torch. Cavfancier was one. I like to think Dylan's "The key is Frank" on the JWH liner notes is a bow. The third king says it and he's broke.
Spendius,
I don't believe any of Frank Harris' books are banned... in fact I don't know if there are any banned books these days.
I sat down and read the "Turner Diaries" a while back. This is a "taboo" book (as opposed to a banned book). For those who don't know this is a white supremicist novel/propaganda pice that advocates terrorism with the purpose of starting a race war.
For a subversive book, it was awfully boring (to be honest after the first few pages, I skimmed over to see how it ended).
I think it is good books that are exciting. They need to be well written and have important ideas. Whether they are banned or not seems irrelevent.
E-
I did realise after I posted that I ought to have made it clear that Harris isn't banned now. It was when I got it. We whispered about it in dark corners.
It's basically about flying by the seat of your pants through a cloud of Sirens and every mistake is your own.
I think the question I raised is an interesting one.
Are the Harris books that thrilled you back then still thrilling now that they are no longer banned?
I hope so.
Yes. I read a chapter or two recently.
I loaned my paperback to a fellow Shakespeare fan in the pub and he's vanished taking it with him. Woman trouble he was having.
I have a first edition would you believe? I keep it away from the light.
spendius wrote:xingu-
Have you ever read a banned book? They have a special mystique which doesn't half cause you to concentrate. There's a build up. Waiting list.And when you finally get it, after broken promises and lame excuses, it sits in your hand like a ticking bomb. The Harris, when I got it at the tender age of 18, had not two pages stuck together and people remarked how some of the pages had stains on them.
After that it goes into your head like you had lived it which is exactly what that lovely man intended because he had often said to himself, as you might have done and I know I have, "if only I had known then what I know now" and there you were at 18 knowing what he knew near the end.
And he died skint to do that for young men, properly, and I'm one of many who carry his torch. Cavfancier was one. I like to think Dylan's "The key is Frank" on the JWH liner notes is a bow. The third king says it and he's broke.
Books banned by whom? Most books I read are non-fiction, history. Don't know if any of them are banned. Wouldn't make any difference to me if they were. I'm the type of person who, if told I can't read or see something, will tell them to go to hell and read or see it anyway. We once had a Maryland Censorship Board. It was disbanded in 1981. I hated that thing. I don't like anything that tries to limits my freedom to see, read and hear. To me censorship is evil.
That's a bit fierce xingu.
There are some things which are behind a veil at certain times for the good of society.
Quote:I went to the wedding of Mary-lou
She said I don't want nobody see me talkin' to you
Said she could get killed if she told me what she knew
About dignity
Dignity --Bob Dylan.
Spendius wrote:There are some things which are behind a veil at certain times for the good of society.
And who's going to be the judge of that?
I'm afraid xingu that it is an elite who have taken the time and the trouble, often in great physical hardship, to try to get to grips with the dynamics of a complex social organisation.
I didn't used to like that idea myself once but I have come to accept it now. Once the members of such an elite start marrying and having children, and property, self interest takes over and they become "unfit for purpose". Then censorship starts approaching evil which might be translated as destructive.
