“Go back to the idea of government by ideas.”
G.K. Chesterton in “The Revolt Against Ideas,” in The Thing, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 10 #6 (4-5/07)
“a favorite theme of Chesterton, namely the vacuity of the mind of the man of no dogmas.”
Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 3 #7 (June 2000)
“History cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about whom he is writing.”
E. H. Carr, What Is History?
“As John Warwick Montgomery so eloquently summarized through his courses in Apologetics at one time offered through Trinity Theological Seminary, in the nineteenth century God was killed and in the twentieth century man was killed.”
Part of post by Frederick Meekins on Homelesscons.com June 1, 2009 [and filed by me under “Ideas Have Consequences”
In my latest Loonie Politics column I note the extraordinary contrast between England’s Bad King John, at a crisis in his reign, ordering books of theology in Latin for guidance and modern politicians I doubt even read trendy airport paperbacks on policy in English.
At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan I spoke with Alex Newman of the New American about the dangerous idealism of the delegates.
In my latest National Post column I argue that various embarrassing missteps by Canadian educational institutions, among others, show that the woke aren’t just nasty, they’re so narrow-minded they really don’t know anyone with a brain or a heart disagrees with them, let alone why.
“The character of the process by which the views of the intellectuals influence the politics of tomorrow is therefore of much more than academic interest. Whether we merely wish to foresee or attempt to influence the course of events, it is a factor of much greater importance than is generally understood. What to the contemporary observer appears as the battle of conflicting interests has indeed often been decided long before in a clash of ideas confined to narrow circles. Paradoxically enough, however, in general only the parties of the Left have done most to spread the belief that it was the numerical strength of the opposing material interests which decided political issues, whereas in practice these same parties have regularly and successfully acted as if they understood the key position of the intellectuals. Whether by design or driven by the force of circumstances, they have always directed their main effort toward gaining the support of this ‘elite,’ while the more conservative groups have acted, as regularly but unsuccessfully, on a more naive view of mass democracy and have usually vainly tried directly to reach and to persuade the individual voter.”
Friedrich Hayek “The Intellectuals and Socialism”