The WCE blog is loosely based on reality. It is filled mostly with my whimsical imaginations. I do hope that it does have things to say about human nature. And because it purports to lampoon human nature, it does so from a conservative perspective. As Lady Thatcher says, "the facts of life are conservative."
This thoughts come to mind as I found two things on the Internet that show maybe my silliest scenarios in the WCE Blog are not so silly after all. Exhibit one: this column by George Jonas. The column is about Qaddafi and the Earthquake, but toward the end it makes a defense of dynastic marriage -- the ancient practice of uniting kingdoms by marriage. Says Jonas, "The medieval motto of one historic dynasty was similar to the 1960s hippie injunction of "Make Love, Not War." Brilliant! Now, it was only yesterday, that I published an entry in my WCE blog announcing that the King of the Wuxi Expatdom was marrying a princess from the Azanian Empire! Exhibit two, was made reference to as I was listening to the latest Radio Derb podcast. John Derbyshire said it was a year ago that a Korean man married his Japanese pillow. I googled and found the story. One of the first things I had happen in the Wuxi China Expatdom was a craze for marrying inanimate objects.
I think I can rightly say that the WCE Blog is more real than reality.
Other links:
- My son, the translator.
- ESL Discussion questions about Toys.
- ESL Discussion questions about Tests.
I think we will agree to disagree on the benefit or worth of conservatism.
ReplyDeleteMy take on it is best illustrated by this quote:
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
~John Kenneth Galbraith
Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteI will that turn the quote around on you:
First I should say, I will define a Leftist as an opponent of a conservative. I am not sure if you would choose that label, but that is what I will use.
The modern Leftist is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for envy, lazniness, and personal irresponsibility, and selfishness.
In my younger days, I was a Leftist and was taken with the books of JKG. But then I found that the facts of life kept making JKG more and more irrelevant. I saw that the kind of polices he would advocate were failures and often had results that were the opposite of what was intended -- people became more and more selfish. lazy, and so on....
I have come to believe that quotes like this from JKG simply aren't true. Conservatives don't believe in selfishness. They believe that it is in your personal life with the people you encounter everyday that you be selfless. They don't have time for the abstract selflessness of Leftists and their inhuman bureaucratic systems.
Furthermore, I heard the quote doesn't do anything to change the mind of someone who is a conservative. Many a well-meaning Leftist has become a Conservative because they see the damage brought on by the good intentions of Leftists.
Finally. the quote is a tired refrain. Confronted with evidence that their schemes don't work, Leftists always fall back on this. I can't in all honesty, see how I would want to rejoin that can't be bothered to make up-to-date arguments.