Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
Undoubtedly, men have it easy in several ways that women do not. Take something only seemingly trivial: clothing.
When men need to dress to impress, the answer is simple: a suit. There is not really a lot of variety here, and little is required of a man in his choice of suit.
Women, on the other hand, do not have a business and formal occasion uniform to rely upon.
Instead, they have fashion.
Which is a whirl of constant change and a world of enervating expense.
I wouldn’t put up with it. But then, I’m a man. The modern dress suit was developed to meet men’s needs for functionality as well as excellence. And our need to not think hard on a matter of mere garment.
So it is with no small pleasure to read, in the Telegraph, of a professional woman who forswears fashion to wear just one design of clothing. “‘I can tell you the cashier in the store look[ed] pretty confused when I asked if she had 15 extra sets of the whole outfit,’ she jokes, ‘but all in all, choosing the uniform was a pretty pain-free process.’”
And the style choice seemed obvious: “I’ve always felt that black and white is a cool and classy look,” so that’s what she went with.
She made herself culturally equal with men. Took for herself a formerly all-male advantage. And she did not depend upon a man for that advance, he-for-she style.
And did not look to government.
This is the way forward.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On November 23, 1644, British poet John Milton published Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
Everywhere I turn these days, I am hearing something about the push to get rid of cash.
Yes, cash. Greenbacks. Federal Reserve Notes.
You might think that getting rid of cash is a no-brainer. Cash makes up only 11 percent of the money supply. Most of the money stock is already those 1s and 0s in bank computers, on debit cards, and the like. So why not go all the way?
It is the “logical next step,” after all!
But not every “next step” is advisable. When walking towards a cliff, that next step might be a doozy. And when you are dealing with government and the banks, jumping off a cliff proves an apt metaphor.
Don’t go lemming on me, man.
You can probably guess the usual arguments for getting rid of cash. Convenience, for one. It sure would be convenient for government and central bankers if they could just seize control of money “magically” in the banks’ computers.
Somehow, I am not persuaded. Neither is economist Pierre Lemieux, who provides us with a helpful survey of anti-cash arguments. And when the experts argue that it would be more convenient for consumers, incredulity is the best response. “To argue against the usefulness of cash is to deny the revealed preferences of many individuals,” Lemieux insists. “The fact that cash has not disappeared even in non-criminal hands means that it is convenient for many individuals.”
He expands the thought with an important truth: “Economic efficiency is defined in terms of what individuals want.”
And the purpose of governments is to follow individuals, not corral them, manipulate them . . . for bureaucratic convenience.
Let’s keep cash.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Originally (cc) photo by FamZoo Staff on Flickr
All philosophies have the common property of being speculative, and, therefore, their immediate influence on those who hold them is in many ways alike, however opposed the theories may be to one another: they all make people theoretical. In this sense any philosophy, if warmly embraced, has a moralising force, because, even if it belittles morality, it absorbs the mind in intellectual contemplation, accustoms it to wide and reasoned comparisons, and makes the sorry escapades of human nature from convention seem even more ignominious than its ruling prejudices.
George Santayana, Egotism in German Philosophy (1916), Chapter XVI, “Egotism in Practice.”
We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943).
November 22 marks the death dates of a number of eminent writers, including that of English-American novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley and Irish-English novelist, theologian and medieval scholar C.S. Lewis, both of whom died in 1963, the same day as the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy. British novelist Anthony Burgess died exactly 30 years later.
The date also marks the birth of the great British novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), in 1819.
Recommended reading from these authors include:
Silas Marner (1861), a short and brilliant novel by George Eliot. Her most generally esteemed classic is the much longer Middlemarch (1872).
Earthly Powers (1980), a massive novel about life in the 20th century, by the ever-iconoclastic and hard-to-pin-down Anthony Burgess. His most famous novel is undoubtedly A Clockwork Orange (1963).
“The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” (1949) and Till We Have Faces (1956), the former being C.S. Lewis’s thoughtful essay on the nature of modern tyranny, and the latter being what some regard his best novel, a retelling of the Psyche myth.
Brave New World (1931) and Brave New World Revisited (1958), the former is Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian satire on technological tyranny, and the latter is the author’s survey of the issues raised by — and the degrees to which reality conforms to — his earlier fictional prophecy. The two books are often to be found printed under one cover.
When I arrived at the Donostia-San Sebastián City Hall, in the beautiful Basque Country of Spain, I wondered what all the ruckus was about. There were hundreds of noisy protesters waving long, colorful banners.
My goodness, how interesting to witness acts of political agitation on the public square in another country, I thought. Then, atop the crowd some 20 feet opposite the protest, I spied Daniel Schily, a key activist, funder and cheerleading motivator of the direct democracy movement in Germany.
After greeting, he drily brought me up to date: “They’re protesting us.”
“No, really,” I asked, “what are they protesting?”
“Really,” he said, seemingly sincere. “They’re protesting the Global Forum.”
I stood there dumbstruck, for a moment, before I noticed one sign written in English: “Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy,” with a very large, black, bold question mark beside it.
Schily wasn’t kidding.
In almost no time, I met up with friends from Bulgaria, South Korea, Uruguay, Chile — fellow activists, all. We had gathered in this “cultural capital of Europe” precisely because of our belief that all people have a right to not only speak out, but effect change, through ballot initiatives and referendums.
It turned out that the protestors hailed from the Satorralaia neighborhood movement. Their beef? Even after gathering nearly 9,000 signatures on petitions requesting a public referendum on a proposed through-station for the mass-transit metro system project, the city government shrugs.
The same city council that helped organize our forum, ignoring citizens while claiming the city is “The World Capital of Democracy.”
Government. What more proof do we need that it could use more checks and balances from the people themselves?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
N.B. This is a Common Sense digest version of Paul’s weekend column. For more information, see Saturday’s and Sunday’s posts. Paul was in transit home when this entry was being prepared for the Web; he may offer further reports from his trip in the near future.
On November 21, 1620, Plymouth Colony settlers signed the Mayflower Compact.
On this day in 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia took the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
November 21st birthdays include:
1694 – Voltaire, French philosopher (d. 1778) — portrait above
1729 – Josiah Bartlett, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1795)
1870 – Alexander Berkman, anarchist (d. 1936), who shot but did not kill industrialist Henry Clay Frick
Of all the vices incident to man, lying is the most mean, most contemptible; it evinces a very weak, depraved heart, which shrinks at the exposure of motives and of actions.
Josiah Bartlett, chief executive, president, and governor of the State of New Hampshire, and before that delegate to the Continental Congress — not to be confused with the fictional U. S. President played by Martin Sheen on The West Wing.