Bruno and Galileo are more memorable than their contemporaries who worked more closely within the hierarchy, but achieved less if you assess their contributions objectively.
>Moreover, simply because hierarchical society has done good for us, on the average, does not meant it MUST continue to do so.
Sure. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Re:Was My Life Worth Living? (1934)
by thenerdfiles on Friday October 25, 2013 @09:52PM
(#6615891)
Extraordinary means require extraordinary measures.
Re:Was My Life Worth Living? (1934)
by thenerdfiles on Sunday October 20, 2013 @03:23PM
(#6581114)
Imagine a world wherein our intellectual heroes and vagabonds did not have to answer to the unchecked rule of tyranny, rather than the other way around.
Whence cometh the world of unchecked human excellence?
Given the relative rarity of human excellence, less good than the converse, on balance; were it otherwise, what you rightly call 'excellence' would be merely commonplace.
Re:Was My Life Worth Living? (1934)
by thenerdfiles on Sunday October 20, 2013 @11:56PM
(#6583238)
Yes, you hit the period right on the sentence.
You mistake me, I think, due to imprecision on my part; by 'it' in the second clause, I refer to the rarity of human excellence, not to a theoretical flowering of suppressed potential in the absence of what you regard as oppressive rule.
Re:Was My Life Worth Living? (1934)
by thenerdfiles on Monday October 21, 2013 @02:21AM
(#6583689)
Low hanging fruit.
If I say "a handful of millenniums" I am pointing to the evidence of history. Splinter groups and revolutionaries both of thought and action resisting governments have given us the goods we receive. To say that hierarchical society is the backdrop behindwhich they do good works is begging the question.
Moreover, simply because hierarchical society has done good for us, on the average, does not meant it MUST continue to do so. As I stated earlier, Chomksy, etc. have argued for why anarchism MUST work, not that it works more often than non-anarchisms.