Domhnall
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Location | United Kingdom |
| Introduction | T.S.Elliot referred to "men of letters" as "minds of the second order," useful to do the bookkeeping and to circulate the ideas of other people. In that capacity I have been posting book reviews on Goodreads and I thought it amusing to bring some of these together in a blog, I may also use this blog to review some of the more interesting debates I have engaged in on an internet forum. My theme, initially at least, will be a question asked by the late philosopher Isiah Berlin: "If we have the possibility of knowing the truth, why would we choose to be deceived?" The evidence, to my mind, is that many people prefer to be deceived. It is simply no longer credible to imagine that the prevalence of lies and distortion arises through some terrible error, or even that exposing the truth will put things right. Until people want to hear the truth, it is at a severe disadvantage in the battle of ideas. |