Are intellectual essays just entertainment. Maybe that's my problem with so much of what passes for left thought-- it feels unconstrained by any need to be useful.
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Which brings to mind the following...
Carl Sagan, from "Broca's Brain":
"In the middle of the nineteenth century, the largely self-educated British physicist Michael Faraday was visited by his monarch, Queen Victoria. Among Faraday's many celebrated discoveries, some of obvious and immediate practical benefit, were more arcane findings in electricity and magnetism, then little more than laboratory curiosities. In the traditional dialog between heads of states and heads of laboratories, the Queen asked Faraday of what use such studies were, to which he is said to have replied, 'Madam, of what use is a baby?'
...
There is a large list of urgent political questions before us; no need to detail the usual suspects.
Although practical advice on how to proceed is desperately needed, analysis of the situation we confront is also essential. Surely there's room for both?
Must every essay be a how-to? Must every how-to contain heavy dollops of theory?
Even military strategists in the heat of battle (at least, the most talented ones) tend to view both the immediate problem of bullets flying in one's direction and the larger matter of how to anticipate and spoil the enemy's objectives (which is often a sort of rough psychological and even philosophical question).
Both are required.
How degenerate is this fallen age of wonders. Now, thoughtful commentary is dismissed as useless (and worse, as "entertainment") because of its lack of immediate, utilitarian value.
.d.
--------- Sí, los terroristas son nihilists pero sus enemigos son nihilists también.