[lbo-talk] Garry Wills does nice short summary of RS article

Somebody Somebody philos_case at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 25 13:29:54 PDT 2010


Dennis' question is a good one, not just because of its immediate content but because it says we should look about what's actually happened rather than at elites' ideologies.

Somebody: This is backwards. The whole point is that elite ideologies can be dangerously out of sync with reality and can lead to unforeseen consequences. Afterall, they don't have greater powers of prognostication than anyone else.

It would be like saying there were no plans or strategies behind Germany's two attempts at European hegemony. There most certainly were. They were just ill-conceived, bloated by militaristic hubris, and based ultimately on the faulty premise that an economically powerful Germany couldn't have dominated the continent anyway. The same goes for Japan's co-prosperity sphere. Or going back, Napoleon's continental system.



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