From: Joshua F. McMichael (joshua@jmcmichael.com)
Date: Thu Jul 03 1997 - 07:42:42 MDT
Kathryn Aegis quoted:
>Gerhard Richter, painter and essayist:
>'I have committed myself to thinking and acting without the support
>of any ideology. Nothing can help me, there is no idea I can serve
>or which, in exchange, could suggest what I must do. No regulation
>determines how, no belief points the way, no construction or vision
>of the future provides an overarching meaning. Ideologies are always
>the seducers and exploiters of ignorance, they justify war.'
Ayn Rand, writer and philosopher:
'In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices;
in order to make choices, he must define a code of values, he must know
*what* he is and *where* he is - i.e. he must know his own nature
(including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in
which he acts - i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistomology, ethics, which
means: *philosophy*. He cannot escape from this need; his only
alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be choosen by his
mind or by chance.'
'As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a
philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define you philosophy by a
conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously
logical deliberation - or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of
unwarrented conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions,
undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown
together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of
mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: *self-doubt*,
like a ball and chain in the place of where your mind's wings should have
grown.'
So there! : -)
Joshua McMichael
email:joshua@jmcmichael.com web: http://www.jmcmichael.com/
Joshua McMichael
email: joshua@jmcmichael.com web: http://www.jmcmichael.com
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