The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice. –Mahatma Gandhi
The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice. –Mahatma Gandhi
What a great wisdom! Being able to forsee the Future is a sign of true wisdom. Way too many people (especially those writing for main stream media), known as smart, can only very smartly explain what is going on right now, when it comes to future events … a different story.
By the way, have you read “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy? I cannot help but notice that some ideas of your book with Bill Bonner echo some of Leo Tolstoy believes. In particular, your opinion to what Alan Greenspan’s contribution to world economy was is similar to what Leo Tolstoy wrote (and has been criticized for by professional historians for) about Napoleon’s contribution to making history. I will elaborate later.
Regards, RP.
R.P.,
I’ve not read War and Peace, but keep hearing how good a book it is. I wonder if you can answer me this: Since the book appears to be huge, and there also appear to be condensed versions of it, do you have any thoughts as to whether I would be losing a lot in reading the condensed version over the full thing?
My inclination is that it would be “sacrilegious” to read a condensation of a great book, but I don’t know that for sure.
– NonE
Hi NonE,
War and Peace deserves every praise possible, even though some critics have termed it a “loose baggy monster” for being long and rambling.
I’d advise just getting the original and dipping into it wherever you can. You’d be surprised at how much comes through even in a fractured reading.
Great scenes: Natasha’s ballroom debut when Prince Andre first meets her; Andre lying on the battlefield of Borodino and watching the clouds as he thinks about what a petty man his one time hero Napoleon really is; Andre’s “forgiveness” scene with Natasha; and many others…
The cloud scene is one of my favorites, and yes, it does reflect views we expressed in the book, about the complexity of nature and the market versus the machine-like interventions of the state. It’s a humble attempt at transposing into observations about society some of the insights of chaos theory..
Hi NonE,
I second Lila’s opinion, – try to read the whole novel. Of course, to appreciate the book completely one would have to read the original, – translation looses a lot meaning. The original was actually written in two (or more languages): the text was Russian but many conversations were in French (occasionally German), – the language spoken by the Russian aristocracy at the time. Moreover, the French spoken by different characters often alludes to their standing in the social hierarchy (those who didn’t receive their education abroad, or who didn’t have have good home teachers from France often make grammar mistakes).
By the way, do you know that the current title “War and Peace” is not the one chosen by the author? The original title was “War and Society” but as many things it was lost in translation.
With regards to current events, Leo Tolstoy also described a “public spectacle” – war, – and how people react to it. I couldn’t help, but notice some similarities between “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy and “Mobs, Messiah, and Markets” by William Bonner and Lila Rajiva: both books describe “public spectacles” – markets and wars respectively.
I think that Tolstoy’s opinion of Napoleon (often criticized by conventional historians) and his influence on events (war) is the same as the opinion of the authors of “Mobs, Messiah, …” towards Alan Greenspan and his influence on markets. Both characters are treated by the mobs as some sort of gods who have absolute influence on events, but the truth is they don’t lead … they follow, they deliver the spectacle that the mob wants …