Great piece at Lew Rockwell by Albert J. Nock on the vanity of instructing the masses
“In the year of Uzziah’s death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. “Tell them what a worthless lot they are.” He said, “Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don’t mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you,” He added, “that it won’t do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”
Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job – in fact, he had asked for it – but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so – if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start – was there any sense in starting it? “Ah,” the Lord said, “you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.”
Compounding thoughts.
And then there’s this:
Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It
Good-bye
http://vdare.com/roberts/100324_truth.htm
Isaiah’s Job is a great read. Nock is one of my favorites. Our Enemy The State, and The Criminality of the State are timeless classics, in my opinion.
Yeah – I am just discovering him…
I love the forthrightness about mass man.
Unfortunately, I’m running into the lunkhead phenomenon and realizing that stupidity and ignorance does more harm than criminality.
I mean, Wall Street loots, sure. But who puts the keys in its hand everytime, and sucks up to it when the going is good?
And who trashed anyone who tried to point people in the right direction?
The mob will take a thief over a savior everytime.
Clark – thanks for the PCR piece. What a great guy.
Need more like him.
Excerpt from Paul Craig Roberts’ column:
I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”
For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.
For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.
The American media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.
“The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”
The earlier one learns this message, the earlier one gets wise! The masses in developing countries will kill you if you fight for their freedom. The masses in developed countries will ignore you. The best option: speak your mind if you want, but live your life in peace and make money from the predicament!
True enough…
But some good does come from speaking..
Its a consistent theme among many independent thinkers. There was of course Booker T Washington who argued that destiny is tied to the talented tenth, ortega in his idea of the noble mind vs the mass mind and of course by beloved Mencken who like you argued that stupidity was the biggest source of sorrow and elaborated that most people are dangerous and inflamatory dolts. Yes, Washington, Nock, James Fennimore Cooper, Mencken, Ortega and a few others elaborated on this theme–a phenomenon of nature. I always enjoy contemporary reviewers who dismiss these great thinkers as racists, arrogant, elitist and all the other scarlet letters of the democratic and or progressive mind. Heck, even Hobbes but alas these thinkers even when read are used as foils (and select out of context qoutes are used to trivialized them) by our professorate. Even Gore vidal who articulated the notion of great people (of all socioeconomic means) is attacked. Dark times we live in eh?
“I’m running into the lunkhead phenomenon and realizing that stupidity and ignorance does more harm than criminality.”
I’ve not read such a profound observation in the blogosphere in a long time….Good call.
MB4, I’ll give you a job. mohameda01@hotmail.com
That is very nice of you anonymous.
But, as I’m sure you’ll understand, I’m very nervous of communicating with people on my mail these days, especially, if they call themselves anonymous and have a hotmail account.
(:-))
I hope you won’t take offense and believe me I need all the help I can get.
But I have had my account tampered with several times already and god knows what damage has already been done.
I don’t know what the solution is, since I make professional contacts this way..
If you can figure a way to set my mind at rest on that…
Thanks again.
MB4