I've always rather liked the philosopher A.C. Grayling, and have one book of his on my shelves. Alas (unlike Zeno of Citium) he's no Stoic, and his tweets, in particular, have manifested a massive lack of stoicism in the face of recent events (since Brexit). Today the great man gave forth the following Epicurus-like epigram in reply to someone tweeting that "Trump is unfit to serve":
Alas, pretty much every response he's received on Twitter so far has been negative. It's as if he's Thrasymachus and dozens and dozens of Socrates-like gadflies have all suddenly descended upon his luxurious locks and begun furiously biting his philosophical head, accusing him (among many other things): of promoting hate, of contempt for people who don't thing like him, of using Nazi-like language, of displaying bile, of lacking a sense of balance, of being hysterical, of being "really off his rocker these days", etc, etc. (Others have been less kind).
Meanwhile, Geert Wilders (a man blessed with no less luxurious locks than our very own hyperventilating professor) has called some Moroccans "scum", according to the BBC. Not a Sheep, among others, isn't overly impressed with the BBC's home page headline (see above) about that story:
Makes you wonder how many of those posting criticisms know who he is and saw this because they follow him on Twitter, as opposed to just Brexiters who saw it posted somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteI've drawn attention before to that BBC trick of using a very biased web page headline, then still biased but less so headline to the story, then a misleading opening first para and after all that only then do you get sometimes get a bit of accurate reporting buried in the 3rd or 4th para.
ReplyDeleteVery sad that Grayling has fallen so low. I've enjoyed his work over the years. Now he's calling politicians he doesn't like "vermin". It brings the study of philosophy into disrepute when philosophers get in the gutter with the rest of them.
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