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KulakRevolt  1yr ago (anarchonomicon.substack.com)   3073 thread views

Crowned Masterpieces of Eloquence: We used to be a Civilization

anarchonomicon.substack.com

A piece I wrote on one of the most fascinating and incredible thriftstore finds I've ever stumbled upon.

The Edwardians and Victorians were not like us, they believed in a nobility of their political class that's almost impossible to understand or relate to, and that believe, that attribution of nobility is tied up with something even more mysterious: their belief in the fundamental nobility of rhetoric.

Still not sure entirely how I feel about this, or how sure I am of my conclusions but this has had me spellbound in fascination and so I wrote about it.

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Still are, but we used to be one, too.

The Friday Fun Thread included a discussion of Heinlein, which lead me in turn to one of his most famous quotes.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Specialization is for insects.

Not sure I get this. If anything surely specialisation is the root of civilisation, and so if there is anything that separates from the animals it is that.

This is more a paean to the general problem-solving ability we call “intelligence.” An insect dedicates its whole life to one of these tasks. A human, says Heinlein, can achieve specialist-level competency in a generalist’s number of skills. Animals lack civilization—but insects don’t even have self-reliance.

Heinlein is coming at this from a very American flavor of rugged individualism. But it’s a sentiment following from Kipling. They are praising the pushing of boundaries.

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