Simon Blackburn, author of Think, Being Good, Truth and other books of philosophy
September 11th, we are told, changed the world. That may be true, at least because it has changed how many people perceive the world. And a change in peoples’ ideas is a change in the world. We should not, however, expect many of those changes to be for the better, since it must be a general rule that when people are angry and afraid their ideas and actions go worse. In 1726, we may recall, Voltaire was exiled from France to London, where he was amazed and enchanted by the freedoms of the English. He was lucky not to be exiled here in the twenty-first century, and still less to the United States of America. As a foreign national, he would now risk indefinite arbitrary detention, the abrogation of habeas corpus, a secret hearing with no right of representation, and a right of review only by the same tribunal. In the USA he could face state murder: the death penalty by majority vote of a secret military tribunal from which there would be no appeal. But one change since September 11th, perhaps for the better, is that more people seem prepared to think about meanings: the meaning of a society, the meaning of a civilization, the meaning of toleration and the meaning of respect, the meaning of standards and of values. Before September 11th such thoughts might have seemed airy-fairy, unBritish, the playground of the effete chattering classes. Since then, it is no longer quite so unfashionable to sit up and listen.
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| author: | Simon Blackburn |
| category: | nonfiction |
| comments: | If you don't much care to read philosophy (and who does, really) at least you might want to take a look at the books of Simon Blackburn. I read Think a couple years back and it was a page-turner. It's a general introduction to the major areas of discussion in philosophy, presented clearly and without jargon. |
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