Rationality Quotes March 2012

Thomas

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

I'm very surprised as to why is this so upvoted, other than the fact that some of the LW crowd really loves 19th century right-wing writers. The statement is patently untrue.

Even in regard to hard-line reactionaries themselves and their political circumstances; did de Maistre think that Voltaire or Rousseau or even Robespierre ever consciously produced "false opinions" to befuddle the masses?

No way; even later conservatives, like Burke and Chesterton, have admitted that if the French Revolution went wrong somewhere (and Chesterton thought it was off to a good start), it must have been a mistake, not a crime.

I'm very surprised as to why is this so upvoted, other than the fact that some of the LW crowd really loves 19th century right-wing writers.

I don't think it's a very good quote but I'd guess that the majority of readers didn't know/notice/remember he was a 19th century right-wing writer. As such few people would associate this quote with opposition to the French Revolution, or even politics -- people would first think of such things as religions.

And I'd put money on Mohammed, Joseph Smith and Apostle Paul to have been deliberate conmen. (I'm leaving out Jesus, because I'd put odds on him being just delusional)

5Kaj_Sotala14y

I know ~nothing about the historical events which you allude to, but I upvoted the quote because experience tells me it's very true in real life. E.g. a journalist writes a news article that contains lies about its subject matter, and the link to the article gets widely shared by honest people who presume that it's telling the truth. Or a dishonest scientist makes up his data, and then gets cited by honest scientists.