I concede that a lot of contemporary discussion of John Brown is unjustifiably reverential, and I don't consider him particularly heroic.
I consider him extremely heroic. Not ultrarational, but there were people suffering in the darkness and crying out for help, a lot of people saying "Later", and John Brown saying "Fuck this, let's just do it." If there's a historical consensus that the Civil War could have been avoided, I have not encountered it; and that being so, might as well have the Civil War sooner rather than later.
Not ultrarational, but there were people suffering in the darkness and crying out for help, a lot of people saying "Later",
To bring this to contemporary examples, do you support Operation Iraqi Freedom?
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)