Monday, August 12, 2013

Modern Social Theory Self-Test

These guess-who-said-it exercises are pretty much obsolete in the internet era; you can just look up the quotes online, in somewhat the same way you might do a plagiarism search.  So no prizes will be awarded, and you don’t have to rush to post the correct answer in the comments.  This is purely for your own edification.

I’m reading the latest blast from Phil Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown.  More on that later—like, when I finish reading it.  But for now, here is an intriguing quote he cites along the way.  Try to guess who said it, then check to see if you’re right.
Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another.  In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority.

5 comments:

Wallfly said...

Richard Stallman? Larry Lessig? Solzhenitsyn? Kroptkin? (I am trying to be counter-intuitive)

chrismealy said...

My first guess was correct, but my second-guessing guess was Keynes (as in his beauty contest parable, slaves of some defunct economist, and to fail conventionally).

Peter Dorman said...

In fairness to the guy who was quoted, his quotation was clipped by Mirowski, and in the following sentences he pulled back from the brink. On the other hand, our eminent quotee has a reputation for ranking his liberties somewhat categorically and jettisoning political liberty when it conflicts with his other priorities.

kevin quinn said...

Hayek?

Nancy Ortiz said...

Ok, knock it off, guys. Who? NancyO