I'm sure Goethe was a fine fellow, but this quote doesn't make much sense. How would you know if your view that you were free was false? If you continually test the hypothesis and the data causes you to deduce that you are indeed free, what difference does it make if you are somehow not free? In all the ways that matter to you, you are free.
I think Goethe had washed his tonsils with one too many steins of beer when he thought this one up.
7 comments:
Oh come on. It's so obvious. Haven't you ever heard of false consciousness ?
How can I trust that you typed that?
Thanks for the link, dude.
Nonono...
Hopelessness is his focus, not freedom.
The modern American version would be," None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who believe they are educated and are not"
The funny thing is, here's a description of Goethe's political views from his Wikipedia page:
"In politics Goethe was conservative. At the time of the French Revolution, he thought the enthusiasm of the students and professors to be a perversion of their energy and remained skeptical of the ability of the masses to govern."
This sounds to me to be almost exactly the opposite of what that person with the sign evidently thinks.
For that matter, whatever Goethe said was most likely said in German. Something may well have been lost (or added) in translation.
Well, if it was originally in German, it probably had something to do with beer and laughing that Manchester City and Manchester United both got booted from the Champions League in the Group Stage.
:-)
Love it when folks dedicate themselves to depressing, meaningless circular musings.
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