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On
aesthetic inclinations ... and more |
I once described the principle of the ideal habitat to a
wealthy friend as we looked down from his New York
penthouse to the open woodland and lake of Central Park.
His terrace, I also noticed, was ringed by potted plants.
I thought of him as a convincing experimental subject. It has since often occurred to me that
to see most clearly the manifestation of human instinct,
it is useful to start with the rich, who among us enjoy
the widest range of options in response, and most readily
follow their emotional and aesthetic inclinations.
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So says Edward O. Wilson in
The future of life (Alfred A. Knopf, New York,
2005),
but listen to the words which John Updike put in the
mouth of one of his characters in the novel Terrorist
(Ballantine Books, New York, 2006):
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My
grandfather thought capitalism was doomed, destined to get
more and more oppressive until the proletariat stormed the
barricades and set up the workers' paradise. But that
didn't happen; the capitalists were too clever or the
proletariat too dumb. To be on the safe side, they changed
the label 'capitalism' to read 'free enterprise', but it
was still too much dog-eat-dog. Too many losers, and the
winners winning too big. But if you don't let the dogs
fight it out, they'll sleep all day in the kennel. The
basic problem the way I see it is, society tries to be
decent, and decency cuts no ice in the state of nature. No
ice what- soever. We should all go back to being
hunter-gatherers, with a hundred-percent employment rate,
and a healthy amount of starvation. |
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