Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 June 18 • Friday

In his book In Defence of the Enlightenment, the Bulgarian-French philosopher Tzvetan Todorov sees the Englightenment's enemies — obscurantism, arbitrary authority and fanaticism — as hydra heads that keep growing back because they draw their strength from ineradicable human traits. People will defend members of their group rather than subscribe to universal values. They need security and comfort no less than freedom and truth. Todorov sees the desire for power, which leads to violence, as no less characteristic of our species than the capacity for rational argument.

—Malise Ruthven, The Times Literary Supplement, May 21, 2010