From: RC

To: Editor

Date: 1 Oct 2004

 

I very much liked Pascal's article The Myth of Market-based Education.

 

It brought to mind a quote from John Maynard Keynes: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

 

It also reminded me of the "crackpot realists" of C. Wright Mills: "Are not those who in the name of realism act like crackpots, are they not the utopians? Are we not now in a situation in which the only practical, realistic, down-to-earth thinking and acting is just what these crackpot realists call 'utopian'?" (from "Power, Politics, and People")

 

Thank you for providing Database Debunkings. It is a much needed forum whose intellectual honesty stands in sharp contrast to the mass of uncritical and self-serving material found on the web.   

 

 

From: Fabian Pascal

To: RC

 

There is nothing new in the american follies that the classics have not already experienced and warned against. It is precisely because US society ignores and dismisses them that it is doomed to repeat them, its belief in its own "uniqueness" notwithstanding.

 

 

Posted 11/12/04