I am still considering. You know about Keynes' criticism of the Versailles treaty, I am sure. Usually, he is portrayed as being prescient. However, there is reason to wonder about that interpretation, since it is has been shown that his arguments were used to exacerbate hard feelings by the German right, including Hitler, and therefore there may have been more than a little element of self- fulfilling prophesy about the whole thing. He also is among those who helped to float the theory of the war that made all helpless victims of armaments and doctrines run amok, instead of recognizing the aggressive revisionism of the German Reich. Finally, he was among the intellectual leaders in the move toward disarmament and appeasement between the wars. These are the reasons that I am not keen to have him on my list.....
I think that Chesterton has had at least as much influence as Shaw, whom I include as well, and I know that Lewis has. I think that Mann had a lot of influence on the educated, which translates into a lot of influence, since the educated run things. However, I do not think that Proust has had a comparable influence on ideas and attitudes....
You may be right that there are too many existentialists, but assertion is not persuasion. I will think about it...
I am still considering the directors....
Mandela is not influential enough, and his legacy remains to be seen. He is a symbol of aspirations, for sure. Meanwhile, Africans continue to engage in fratricide throughout the continent.... |
