Do you fancy yourself a traditionalist, or a free thinker of some sort, incidentally? You are a bit hard to figure out.
I don't fancy myself either a traditionalist or a free thinker. Actually, I guess I don't really know what you mean by those terms.
You probably can't figure me out because I don't fit easily into any pigeonhole. I try to approach things witha pragmatic philosophy, merging a variety of philosophic approaches, depending on the issue, including but very much not limited to Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Hume, Hobbes, Locke, Pascal, Spinoza, Kant, and others as the need arises. While I resist pigeonholing, those who know me best generally consider me a classical liberal -- that is, having the liberal views of Kennedy-Humphrey-Stevenson era in which it was a very liberal position to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I know of no contemporary liberal politician who could make that speech without breaking out giggling at how stupid it made them feel.
I follow no political leader or thinker, but the person whose views tend most often to meet with my agreement, which means usually about 30% of the time, is Nat Hentoff. |
