Two Articles from Reason

I'm behind on things I want to blog about (which I expect is the norm), but I wanted to point out two different articles from the magazine 'Reason' which are interesting to me. The first is an interview with Neal Stephenson. He wrote a trilogy that I greatly enjoyed last fall, 'The Baroque Cycle'. Part of what I found facsinating in the books had to do with this:

Here are a few specifics. The medieval is still very much alive and well during this period. People are carrying swords around. Military units have archers. Saracens snatch people from European beaches and carry them off to slavery. There are Alchemists and Cabalists. Great countries are ruled by kings who ride into battle wearing armor. Much of the human landscape—the cities and architecture—are medieval. And yet the modern world is present right next to all of this in the form of calculus, joint-stock companies, international financial systems, etc. This can’t but be fascinating to a novelist.

And indeed the mix of these elements is what drew me in. The one thing that disappoints me is that he isn't asked about my favorite charcter of recent years, Jack Shaftoe. A man who is possesed by the 'imp of the perverse', which causes him to act impulsivly. He often falls in the cesspool only to come out smelling like a rose.

The other article is a look at Ayn Rand's legacy in what would be her 100th year. I read 'Atlas Shrugged' when I was 19 or 20 and it profoundly affected my life and way of thinking. I was deeply attracted to her sense of right and wrong and her sense of the beauty that exists within humanity. And also to her sense of freedoms. Heinlein wrote that the ability to barter in the marketplace is one of the most important human freedoms and she fleshed out why that would be true. She also introduced me into the world of philosophy and it's connections with the real world. In more recent years, though, I've come to look at her vision as being somewhat clouded. Her views on love are wildly out of step with what I've seen with my own eyes. And as the piece notes, her philosphy doesn't leave room for times when the normal events on life overtake the plans of men.
Still, she was very important to me. Imperfect, yet a beacon away from the morass that modern philosophy was becoming.