I always enjoy the bold, perceptive, and humorous
ruminations of John Derbyshire, Anglo-American philosopher, novelist, essayist,
and mathematician, affectionately known throughout the blogosphere as "Derb." Brought up in the dying light of once-great England and her
once-great education system, undeterred by convention or political correctness,
but inspired by the examples set by the likes of Dr. Johnson, Baruch Spinoza, and
George Orwell, he looks at things sub
specie aeternitatis, which of course infuriates the chattering
classes.
Here he remarks on the seductions of modern life.
"If Cortez, or Shakespeare, or Gauss, or Mozart, or
the Founding Fathers, or the prairie settlers, could have got nice cushy
cube-jockey jobs as Administrative Assistants in the Department of
Administrative Affairs, and gone home at night to watch American Idol from the comfort of a Barcalounger—well, they
probably would have."
Stout Cortez would've spent all day surfing the Net, no
doubt about it. That explorer's instinct, you know.
