The Great Philosophers, With Sarah Palin
When we joked about Sarah Palin "working her way through the great thinkers of the Western canon one Tweet at a time," we were (mostly) kidding, but look: The next stop on her education tour is Aristotle's teachings on criticism! The logical progression will lead her to the Hellenistic philosophers, with their varied schools of individualism. I can't wait to see which she chooses: Stoicism? Epicureanism? Cynicism? Oh, please, please let it be Cynicism!
Related: The outgoing Alaska governor has an op-ed in the Washington Post decrying cap-and-trade (which, in typical Republican fashion, she rechristens "cap-and-tax"). Apart from a "look at me" paragraph near the top, it's a pretty standard op-ed by a politician, i.e. zzzzzz.
This State of the Union Address sent from my TwitterBerry.
Here's one from the 20th Century for Sarah to ponder:
"Winners never quit and quitters never win." — Vince Lombardi
Aristotle also said this:
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious."
Maybe she'll tweet that after her next philosophy 101 class.
Call me when she starts posting song lyrics.
Oh man, can't wait for her to get medieval on that ass and start pulling abstinence-only education platforms out of Augustine's Confessions.
God make me chaste … but not yet.
Would somebody please take away her copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations? And block her access to bartleby.com? thx.
I think she is getting these from her Quote of the Day Calendar. So she is good for these tweets until the end of December.
Can't wait until she gets into her Yogi Berra phase.
Is this a real quote? Edit/find for “doing nothing†in the Aristotle texts at http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index.html turns up nothing.
It's Aristotle Onassis.
Ha. This one actually looks much more likely to be a real quote than the Plato one. Aristotle did take the extreme Skeptics to task for doing almost nothing. He apparently didn't like doing nothing!
What the hell is her Twitter name going to be starting July 27?
She can turn her last name to Greek, letter for letter:
πάλι^ν [α^], poet. also πάλι (q.v), Adv.
1. of Place, back, backwards (the usual sense in early Ep.), mostly joined with Verbs of going, coming, etc.
…
Kant's categorical imperative here we come!
Aristotelian criticism reduced to a tweet. I wonder if she do the same for Mozart with a single fart.
Now she wants to be criticized? Does she want to be governor too?
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle ….
I'm releasing methane into the atmosphere right now, cap and trade be damned!
Let's just hope she discovers Wittgenstein:
About what one can not speak, one must remain silent.
No. It's going to be the Stoa. It's the only system where high principals can be matched with even higher interest (rates on loans). For instance Brutus( of eh tu fame)took the island of Cyprus for 18% p/a.
And don't forget even the most overworked underpaid peon is the master of their own soul. I fully expect that one to be trotted out.
Anyone else stunned by the non-sequitur of her logic?