Author: Chris Whittington
Date: 14:03:53 07/03/00
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On July 03, 2000 at 16:38:52, pete wrote: >>>really none of my business but an obvious reply to your original post making >>>Voltaire's famous quote look like the cornerstone of the British constitution >>>:-) >>> >>>Ever heard of English sense of humour ? >> >>Indeed, it gets us into all kinds of trouble. But we use it to keep any >>authority from getting too sure of itself. A sort of freedom-maintainer by >>ridicule. That's the common theme running from Sheridan to Monty Python and >>onwards. We even laughed at Adolf. And correctly so. For he was a fool. As was >>proved. Did you ever watch his filmed speeches? What else was there to do but >>laugh? Shame the Germans didn't treat him the same way. > >Yes , it is really hard to believe ; something like Charlie Chaplin's film "The >Great Dictator " and the inherent irony looks so obvious _now_ ; you can't >believe anyone ever followed him as he was so dumb . > >But this is just an arrogant attitude probably . > >Easy to say that now ; to say you would have been able to find out too if you >had to realize it when it happened is the _real interesting_ question ( and >think of people like Chamberlain before rubbing it in ;-) > > >> >>I take the time to quote you from "Voltaire's Coconuts" by Ian Buruma. >> >>"Why can't the world be more like England? That is the question raised by >>Voltaire in the Philosophical Dictionary of 1756. It is a curious question to >>ask, especially for a Frenchman. But Voltaire first came to England in 1726, 38 >>years after the Glorious Revolution .... having suffered a stint in the Bastille >>for publishing a satirical poem and unable to publish another poem on religious >>persecution in France, Voltaire saw England as a model of freedom and tolerance >>.... Voltaire is the first, or at least the most famous, most eloquent, most >>outrageous and often the most perceptive modern Anglophile. >> >>So why can't the world be more like England? In fact Voltaire's query was a bit >>more specific: why can't the laws that guarantee British liberties be adopted >>elsewhere? Of course, being a rationalist and a universalist, Voltaire had to >>assume that they could be. But he anticipated the objections of less enlightened >>minds" >> >>I could go on, but won't. >> >>Off-topic? Probably. But a plus side is that Fernando will now buy the book. >>Speak to you about it later, Fernando. >> >>Weidenfield and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-64312-6 >> >> >>Chris Whittington >> > >all very cute , all very clever , and really fun to read , still you thought the >original quote was made by an English man , didn't you ;-) ? Let's be frightfully serious. Or let's be frightfully flippant? Honorary Englishman !!! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Plus I have literary evidence to be a poseur avec, as zey say in Froglish. Owzat ?? Chris Whittington > >regards. > >pete
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