"you don't really *have* to read anything after 18c to get a handle on this" is to philosophy as solving problems you've measured out the scope of and know quantitatively you can do without having to account for relativity is to physics, roughly
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I tend to have the opposite bias. I haven’t read Hobbes or Plato or anyone like that. Everything I need to know about political science I learned from Francis Fukuyama, James Scott, and Wikipedia.
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eh, tbqh my bias is a lot of contemporary political writing is ... distinctly unimpressive when you know what wheel they're reinventing and know the original well enough to notice all the ways the reinvention is rougher
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e.g. Fukuyama isn't a complete boob but he's a popularizer of Hegel via Kojève and would probably own up to it if you pressed him on it, and fair enough -- not his fault people other than him advertise him as anything more than that
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Not at all. I’m familiar enough with those two to regard him as a serious synthesizer beyond them. You vastly underestimate the sheer amount of data the last century has provided. He’s primarily an interpreter of recent history more than of Hegel via Kojeve.
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End of Hostory is an acknowledged Hegel exegesis, but his Origins of Political Order/Political Order Political Decay are definitely far beyond
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hm... ok, yeah, to me Fukuyama is still synonymous with EoH and I haven't read Origins of Political Order (aha, 2011 -- that'd be why) so I'll concede it's entirely possible you're right and I'm wrong on this, full stop
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I WIN AGAIN!!!
+1 for team anti-straussian. I would like to thank the academy...
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haha, um... well. in context I guess I can't exactly *blame* you for having gotten the impression I'm not right there on team anti-straussian with you, *but*
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Heh, I just have a strong immune response to argument by authority in general, on subjects where there are no viewpoint privileges except time (as opposed to for eg astronomy with its instruments). My first theory of anything political is generally my own prima facie one.
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I don't mind reinventing wheels at all. In fact I think that's a necessary human activity. A lot of people comment that my Gervais Principle analysis is Marxist for eg. I'm sure it was in the osmotic environment, but I've read zero Marxist theory. But reinvention was good.
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agreed it's often good and necessary but opportunity cost is prohibitive. I guess it's just that; it doesn't bother me at all when ppl trying to understand the world in an intellectually honest way reinvent a few wheels in the process -- or, hey, even all of them, why not >
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