Monday, November 10, 2003
(9:51 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A good joke based on a quote from John Locke
I am reading Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer right now (it's available at a significant discount at Amazon.com, but I'm going to buck the convention whereby every book mentioned has to include an Amazon link). I just read the following quote from John Locke: "In the beginning, all the world was America." By that, he meant that the New World represents for him the state of nature that precedes civilization proper (law, sovereignty, clothing, etc.). George Soros notwithstanding, we could respond to Locke with the good old catholic proclamation: "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end."
(I wanted to link to the George Soros article in the newest issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which I received in the mail today, but it's not online yet, and may never be. In it, the wealthy currency speculator speculates about whether the current overwhelming power of America might be just another "bubble" along the lines of the tech bubble back in the happy days of my youth. In an interesting aside, did you know that Thales, widely regarded as the first philosopher, quit the philosophy business in order to increase his credibility by making a ton of money? I read it somewhere. If I track down the source, I'll let you know. In any case, the source also said that the dual philosophical and economic meaning of the word speculation is not an accident -- it was there from day one.)
