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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Monday, August 3, 2015

IMHO


I have several times remarked that blogging is an odd activity.  It consists essentially in expressing opinions.  There is nothing remarkable about having an opinion.  Knowing something is often an accomplishment, resulting from hard work.  And of course actually doing something is harder even than simply knowing something, as Karl Marx pointed out in his Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach.  But merely having an opinion is scarcely worthy of note. 

For as long as I can recall, I have had opinions.  When I was twelve, I was of the opinion that Paul Pavelides was the best handball player in P. S. 117.  I was also of the opinion that the New York Yankees were a collection of stuck-up jerks.  Several years later, I formed the opinion that Susie Shaeffer, the girl who sat just in front of me in home room at Forest Hills High School, was a real doll.  That opinion stuck with me, and thirty-nine years later I acted on it, asking her to marry me.  That was one of my better opinions.

The people who write Op Ed columns get paid a good deal of money simply to express their opinions.   [Op Ed = "OPposite the EDitorial page," by the way.]  There are lots of really comfortable high-paying jobs in America -- Philosophy Professor comes to mind -- but being an Op Ed columnist strikes me as unusually cushy.  And it can't be very hard.  I mean, look who does it! 

I wonder how you go about getting one of those jobs.

2 comments:

Amarnath said...

I am a chemist and I settle any controversy about a reaction by setting up a well-designed experiment.

Take the Planned Parentwood controversy. Everybody is expressing an opinion. Why can't they actually go to a clinic, watch the operation for a few days, interview the people using the facility, study their back-ground and then form an opinion?

amarnath

Amarnath said...

By the way, exactly fifty years ago, I thought the girl in my chemistry class who often smiled at me was very beautiful and I never changed my opinion since then.

amarnath