Thomas Sowell. "Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good."
Mark Twain. "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." [Quotes of the Day]
David Harris talks about a book by Hesse that seems quite interesting. Just for kicks I've created a Hermann Hesse channel on TopicExchange. With a little luck, other Hesse aficionados will show up there over time...
The Journey to the East - Hermann Hesse. A narrator tells a story about a journey of undefined purpose and to an undefined location with an ill-defined community of like-minded people. Even the story itself may not be true. But all of that is beside the point in this short novella of Hesse's. The true journey is the narrator's into his own mind with a destination of greater self-awareness and a better understanding of his place in a society. Hesse shows the influence of Eastern philosophy on his thought, just as in many other novels of his. Within the text, there feels like the germ of a study of intellectualism that also flows through the Glass Bead Game - perhaps this was a testing ground for some of his ideas... This is definitely a book I shall reread many times to try to come to my own greater self-awareness concerning the issues that the Journey's narrator faces. [David Harris' Science and Literature]
