polutrope: (work habits)
Theodora Elucubrare ([personal profile] polutrope) wrote2007-11-11 04:10 am

why yes it is four in the morning

My new favorite nut : Ignatius Donnelly.

Highlights of his career: Founding a utopia. Writing crazy books about Atlantis. Passing the bar. Becoming a Congressman.


His Atlantis stuff is patently ridiculous, too. Like von Daniken, but with even less support. He says things like "There can be no question that these gods of Greece were human beings" with a straight face, and also that there was no way that the Greeks had invented their gods, because " Rude nations repeat, they do not invent; to suppose a barbarous people creating their deities out of clouds and sunsets is to reverse nature." Which goes in the face of pretty much all theory, even in 1882.

But on the other hand, he supported workers' rights and women's suffrage and the silver standard. The moral, I suppose, is that one can be stark raving mad and enlightened at the same time.







he's also a Baconist. I don't think I can like him anymore.

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