Quoting Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>:
I don't think anyone would say "don't read the classics." I'd venture that they're necessary but not sufficient to achieve True Cypherpunkishness.*
More seriously, there are some concepts that lie behind what the recent threads calls an agora, and some books help clarify them in more detail than a mailing list discussion can. I know I've benefited from these recommendations.
No doubt! That's the beauty of this place. What I was really driving at is that if more libertarians aspired to the creativity, analytical rigor, and breadth and depth of knowledge of people like John von Neumann and Leo Cherne, it would be a very good thing. Last night I was reading an essay (author slips my mind) called 'Intelligence and the Information Revolution'. The author called for getting beyond the old barriers of department and specialty and the creation of 'Super Analysts', omni- talented multidisciplinary people who really, really get it. Wouldn't it be great if more pro-freedom activists took the Super Analyst approach? I think so. I'm in a PhD program myself: when I speak up in class, I try not to give my fellow classmates a reason to say 'oh damn, there goes that tiresome libertarian chick again.' Knowing the material and being able to articulate something interesting and relevant about it is all that matters: if you're intellectually rigorous and responsible you can command respect, whatever your persuasion. I think the ultimate goal for anyone out to shape public policy is to find a way to redefine the questions: re-frame the terms of the debate and you've really accomplished something significant. And nobody ever succeded in redefining the questions by bricking up their mental content with pre-digested ideological constructs: in a sense, once you give up your independence all you can do is 'talk at right angles' to people who don't share your mindset. And what could be less in the spirit of libertarianism than that? Of course the answer isn't 'read everything'. But making the committment to creativity, curiosity and analytical rigor couldn't hurt. ~Faustine. **** 'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).