March 16, 2005

Any Mention of Umberto Eco ...

Is probably sufficient to get you a Sine Qua Non link:

Rulers who promote such harsh restrictions remind me of the twisted monk Jorge in Umberto Eco's book The Name of the Rose. Jorge banned a book by Aristotle on the value of laughter, on the rationale that laughter undermines respect for authority: "Laughter, for a few moments, distracts the villain from fear. But law is imposed by fear, whose true name is fear of God. ...if laughter is the delight of the plebians, the license of the plebians must be restrained and humiliated, and intimidated by sternness."

Posted by Charles Austin at March 16, 2005 01:52 PM
Comments

Comment deleted.

Oh, and Adam, if you really want to run a survey about what bloggers think, spamming them is not the way to do it. Had you asked politely, I would have gladly promoted your survey. But your weak and uncivil attempt to hijack my blog has failed.

Posted by: Adam at 03:46 PM

I know it won't last, but I'm currently 4-0 in my NCAA bracket pool.

Posted by: Jon at 03:00 PM

I'm 7-1 after the morning round. Only Iowa let me down. And now the lower seeds are up at the half in all four games so far this evening. Wow.

Posted by: charles austin at 08:20 PM

Hey, anyone who writes a book simply for no reason other than they were in a mood to poison a monk is okay by me.

But... I'm easily entertained.

Posted by: greg at 09:13 AM

Hmm. I don't really fit in here, do I?

Hey! How 'bout Illinois?! Do they rock, or what?

Posted by: greg at 09:16 AM

There's plenty of room on the bandwagon Greg.

Posted by: charles austin at 06:40 PM