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Post 0

Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 11:13amSanction this postReply
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Ed:

Perfect.

Very "Zen"

Sam


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Post 1

Thursday, January 11, 2007 - 12:28pmSanction this postReply
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"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."
 
--Albert Einstein


Post 2

Friday, January 12, 2007 - 7:15amSanction this postReply
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I'm paraphrasing here, but when asked how he carved the statue of David with such perfection out of a block of stone, Michelangelo replied: "I just took away everything that wasn't the statue."

Bauer


Post 3

Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 2:55amSanction this postReply
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Just don't apply that to rights.

Post 4

Sunday, January 14, 2007 - 2:32pmSanction this postReply
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If anyone has actually read De Saint-Exupery, you will know he wrote vile stories for children extolling the virtues of altruism. He apparently did reach his own definition of perfection, dying in a needless suicide mission during WWII. My French teacher loved this man. And I wondered why she hated the Fountainhead...

Post 5

Monday, January 15, 2007 - 2:35amSanction this postReply
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Allow me to put St Exupery in perspective.

Antione de Saint Exupery was Antoine de Saint Exupery. You can't really put a label on him like Altruist, Collectivist or Objectivist.

He was a pilot for Latecoer and later Aeropostal, which where early French air-mail services. A lot of Noth-Africa was French in that days. So part of his job was to fly with the airoplanes of the 20's and 30's above deserts filled with hostile nomads.

In the beginning of his writing career, he wrote the dangers he and other pilots faced ,  later on, he wanted to be known as a "serious" writer not a writer of adventure novels. So he tried his hands at more philosophical works (without really doing philosophy).

In his work about the first airmail pilots, there is much heroism. I recall a passage where one of his friends (Mermoz I think) planes is crashed in the Andes. Mermoz is willing to give up, shut his eyes and die of cold when he thought about his wife and children. The tought of his children being orphan pushes him on. Later on Mermoz said, what I did there in those mountains, no animal would have done. Only humans are capable of such great deeds. Very altruistic indeed.

Saint Exupery also said there is a Mozart being killed every day by parents and teachers who tell children to behave and sit still instead of developing their creativity.

He also thought aviation would change politics. Seeing the world from above, indiscriminately, the good and the bad would enable leaders to make better decisions. In the past the leaders would travel the country but see only what the bureaucrats, servants and such wanted them to see.

The Litle Prince is a lot like Gullivers travels where every world and every character represents a certain attitude, way of life or phenomenon of society. There's a ruler of the universe who only gives reasonable orders, who will order you to sleep when you're tired, order a sunrise when it's time for the sun to rise. There's the drunk who drinks to forget the shame of being a drunk. There is the story of a mapmaker who can't make maps. To make maps, you have to start from reality; you can't make maps without suveilling and discovering new territories. However, the mapmaker is far too intelligent to spend his time on tasks like travelling the universe and discovering new territories. The prince also comes on a very small planet where there day and night only last one minute. On that planet there live a worker who lights and extinguishes the gas lights. He is a very busy man, attending to a light with no purpose. However he has no time in his busy schedule to question the orders he was given.

In La Citadelle, he gets philosophical and defends a very strong, authoritarian government.

Ted, I don't know where that part of the suicide mission comes from. As far as read, he flew a reconnaissance mission and his plane disappeared.

In my opinion, Saint Exupery had some good ideas. He had his own opinions which where not always those of his fellow men. He relied much on his own experiences but his  work misses the philosophical foundation that Rand's novels have. His ideas can be used as a way to trigger reflection and discussion (as on this forum) but not the way french teachers do, as an authority.


Post 6

Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - 1:42amSanction this postReply
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We read a few stories of the little prince. The altruism was quite clear. The mission on which Exupery went seemed unnecessary, and his death was unexplained. Perhaps not suicide, but an awful lot like John Denver's death so far as I can tell. A l,ife which for may have held no further meanin. About the altruism there was no doubt.

I have noi problem at all with people taking what they can get from things. If he brought you joy, I am sure you would have recofgnized any flaws and iven him the benefit of the doubt. I would have read these stories 21 or 22 years ago. I have no animus aainst the man. But given my recollections, I felt it appropriate to mention my reservations.

It was the quoted saying that struck me as telling.

Ted

Post 7

Wednesday, January 17, 2007 - 12:03amSanction this postReply
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In fact the quote is only half the truth. Perfection is where there's nothing more to add AND nothing to take away. I don't know in what context Saint Exupery said that but in many cases it's "the nothing more to take away" that's important.

For example the quote of Einstein that Mike posted: Scientists tend to look for the simplest explanation for the biggest number of natural phenomena. One of Einstein's dreams was the unification of the field, one theory that would explain gravity, electromagnetism and the forces in and between atoms. A clear case of taking away until the ultimate theory remains.

The same is often true in technology. Simpler solutions = less parts is less chances of a defects = more reliable. Easier to operate = more potential customers.

There's also the phenomenon which I would call historical load. Ideas, organisations and such tend to drag along part of their history: things that seemed the best thing to do at some time but are now obsolete, old superstitions,set ideas that where proven wrong years and years ago etc. For example in "The Fountainhead", Roark took away all the elements of architecture that where obsolete in his time. His buildings expressed their essence and nothing more.

In a similar line of reasoning I like a quote of Bruce Lee: " Keep the useful, discard the useless, add what's specific to you".


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