Philosophers

I used to admire philosophers. When I was a kid my father kept telling me about Karl Popper. I was dreaming of becoming an intellectual like Karl Popper myself. And yet I was aware that money has priority in life, so I followed my father's wish and studied medicine, and later computer science.

During my days as a student I have also read works of Ludwig von Mises. My impression of his works is that he was a reasonable person. As I was involved in a circle of libertarian-leaning students and young graduates, I also got to know the thinking of Ayn Rand, but I found it to be too one-sided and biased. My feelings about Friedrich August von Hayek are similar.

I also read works of Karl Marx in order to understand what motivated socialism. Thus I effectively learned about oppression and slavery. All in all however I felt that Marx went too far with his views of a classless society and dictatorship of the proletariate.

In recent years the media report about increasing right-wing populism and extremism in Europe and Northern America. I learned that many of the modern right-wing thinkers base their thinking on writings of people such as Julius Evola, Rene Guenon and Mircea Eliade. This has made me investigate the teachings of these scholars, whom I had never heard of before. I found them to be strange, odd, irrational, and simply wrong. I fail to understand how grown-up, serious-minded people such as Bannon can believe such teachings.