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Letters to the Contrary: A Curated History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey QUOTES

Letters to the Contrary: A Curated History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey QUOTES

1 " To give just one example of what the inside of this world (largely upper-class and Oxbridge world of wealth, power, and privilege) looked like: Huxley sent the UNESCO documents to his close friend the English poet Stephen Spender. In his reply, from his regular retreat at the Chalet Waldegg in Gstaad, Switzerland, Spender says that he won't burden Huxley with his own views on human rights, since he doesn't have anything 'worth saying' on the topic, but then goes on to suggest that Huxley send the documents to some of his acquaintances. This curious list of the great and the good includes the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, the first and second president of Czechoslovakia, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Isaiah Berlin, A.J. Ayer, and W.H. Auden. Spender even gives Huxley some advice about whom to avoid: 'I honestly don't think there are any outstanding Belgians. "

― , Letters to the Contrary: A Curated History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey

2 " McKeon was a legendary University of Chicago philosophy professor who inspired 'cold sweat and raw fear' in a long list of students, including Susan Sontag, Richard Rorty, Paul Rabinow, and Robert Pirsig (who used McKeon as the model for the character of the dreaded 'Chairman' in his 1974 novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). "

― , Letters to the Contrary: A Curated History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey