Also known as Voltaire, this outspoken philosopher and writer (has anyone ever known a philosopher that was not also a writer?)was versed in Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish and English. A prolific writer with sharp wit and an adoration for "drama", he managed to create quite a bit with a background in law, but a need to defy it. His defiance was not unjust or inappropriate by today's standards, but in his time was subject to both persecution and prosecution.
Often thought to be an atheist, his faith was present and unhidden, but his need to strike blows at organized religion or any form of absolute understanding furthered the earlier perception. A deist that now has a spiritual concept with his name on it; "Voltairean Pantheism". (What I wouldn't give to have such a coined phrase about my brilliance and fearless approach to the world...)
Though he fought brilliantly and rationally on many issues of injustice, his belief that many were lesser than Europeans simply because of origin limits my ability to have any faith in his statements that only an enlightened leader can evoke change. This is nebulous in the fact that it does not specify leader or enlightenment. A rich and noble man in his last years, he is quoted and misquoted often and to this day misunderstood to be an artist rather than what he was...which is???
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Francois-Marie Arouet
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A polemicist, as some have called him? But perhaps it's not right to label a man of so many talents. By the way, Jesus Christ was a philosopher who didn't write. I am here granting the premise, for the sake of argument, that someone named Jesus Christ actually existed. Of course, I don't really believe he did. And there is hardly a shred of historical evidence to prove me wrong. If he did exist, he certainly wasn't the son of a deity. He was just another religious zealot who... But I am getting off the subject. Another fascinating choice. Is the connection between all of these people the fact that they were open-minded free-thinking individuals? And people of thought as well as action?
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