Not familiar with the name? He�s a French philosopher who immigrated to the United States after being subjected to criticism and abuse in his native country. He taught at the University of Chicago for more than 20 years, and it appears that the change of venue was a positive decision.
�But Paul Ric�ur did not only find in the United States a refuge to work in peace and enjoy the respect he deserved. His American semesters also proved fertile. In this philosophical new world where not only the interlocutors but also the style of thought itself were different, and where openness to discussion and the development of sound arguments were more important than the tone of oratory or ideological denunciation, Ric�ur discovered a climate that matched his own particular way of thinking.�
Did anyone ever get the chance to meet him?
I’d heard of him. Didn’t even know he was at U of C. I have been carrying a copy of his The Symbolism of Evil around from house to house for years but haven’t gotten to it yet. Eric Voegelin spoke very highly of that one, and I bought it during my Voegelin phase.
Could the state of European politics outside the UK be the result of an American “brain drain”?
If liberty is encouraged in the U.S. and crushed in Europe, wouldn’t wave after wave of European immigrants to America self-select for this trait and eventually, over generations, drain Europe of the “liberty meme” altogether?
Europe has been sending us its best and brightest for hundreds of years. I thought Atlas Shrugged was silly when I first read it, but looking at what’s happened to Europe it seems as eerily prescient as 1984.
Speaking of 1984, I just happen to recall the Soviet Union building the Iron Curtain apparatus precisely to address the problem of ambitious people wanting to leave …