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Saturday, July 2, 2016

Isaac Asimov was no fan of Elie Wiesel


The liberal humanist Isaac Asimov was not exactly a member of Elie Wiesel's fan club. Asimov was critical of ALL forms of nationalism and still believed in the ideal of a powerful world government at the time of his death. Wrote Isaac Asimov :

" I was invited to a round-table discussion whose participants included Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust and hasn't spoken about anything else since. That day, he irritated me by claiming that you couldn't trust academics, or technicians, because they had helped make possible the Holocaust."

           True enough, academics and technicians tend to serve the ruling class with a very unscientific lack of skepticism. But Asimov was more rational about the nature of anti-Semitism than Elie Wiesel. Unless EVIL has some mysterious metaphysical basis ?


A Palestinian admirer of 'Night,' disenchanted by its author Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel, who knows too well the hideousness of racist ideologies, should do better than to blindly succumb to them himself. In this conflict, he is not a messenger for mankind, but a messenger for one ethnic group’s victory over others.

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