Carl Sagan - Good or Bad?

[IllicitPopsicle]

Just wondering. He seems like a nice enough fellow, and it appears that his views were nascent socialist. But who can tell? Anyone know anything about him?

[heiss93]

Well his book A Demon Haunted World was pretty strongly hagiographic to the Founding Fathers and their brilliance and foresight. And he advocates for "toleration" of the equally repellant views such as Nazism and Communism. So basically a liberal anti-communist, which still makes him rather leftwing by American standards, especially in his strong defense of civil liberties. See the chapter Real Patriots ask Questions to see him at his best & worst.

http://books.google.com/books?id=q_Fp3tjPnkwC&pg=PA426&dq=demon+haunted+world+jefferson&hl=en&ei=lwFBTPrYN4L78AaQg53UDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[mikelepore]

Sagan's words would often move carefully along that line -- our way of life is so focused on competing for money, dividing the people into rich and poor, worshipping national boundaries and flags, neglecting human potential, it's a tragedy that we live this way -- but he would never go that extra length to come right out and say a better social system can be conceived and we should take steps to implement a new system. It always seemed to me that he was afraid to allow his words to cross that line. Same problem with people like Ralph Nader -- their speeches go right up to the edge and then they suddenly stop, they won't come right out and say the "dangerous" words -- an improved kind of economic system is possible and is needed.

[JazzRemington]

Sagan's words would often move carefully along that line -- our way of life is so focused on competing for money, dividing the people into rich and poor, worshipping national boundaries and flags, neglecting human potential, it's a tragedy that we live this way -- but he would never go that extra length to come right out and say a better social system can be conceived and we should take steps to implement a new system. It always seemed to me that he was afraid to allow his words to cross that line. Same problem with people like Ralph Nader -- their speeches go right up to the edge and then they suddenly stop, they won't come right out and say the "dangerous" words -- an improved kind of economic system is possible and is needed.

It's been a while since I've watched Cosmos, but I think he implied these things, even if he didn't outright say them.

[IllicitPopsicle]

It's been a while since I've watched Cosmos, but I think he implied these things, even if he didn't outright say them.

I'm actually watching Cosmos. It kind of seems like he's restraining himself in speech but doing a kind of innerstellar pantomime. I dunno.

[ContrarianLemming]

agree with above, take his wisdom for what it was, he was first and foremost a sceintist. We shouldnt reject him for the same reason we shouldn't reject Dawkins, they ain't political activists, but what they do still contributes in a positive way.

[Dimentio]

Sagan was not a political philosopher, he was a cosmologist and a lover of the boundless infinity of space. Instead of demanding political and ideological purity from everyone, we should embrace what is beautiful about their views and use that to enrich our own understanding of reality.

Neither Newton, Beethoven, Jesus of Nazareth, Leonardo da Vinci, Bill Hicks or most of the people who have offered beautiful poetic, scientific or philosophical thoughts to the world have been ideologists or dogmatics in the modern - -istic - manners.

Instead of seeking the narrowest possibly path, we should try to reach the broadest highway, incorporating ideals from many different sources to create a mighty river.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

A man who is embracing the unity of not only our planet, but of the entire Universe, could not be anything else than a progressive by heart.

[JazzRemington]

Sagan was one of the influences that lead me to go to school for a degree in Library and Information Science.