speculative etymology

My only exposure to NPR last year was my wife’s mentioning of stories she heard on her commute.

My only exposure to NPR now is through their podcasts. And the only one I listen to regularly is “On Words” with John Ciardi, who died in 1986.

Podcasts are bringing back old radio commentaries, a form once thought to be ephemeral.

In one of his not-so-ephemeral commentaries, Ciardi recommends a book called History in English Words by Owen Barfield. He said he couldn’t call it a review, because the book was out of print, but recommended the listener seek it in the library.

The book is no longer out of print, and I plan to get it, based on this fascinating non-review:

(Or download MP3.)

---

Update: In his comment, Stephen Carson recommends this book:

Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis

There’s also a description of the book on Wikipedia.

luddites on the Right

I had just said:

This one I don’t experience at the beginning of the 21st century nearly as much as I did at the end of the 20th:

• Technophobia — fear of technology (see also Luddite).

But unlike Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute, I don’t read conservatives and I don’t know too many conservatives — and those I do know are more of the neoconservative technophile variety.

A feature of conservative thought that I’ve never entirely understood is its persistent anti-technology theme. If the roots of left-wing anti-technology views are probably with Rousseau, where can we find the roots of similar right-wing views?

… technology is the result of human action to better one’s material lot, and nothing more than that. It is not “unnatural” or “external” to human action; technological progress is merely the material expression of the inner drive to adjust one’s surroundings in a manner that achieves our ends. It is what results when rationality is permitted the freedom to innovate in the service of humanity. It is not foreign or external to the nature of man but integral. To say that we should be willing to give it up is saying nothing other than that we ought to act in ways that diminish our well being. There are times when doing so is heroic, to be sure. But can or should we expect this as a social propensity in normal times? Surely not.

For me it’s like a peek into an alien culture.