Comments on: The learning of this people is very defective, consisting only in morality, history, poetry, and mathematics https://www.isegoria.net/2020/03/the-learning-of-this-people-is-very-defective-consisting-only-in-morality-history-poetry-and-mathematics/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Tue, 12 May 2026 23:05:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Bruce https://www.isegoria.net/2020/03/the-learning-of-this-people-is-very-defective-consisting-only-in-morality-history-poetry-and-mathematics/comment-page-1/#comment-3093059 Bruce Sat, 21 Mar 2020 06:39:54 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=46389#comment-3093059 ‘When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do the rest’,said Samuel Johnson, but he was probably just stating an absolute to start an argument.

]]> By: Graham https://www.isegoria.net/2020/03/the-learning-of-this-people-is-very-defective-consisting-only-in-morality-history-poetry-and-mathematics/comment-page-1/#comment-3092693 Graham Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:34:06 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=46389#comment-3092693 Interesting that Swift attributes the kingdom’s overall peaceability to it’s being inaccessible to any other countries, and then goes on to give it a heritage of political scheming and civil war comparable to any earthly state of his own or any other time. So, basically, an advantage mostly unknown to earthly peoples allows it to avoid external war, and internally it’s just the same.

A surprising confession to realism for Brobdingnag.

As so often with older fantasy constructs, I wonder if Brobdingnag has diseases, old age, injury and death. If so, do they have any medicine, and is that better than premodern England? THEN they’d have something to brag about as compared to earth in that age, or any.

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