Peter Kreeft Quotes
Be egalitarian regarding persons. Be elitist regarding ideas.
Kreeft, Peter. A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist. Ignatius Press, 1999, p. 49.
He was referring to Erich Hermann Wilhelm V̦gelin; [January 3, 1901 РJanuary 19, 1985) was political philosopher. He was born in Cologne, and educated in political science at the University of Vienna, at which he became an associate professor of political science at the Faculty of Law. In 1938 he and his wife fled from the Nazi forces which had entered Vienna, and emigrated to the United States, where they became citizens in 1944. He spent most of his academic career at the University of Notre Dame, Louisiana State University, the University of Munich and the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He was a very elitist intellectual who was a favorite of Conservatives. A number of his accomplished students, however were very egalitarian and were active liberals and populists. America is one of the few countries and cultures in the world where political, religious and philosophical views do not get passed from one generation to the next by family and teachers. America's freedom has been not only legal freedom but has stimulated cultural freedom as well, sometimes to the distress of older generations who want their values and ideas preserved and transmitted through the c=generations.
This is a classic generalization that has little validity if any. There is no typical white intellectual, just as there is no typical American or typical politician. And of the white intellectuals, there are very few who hold the two beliefs in the quotation. This type of absurd generalization is unfortunately too common.
Peter John Kreeft (/kreɪft/; born 1937) is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He also formulated, together with Ronald K. Tacelli, "Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God".
