Herbert Read Quotes
I can imagine no society which does not embody some method of arbitration.
Read, Herbert. Anarchy and Order: Essays in Politics. Faber and Faber, 1954.
Morgan, one of the biggest industrialists in the nation, had been running vicious monopolies and trusts at a time when government regulation was a new concept. Morgan’s response was to have one of Roosevelt’s assistants make a deal with one of his assistants. He was shocked when Attorney General Knox said, “We don’t want it fixed up. We want to stop it.” They did. It was a watershed in government corporate regulation.
When whites first came to America, the Iroquois, were the most sophisticated Native Americans. They were actually a confederation of 5 different tribes each of which was composed if many clans. Although fierce warriors, they had agreed not to fight each other and to assist if any were attacked. They developed a strong agricultural base, to go with the fishing and hunting, and their confederation were very aggressive and sophisticated traders taking them far from their upstate New York “capitol.” Their governmental structure was quite sophisticated with an elaborate, formal, system of checks and balances, multi-cameral legislatures that recognized numbers of citizens, power and wealth, and even cultural traditions. They were literate, capitalistic and globalistic in that they wanted to trade with all. They had written laws, and women had a role that was unique in world history in that only women owned property in a matrilineal society. Further, it was only the Clan Mothers who voted for the 50 Sachems (~Senators)—but their selections had to be accepted by the people they represented. Ironically the descendants of the Iroquois who remained in New York became a very successful Native American group. In the 2000 census, the average Indian in New York State earned the same income as the average White with no Indian gambling money.
This is one of the earliest instances in which formal American foreign policy called for aggressively preventing other nations from war. This speech was audio recorded -- quite unusual for the time -- and can be heard to this day.
Shlomo ben Yitzchak
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read was co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. As well as being a prominent English anarchist, he was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism. He was co-editor with Michael Fordham of the British edition in English of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung.
