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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Saturday, August 15, 2009

WHERE DID I GO WRONG?

Pretty clearly, I have been doing something wrong. First, I got a call today from the National Rifle Association, apparently convinced that I was one of their ardent supporters. After an inspirational recorded message from Wayne LePierre, the caller, a rather hard-edged woman, asked me, as near as I can quote it from memory, "Do you want to put your hard-earned liberties in the hands of a bunch of third world dictators and Hillary Clinton?" This was, I figured, a trick question, but I tried to answer it as homestly as I could. As I saw it, I only had two options for protecting my hard-earned liberties. The first was to place them in the hands of those dictators and Hillary, the second was to hand them over to the NRA. Unhesitatingly, I chose the former. "Yes," I said. For some reason, she did not linger on the phone.

Then the mail came, and wedged in, between a Medicare report of claims they had paid for Susie or me and a bank statement, was an invitation to join the Republican Senatorial Inner Circle. The letter, which actually addressed me personally as "Dear Robert," began, "Because you have been an active leader and a concerned citiczen, you are one of only a few Republicans in North Carolina who have been recommended by the Republican Senate Leadership to serve as a member of the prestigious Republican Senatorial Inner Circle."

I guess now I know just who is not reading my blog. Oh well. I still have Paris.

1 comment:

Jamie said...

Professor Wolff,

That is indeed strange, but I admire your ethical integrity on the matter. Had it been me, I would have been strongly tempted to accept the offer as a means to covertly infiltrate the Republican Inner Sanctum!

Regarding your title question, it was nothing you did that solicited such attention. The phone calls and mail were probably the result of certain demographic information about you being obtained by Republican apparatchiks. Once it was known that you are a white male, of a certain age, and residing in the Carolinas, it follows that you probably support the party. The automated operation of the political machine at work, in other words.