Skip to main content

Worth Quoting

From Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community:
We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first, of those social relationships within which individuality develops. It is not the extermination of individuals that is ultimately desired by totalitarian rulers, for individuals in the largest number are needed by the new order. What is desired is the extermination of those social relationships which, by their autonomous existence, must always constitute a barrier to the achievement of the absolute political community.
The individual alone is powerless. Individual will and memory, apart from the reinforcement of associative tradition, are weak and ephemeral. How well totalitarian rulers know this. Even constitutional guarantees and organic laws dim to popular vision when the social and cultural identities of persons become atomized, when the reality of freedom and order in the small areas of society becomes obscure. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.
6 comments
Read more

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                   ...
8 comments
Read more

Gaudete, dammit!

     I was not at my home church for mass this morning (not that I feel like I have a home church since becoming Popish), but nevertheless my mood was buoyant.  After all, how could it not be.  Here we were standing as brothers and sisters commemorating one of the top five greatest events in the history of reality: the Incarnation.  Yet looking out and listening to the participation of my Roman brothers and sisters, one would think that something less than mundane had happened.  Something BORING, even.  We gathered to remember the God of the universe condescending to take on human dress and all we can do is half-heartedly sing and mumble ancient creeds that people died for?  I remained buoyant despite the lack of mutual awe.      Annie Dillard said waggishly that when people go to church they ought to be wearing crash helmets.  Do they really know who or what they are summoning?  Something more terrible, me...
5 comments
Read more