We can hardly be charged with imposing a foreign set of values upon individuals or groups if what-we are doing is providing support for basic capacities and opportunities that are involved in the selection of any flourishing life and then
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“Following the horrors of 9/11, Fukuyama and his ideas were derided as triumphalist nonsense. But he was only half wrong. Fukuyama, a Hegelian, argued that Western democracy had run out of “contradictions”: that is, of ideological alternatives. That was true in 1989 and remains true today. Fukuyama’s mistake was to infer that the absence of contradictions meant the end of history. There was another possibility he failed to consider. History could well be driven by negation rather than contradiction. It could ride on the nihilistic rejection of the established order, regardless of alternatives or consequences. That would not be without precedent. The Roman Empire wasn’t overthrown by something called “feudalism”—it collapsed of its own dead weight, to the astonishment of friend and foe alike. The centuries after the calamity lacked ideological form. Similarly, a history built on negation would be formless and nameless: a shadowy moment, however long, between one true age and another.”
― The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
― The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
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“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”
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“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”
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“You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you; you hate it because you are afraid of it; you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved.”
― We
― We
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Federico’s 2025 Year in Books
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