James

“This book was not written ‘so that it will not happen again’, as the cliché would have it. This book was written because it almost certainly will happen again. Totalitarian philosophies have had, and will continue to have, a profound appeal to many millions of people.”
― Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History

“When we fail to properly civilize people, human nature rushes in. Absent a higher alternative, human nature drives us to make sense of the world on its own instinctual terms: That’s tribalism.”
― Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy

“The mob is primarily a group in which the residue of all classes are represented. This makes it so easy to mistake the mob for the people, which also comprises all strata of society. While the people in all great revolutions fight for true representation, the mob always will shout for the “strong man,” the “great leader.” For the mob hates society from which it is excluded, as well as Parliament where it is not represented.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

“Capitalism is unnatural.
Democracy is unnatural.
Human rights are unnatural.
The world we live in today is unnatural, and we stumble into it more or less by accident.
The natural state of mankind is grinding poverty punctuated by horrific violence terminating with an early death.
It was like this for a very very long time.”
― Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy