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One possible answer to the problem of disorder is Gnosticism. This view, which began in the ancient world and has been reawakened at various points in time up to the present, maintains that the material world is inherently fallen and
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“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.”
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“When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about the”
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“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
― History of the Peloponnesian War
― History of the Peloponnesian War
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”
― Principles of Political Economy
― Principles of Political Economy
Ben’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ben’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
139 books
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22 friends
136 books
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244 books
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105 books
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347 books
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193 books
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852 books
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265 books
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