Eric Bauer

“modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in imperial rhetoric, as a “civilizing mission.”
― James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

“The utopian, immanent, and continually frustrated goal of the modern state is to reduce the chaotic, disorderly, constantly changing social reality beneath it to something more closely resembling the administrative grid of its observations.”
― James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed

“Weapons are never the implements of good fortune, and they are to be detested. Therefore, the wise leader avoids them. Normally the wise leader values patience, but when at war he values action. Since he is opposed to the use of weapons, he uses them only when it is unavoidable, and even then with great restraint. To praise victory in war is to rejoice in the slaughter of men. The slaughter of men causes grief and sorrow to the people, therefore he who rejoices in this will not be successful. Fortune follows the restrained, misfortune follows the ambitious. Therefore victory in war should not be celebrated, but instead should be met with mourning.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“The stiff and unyielding are the companions of death, while the yielding and tender are the companions of life. Therefore we see that unbending armies cannot conquer, and the strongest tree feels the axe. The mighty will fall down low, but the humble will rise up.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching