Evan Bertschy > Recent Status Updates

“Though I did not have the words to say it then, I believe it occurred to me for the first time that even a woman might be caught up in the world of events, and be destroyed by the world.”

“we too easily assume a superiority to the "barbarians" of the West who are pleased to call themselves our masters. (I am, you see, becoming somewhat less the philosopher and somewhat more the man of the world.)… there is a kind of vitality here in Rome that a year ago I could not have been persuaded was even remotely attractive. A year ago, I had only heard of Rome; now I have seen it”

“You see, I wanted to become a Napoleon, that’s why I killed”

“He was one of that numerous and diverse legion of vulgarians, feeble miscreates, half-taught petty tyrants who make a point of instantly latching on to the most fashionable current idea, only to vulgarize it at once, to make an instant caricature of everything they themselves serve, sometimes quite sincerely.” OG grifter

“man in fact is not a scoundrel—in general, that is, the whole human race—then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that’s just how it should be!”

“domination is essential to the nature of liberalism”

“Without solidarity, freedom of speech becomes a parody of itself, used by its oligarchical enemies as a slogan to enforce their own dominance and to undermine freedom as such.”

“Eternity politics comes down to the idea that some single person should rule forever, usually to preserve wealth and avoid responsibility for crimes” (157)

“In real life, we tend to accept what people around us say; on the internet, the algorithms nestle us in an environment where we seem to be with like-minded people. Of course, some of the apparent people are bots, and others are pseudonymous fakes.”

“We are being tamed by the machine, dulled to one another. The American university class is yielding to the screen, to the cave, to the death principle. Let us all pretend that something is happening while another hour passes, do that for four years, get the piece of paper, and move on to a world of further fakery. The university should enliven, and at its best it still does”