Quentin Crisp’s Reviews > The Power of the Powerless > Status Update

"For some time now, the problem has no longer resided in a political line or programme: it is a problem of life itself." In other words, it doesn't matter now 'who you vote for'. The post-totalitarian system controls all specific political programmes. "Thus defending the aims of life, defending humanity [against the post-totalitarian system] is ... a more realistic approach ..."

Page 39: "Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can coexist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line *denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety*."

This is altogether too relevant to our current times. I am sure there are countless people in the UK already who think (or pretend) they are defending human rights or serving the public when what they are actually doing is, enforcing, to use Havel's term, the "post-totalitarian system": "... it is precisely the diktat of the empty phrase that summons to power people who use empty phrases ..."