Revolutionary thought of the day:
"What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please."
Hannah Arendt, 1974 interview
6 comments:
My progreessive high school had us read 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' in 1962--fascinating history, we thought, though, of course, it couldn't happen here.
Seems like that would be a good companion to 1984 -- and Handmaid's Tale.
Also where did you go to HS?
https://www.commschool.org/
Commonwealth School in Boston
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."
ML King's remark is not far from the pendulum idea, and, of course, it is total nonsense, at least to an atheist. Or, the arc (or the pendulum swing) is so damn long it can be measured in light-years, not much use to struggling and short-lived primates.
I used to love that quote. It's majestic. I was a teenager and it made my heart soar. Then my worldview solidified, and I realized there was no arc. And the universe doesn't know or care about justice. That in fact there is no moral universe at all.
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