Sublime

Hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his honor and his life in order to become the President of the United States; because the power of that office is temporary, limited, and subordinate.

The Fourth Turning Thesis The Fourth Turning and Ages of Discord both predict very significant unrest within the US in the coming years.

Hence, we are more likely to accept a dangerous idea if it aligns with our own experiences and is supported by the people we value.

Or ce principe cardinal s’applique parfaitement à la compréhension du XXe siècle, dont le cours tragique s’organisa autour de l’affrontement entre les nations et les empires, entre la démocratie et le totalitarisme. La dénonciation des thèses raciales de Gobineau, comme la critique du socialisme, qui sacrifie la liberté à l’égalité, souligne par an

La seule façon de sauvegarder la complexité d’une société, c’est-à-dire ses libertés, avec un minimum d’autorité répressive, ne peut être autre chose que le sentiment vécu d’appartenance à la communauté.

The institutional crisis is rooted in two things. First, the governing class, and the technocrats, accumulate power and wealth, and they begin to shape the institutions to protect their interests. The second problem is that the expertise that won World War II and built the postwar world is now encountering its own problem of inefficiency—diffusion.

Power worship blurs political judgement because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible. If the Japanese have conquered south Asia, then they will keep south Asia for ever, if the Germans have captured Tobruk, they will infallibly capture Cairo

Such trends compelled me to stand my ground. I worked to expose Said’s Orientalism screed, noting that the first experts on the Middle East came from Germany and Hungary, neither of which ever colonized the region.