Sublime

1ER SOCLE DISRUPTÉ : L’IMMOBILISME DES CITOYENS Les États-nations modernes ont été créés avec un principe sous-jacent qui n’a jamais été vraiment pensé, parce qu’il était, pendant la plus grande partie de l’histoire, un acquis : l’immobilisme de leur population.

The man that the Times article reported as being both “sadder” and “wiser” than when he was first imprisoned went on to construct one of humanity’s darkest regimes, ignited a war that killed tens of millions of people, and engineered the world’s first program of mechanized genocide, making him the last person a reader of the Times should think “was

I recognized the oldest political questions: Home or exile? Lord or subject? Master or slave? These are eternal themes of knowledge, authority, and power that can never be settled for all time. There is no end of history; each generation must assert its will and imagination as new threats require us to retry the case in every age.

In the twentieth century, the masses revolted against exploitation and sought to translate their vital role in the economy into political power. Now the masses fear irrelevance, and they are frantic to use their remaining political power before it is too late.

the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction.

In one of the most haunting passages of his masterwork, Democracy in America, he says that democracies are at risk of a completely new form of oppression for which there is no precedent in the past. It will happen, he says, when people exist solely in and for themselves, leaving the pursuit of the common good to the government. This is what life