Writing of the literary influences over the French Revolution, Tocqueville marveled at ‘the most unusual historical situation – in which the entire political education of a great nation was carried out by men of letters’: Under their lengthy discipline, in the absence of other leaders, and given the profound ignorance of practice from which all suffered, the nation read their works and acquired the instincts, the cast of mind, the tastes, and even the peculiarities of those who wrote. So that when the nation finally had to act, it carried over into politics all the habits of literature.
We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.
“There is a role for carrots and sticks, but to rely on carrots and sticks alone is effective only when we employ donkeys and we are sure exactly what we want the donkeys to do.”
IN ORDER TO fight totalitarianism, one need understand only one thing: Totalitarianism is the most radical denial of freedom.
