All quotes are taken from Requiem for Modern Politics by William Ophuls. All quotes are his unless otherwise indicated. I'll post a few quotes each time with the intention that they will act as thought seeds. Is this guy nuts or is he on to something?
The major advances in civilization are processes which all but wrecked the societies in which they occur.
Alfred North Whitehead (xv)
Of course, all political paradigms contain inherent contradictions and therefore generate problems that must be solved.The job of the statesman, as opposed to the mere politician, is to preserve the paradigm by dealing effectively with these problems. However, if political wisdom and skill are lacking or if the contradictions are very deep, small problems eventually coalesce into a large problemmatique that challenges the old paradigm. At this point, more reform, however well conceived, no longer suffices and may even make matters worse, so pressure builds up for a fundamental change in regime. (26)
The challenge is to find a way of going beyond a moral individualism without losing the individual along the way. (27)
