Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. These effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic--in every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.The insight is much more subtle than it might superficially seem, and how powerful! In my estimation, it is also the single most concise and greatest refutation of political correctness.
Ironically, Nietzsche wasn't much of a political philosopher (not that he wasn't good at it... he just didn't have a taste for matters concerning the masses), but his unprecedented insights into human psychology remains unmatched.
Anyway, I was reminded of him when I saw the short, animated video below, which quickly explores the seemingly positive aspects of security monitoring measures, but then also shows how the desire for protection is inversely proportional to freedom: the more we have of one, the less we have of the other.
If freedom and protection are inversely proportional, as I tend to think they are, then we as a nation have to choose which one is more important to us. This time I believe it was Benjamin Franklin who said it best:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.I choose freedom... You?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment