This is the fundamental problem that the West has: we don't have jacobins. We don't have political and intellectual elites that aren't cynical about our own values. It is not like we will punish some extreme Muslim treating his wife like a slave with a jail time. We will just be politically correct and say that's his culture. Liberalism doesn't go well with radicalism for some reason. Radical Liberals like Robespierre, Danton are needed. People who believe in our Western values enough to die in their name. If we are cynical about ourselves how on Earth can we compete with people who commit suicide because they believe in their values more than their life. That's something we really need. We give up our values for nothing. Who cares about China? Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. I wish we could have elites today that would be as serious about freedom, liberalism and capitalism as French Revolutionaries were. I hope I will live to see it. Just tired of the apathy in the US. Wake up!
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant."
-Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945))
> Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France.
Oh irony of ironies.
That type of thing is exactly why I'm glad there's a dearth of such extreme political fanaticism. In the end, a democracy will only be as intelligent as its people are educated, and even the educated can fall prey to the madness of the masses. Demagogues take control, and soon enough you have actors blacklisted as Commies, mosques being attacked, free speech "advocates" murdering dissenters, and -- maybe -- Chinese nationals being rounded up in the streets.
Radicalism isn't always a bad thing. The problem with the current Western civilization is that we traded radicalism for cynism and liberty for safety. This has nothing to do with education. Goring was very well educated. Most of the population in any country of the world will turn into angry blood thirsty mob - as soon as you leave them without choice. Look at Golden Dawn and Greece. It's not like Greeks becamse angry blood thirsty mob overnight. It was a process of radicalisation in the wrong direction. And if good people in Greece won't wake up and stand up radically for the liberal values the Greece will be lost. And this will be precisely because Greek elites that represent Liberal way of thinking are cynical about their own values. They don't look like they believe in them. They don't look like they believe in anything. And that's not a political class that you will vote for in a crisis. For the crisis you need someone with a balls and vision, not someone mumbling about political correctness and gay rights.
Radicalism is like a knife. In bad hands or minds it will surely do more harm than good, but giving up on it altogether isn't wise. Especially when you are a good guy and refuse to be radical in your efforts to spread good.
You do know that your buddy robespierre is far closer to fanatics like the chinese and radical islamists than is it to liberalism? after all the guy sent anyone who opposed him to the guillotine, he was the architect of the reign of terror in france and it didn't end until he got his head cut.
Why don't use actual real-life cases of similar people, like FDR?
The whole of Europe basically declared war on France when Robespierre was in charge. He wasn't looking for another excuse to kill a few thousand people. He couldn't have having traitors in this circumstance. People forget about historical circumstances when talking about Robespierre. He wasn't looking for excuses to kill people like Stalin. He really had no choice, the spies of these 6 countries really were there, and the country was also on the verge of civil war. And big chunks of French elites supported the outside interventions to restore monarchy. How you deal with that? By talking about gay rights? And Robespierre did know that he will die in the process. When you read him, he says it openly - I know the process will swallow me - he accepted that. All I'm saying is, this is what we need now, if we don't want to continue on this path of cultural suicide.
Stalin was looking for excuses to kill people. For example in 1937 - way before World War 2 started in Europe - he ordered murdering of all officers in the Red Army. If I remember exactly over 30,000 people were killed. There was no enemy for Russia at that time. There was no war going on. Nothing. Just Stalin's paranoia.
Robespierre on the other hand was governing France that was on a verge of a civil war: monarchists vs. republicans/liberals/democrats. He was governing France that was in state of war with basically whole of Europe. Six foreign powers if I remember correctly attacked France at the same time trying to restore the monarchy. With monarchist in France - French people - supporting the foreign powers. You tell me there is no difference? Please elaborate.
Agreed. I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China.
Westernism is suffering a crisis of conscious right now. We are trading what we have fought for for things we are afraid of. Wake up, indeed.
> I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China.
As long as it stays as just your opinion, that's fine. But I'd have a problem with people who think they should take their opinions on morals & ethics and go force it on other parts of the world. And before anyone asks, no I'm not saying genocide should be ignored because "that's their culture." But going to another place and pointing guns in their face saying "stop being violent!" is a bad idea, imho
That leaves us with an interesting conundrum - what, pray tell, should we do about genocide then?
Actually stopping people has just been taken off the table by you. Sitting around and lamenting the state of the world is only going to make us feel better, but won't do much for people being slaughtered for their race/beliefs/orientation/whatnot.
