"It is also typical of our time that the growth of the state does not go along with the belief - as exhibited in the past - in its miraculous power. The state has ceased to be associated with great hopes and is no longer viewed as a political object of worship. Rather, it appears that with its growing influence and progressive taking on of new responsibilities, the state has lost the respect of its citizens. Demands directed at the state are nowadays expressed in a tone of exasperation and angry impatience rather than with belief in its charitable omnipotence. It can be considered a paradox that a liberal-democratic man expects more and more from the state that he values less and less."
The Demon in Democracy by Ryszard Legutko, 2016.
5 comments:
The state has grown like cancer. It is too large and unwieldy to be of any real use to most, except to those criminals, lobbyists, and lawyers who make its operation their main study. We need distributed political agency, not AT-ATs stumbling about destroying things trying to get somewhere.
I think you'll like this book. The author is a Conservative Polish politician and the majority of book is a criticism of liberal democracy. I agree with some of what he's saying. I think you'll agree with a lot more.
Ooh, probably. I keep wanting to do a series on Eastern Europe, Poland in particular. It's survived being torn apart several times but always come back!
Final review (once I finish it!) in about 2-3 weeks. It's interesting that he compares and contrasts living previously under the Soviet Union and later as a member state of the European Union - so will probably tick a lot of boxes for you.
Heh, probably. I'd have to be cautious about reading it given my biases, though....fuel for the fire and so on.
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