#504: "The Dangerous Prestige of the Cause"

Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of society (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi. The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety. The character in That Hideous Strength whom the Professor never mentions is Miss Hardcastle, the chief of the secret police. She is the common factor in all revolutions; and, as she says, you won’t get anyone to do her job well unless they get some kick out of it.

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"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966). Written in response to "Auld Hornie, F.R.S." by J. B. S. Haldane, a review of the Space Trilogy.

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

#503: "It Forbids Wholesome Doubt"

"I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated, and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In other words, it forbids wholesome doubt. [...]"*

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"A Reply to Professor Haldane" (1946), published posthumously in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966). Written in response to "Auld Hornie, F.R.S." by J. B. S. Haldane, a review of the Space Trilogy. ( Bold emphasis added.)

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

#502: "By Sad Experience"

One of the most revealing scriptures of all time, proven millennia upon millennia; one that should be engraven in stone above the entrance to every palace, parliament, place of abode and council:

39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

(Doctrine & Covenants 121:39)

#501: "How Long Doth He Suffer ...?"

Another voice and warning from circa 200 BC - Ancient Americas:

20 O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them!

21 Yea, they are as a wild flock which fleeth from the shepherd, and scattereth, and are driven, and are devoured by the beasts of the forest (Book of Mormon | Mosiah 8:20-21).

#500: "Much Should Be Done"

A voice and warning from the dust of circa 400 BC - ancient Anericas:

3 Behold, it is expedient that much should be done among this people, because of the hardness of their hearts, and the deafness of their ears, and the blindness of their minds, and the stiffness of their necks; nevertheless, God is exceedingly merciful unto them, and has not as yet swept them off from the face of the land (Book of Mormon | Jarom 1:3).

#499: “Anything Can Happen”

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”*

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*On the subject freedom of press. Source: Interview with French writer Roger Errera, 1974. New York Review of Books. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019. (Bold emphasis added.)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

Hannah Arendt ... German: ... 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German-born American political theorist. Her many books and articles have had a lasting influence on political theory and philosophy. Arendt is widely considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century. / Arendt was born in Linden, a district of Hanover, in 1906, to a Jewish family. At the age of three, her family moved to Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

#498: The Law of Progress?

“The law of progress holds that everything now must be better than what was there before. Don’t you see if you want something better, and better, and better, you lose the good. The good is no longer even being measured.”*

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*On the subject progress. Source: Interview with French writer Roger Errera, 1974. New York Review of Books. As quo Scroll.in. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

Hannah Arendt ... German: ... 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German-born American political theorist. Her many books and articles have had a lasting influence on political theory and philosophy. Arendt is widely considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century. / Arendt was born in Linden, a district of Hanover, in 1906, to a Jewish family. At the age of three, her family moved to Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

# 497: “The Vice of Vices”

“What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”

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Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

Hannah Arendt ... German: ... 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German-born American political theorist. Her many books and articles have had a lasting influence on political theory and philosophy. Arendt is widely considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century. / Arendt was born in Linden, a district of Hanover, in 1906, to a Jewish family. At the age of three, her family moved to Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

#496: 1789 Wilberforce Speaks to the MPs of 2025 England

“When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God? Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we can not evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we can not pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we can not turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is bro directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.”*

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*"On the Horrors of the Slave Trade", speech delivered in the House of Commons (12 May 1789).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

#495: “The Final Sin of Man”

“The final sin of man, said Luther truly, is his unwillingness to concede that he is a sinner. The significant contribution of modern culture to this perennial human inclination lies in the number of plausible reasons which it was able to adduce in support of man's good opinion of himself.”*

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*Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr. The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, from the Gifford Lectures, (1941) , vol. 1, p. 121.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr

Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr[a] (1892–1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of America's leading public intellectuals for several decades of the 20th century and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. A public theologian, he wrote and spoke frequently about the intersection of religion, politics, and public policy, with his most influential books including Moral Man and Immoral Society and The Nature and Destiny of Man. The latter is ranked number 18 of the top 100 non-fiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.[26] Andrew Bacevich labelled Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History "the most important book ever written on U.S. foreign policy."[27] The historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described Niebuhr as "the most influential American theologian of the 20th century"[28][29] and Time posthumously called Niebuhr "the greatest Protestant theologian in America since Jonathan Edwards."[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr