Tolstoy the Libertarian
Anarchism, Postmodernism November 30th, 2007A Libertarian and Relativist quote taken from the Christian Anarchist Leo Tolstoy. Somewhat compatible with discourse theory.
”That this social order with its pauperism, famines, prisons, gallows, armies, and wars is necessary to society; that still greater disaster would ensue if this organisation were destroyed; all this is said only by those who profit by this organisation, while those who suffer from it – and they are ten times as numerous – think and say quite the contrary.” Leo Tolstoy – The Kingdom of God is Within You.
The terms social order and organisation can be replacd with any form of discourse of power. Although the numbers that can be said to suffer from it will vary proportionate to the power of the discursive practise.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Jebus I love it when something comes up in the news that compliments a post. In todays newspapers French President Nicolas Sarkozy is reported making some disparaging and authoritarian remarks concerning the new wave of Parisian Riots. These riots started after two boys were killed in a collision with a Police car in the suburb of Villiers-Le-Bel
The ever tolerant Sarkozy described the rioting thus:
‘What happened has nothing to do with a social crisis. It has everything to do with a “Thugocracy”.’
The hard man of French Politics has also decided that improved facilities in the impoverished suburbs of Paris are not the solution but that:
‘The response to the riots isnt yet more money on the backs of the taxpayers. The response to the riots is to arrest the rioters’.