World history is the history of states; the history of states is the history of wars.

World history is the history of states; the history of states is the history of wars.

Oswald Spengler


'The Right affirms inherited hierarchy, favors the particularistic while being suspicious of what claims to be the universal, aims at preserving social traditions where possible, and opposes the Left by every means at its disposal. The Left takes the opposite positions on the first three points out of a sense of fairness, a passionate commitment to the advancement of equality, and a conception of human beings that stresses sameness or interchangeability. Whereas the Right believes in what Aristotle defined as the order of the household—in which elaborately defined distinctions are deemed “natural”—the Left recoils from nonegalitarian arrangements. Its advocates are delighted to have state managers and judges abolish the vestiges of inherited hierarchy.

'The Left is committed to removing, as far as humanly possible, social, racial, and gender inequalities. Furthermore, the more control it accumulates, the easier it is for the Left to reconstruct or recode those who resist its planning. German social theorist Arnold Gehlen was struck by how younger Germans in the 1960s exhibited what he called “hypermorality.” Contrary to the opinion that such youth, who frequently turned into militant antifascists, suffered from a lack of values, Gehlen noticed their hysterical moral zeal spilling over into their entire lives.'

Paul Gottfried in 'Revisions and Dissents: Essays' (2017)


'Biological science may be called on, but only for the proper ideological ends, that is, for those egalitarian purposes that are to be fostered in today’s predominantly leftist political and academic culture—in the same way that the theory of evolution is fine for the Left as long as it can be directed against religionists.

'But the Darwinian hypothesis about change in the natural world becomes problematic if someone dares to turn to a forbidden subject, say, the rootedness of gender differences that have been necessary for the perpetuation of human as well as animal life.'

Ibid.

'No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution, one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.'

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four

Matt Ridley

@mattwridley

·

Aug 28

"The lockdown was an experiment in authoritarian government unmatched in our history even in wartime....Throughout history, fear has been the chief instrument of authoritarian rule. During the lockdown it was what enabled the government to silence dissent and inhibit discussion."

Daniel Hannan

@DanielJHannan

· Aug 30

It is happening even earlier than expected. People who supported the lockdown have now backdated the moment that they changed their minds, and are retrospectively furious about policies they demanded at the time.