The Earth Is The Very Quintessence Of

The Role Played By Education In All Political Utopias From Ancient Times Onward Shows How Natural It Seems To Start A New World With Those Who Are By Birth And Nature New. So Far As Politics Is Concerned, This Involves Of Course A Serious Misconception: Instead Of Joining With One's Equals In Assuming The Effort Of Persuasion And Running The Risk Of Failure, There Is Dictatorial Intervention, Based Upon The Absolute Superiority Of The Adult, And The Attempt To Produce The New As A Fait Accompli, That Is, As Though The New Already Existed.

The Trouble With Eichmann Was Precisely That So Many Were Like Him, And That The Many Were Neither Perverted Nor Sadistic, That They Were, And Still Are, Terribly And Terrifyingly Normal. From The Viewpoint Of Our Legal Institutions And Of Our Moral Standards Of Judgment, This Normality Was Much More Terrifying Than All The Atrocities Put Together.

Manipulations Of Opinion, Insofar As They Are Inspired By Well-defined Interests, Have Limited Goals; Their Effect, However, If They Happen To Touch Upon An Issue Of Authentic Concern, Is No Longer Subject To Their Control And May Easily Produce Consequences They Never Foresaw Or Intended.

The Most Striking Difference Between Ancient And Modern Sophists Is That The Ancients Were Satisfied With A Passing Victory Of Argument At The Expense Of Truth, Whereas The Moderns Want A More Lasting Victory At The Expense Of Reality.

Without Being Bound To The Fulfillment Of Promises, We Would Never Be Able To Keep Our Identities; We Would Be Condemned To Wanderhelplessly And Without Direction In The Darkness Of Each Man's Lonely Heart, Caught In Its Contradictions And Equivocalities--a Darkness Which Only The Light Shed Over The Public Realm Through The Presence Of Others, Who Confirm The Identity Between The One Who Promises And The One Who Fulfills, Can Dispel.