[Praetorian]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door lombas

"Up till our own times," Benda wrote, "men had only received two sorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and morality. One was Plato's, and it said: 'Morality decides politics'; the other was Machiavelli's, and it said: 'Politics have nothing to do with morality.' Today they receive a third. M. Maurras teaches: 'Politics decide morality.'

In working, living, and believing the state is now arbiter. It decides about the workplace, about the family and about values. Since the market is no longer allowed to function freely, the state must decide what to produce and how to distribute that production; since the family as a social unit has declined because of the erosion of parental responsibilities largely as a result of state action, the state must now decide over education, health, behavior and all other aspects of growing up and earning a living; and, finally, since the state decides what values should prevail in society, and ensures that such values are embodied in legislation and enforced by bureaucracies, the state has increasingly replaced the church in determining how we should behave. Politics is now religion.



HARTWELL, R.M. in: Kenneth Templeton, The Politicization of Society, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 1979, pp. 23-24.

La trahison des clercs. Geef toe, er is een ironisch kantje aan de zaak wanneer jij Benda betrekt in deze discussie.