I heard afterwards that you despised me for changing my
convictions. But what are the men I’ve broken with? The enemies of all true
life, out-of-date Liberals who are afraid of their own independence, the
flunkeys of thought, the enemies of individuality and freedom, the decrepit
advocates of deadness and rottenness! All they have to offer is senility, a
glorious mediocrity of the most bourgeois kind, contemptible shallowness, a
jealous equality, equality without individual dignity, equality as it’s
understood by flunkeys or by the French in ‘93. And the worst of it is there
are swarms of scoundrels among them, swarms of scoundrels.
Fyodor Dostoevsky – Demons (1871-72)
A quote with lots of obvious applications to the modern
world. Boris needs to be careful – he’ll soon be seen as one of them – a
flunkey of thought.
2 comments:
It seems that Boris's big flaw is that he wants to be loved and admired. That's not a bad trait in a politician when dealing with something he understands, like Brexit. The problems start when he is out of his depth - as anyone would be with Corona - and uses massive state power in an attempt to retain popularity.
Sam - I haven't really looked at it like that but you must be right. Wanting to be liked runs through Boris' career. Something else seems to be going on too, as if the government is using the pandemic to implement more green fantasies.
Post a Comment