And how, asks Huvelius, are such wars to be waged? The wise prince, he replies, will begin by assuming the enemy to be infinitely corruptible and infinitely stupid, since stupidity and corruption are the chief characteristics of man. So the prince will make himself friends in the very councils of his enemy, and also amongst the populace, bribing the wealthy by proffering to them the opportunity of still greater wealth, and winning the poor by swelling words. "For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have, dismiss them with a hearty kick, and win their hearts and their votes for ever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty." Guided by these principles, says Huvelius, the wise prince will entrench himself in the country that he desires to conquer; "nay, with but little trouble, he may actually and literally throw his garrisons into the heart of the enemy country before war has begun."
Monday, September 30, 2013
Arthur Machen note
From "The Terror", 1917
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2 comments:
Discouraging, but one has to think there is much to it.
Post this at a MSM site and the comments will quickly fill up with sneers about the Tea Party and Christian conservatives. On a conservative site, the youth vote and minority clusters in the Democratic coalition with draw the accusations. Yet what if it is just true in general, regardless of party and the temporary popular issues of the day?
The magic words change, but the same principle seems to keep popping up through European history. I don't know history elsewhere in enough detail to know what the poor were like. Did the Chinese leaders take their Confucian obligations to the people seriously most of the time? (Probably not ...)
Throw a little red meat to the base now and then, and then only do something major if it increases your or a well-connected friends' influence.
It must not be very hard to persuade yourself of the essential identity between your short-term interests and those of the whole tribe.
And if there is more than one tribe in a nation...
Something you noted a while back I need to ponder on some more--that with the average IQ difference, members of some tribes will be much more likely to have friends/family unable to keep up in modern society.
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