Thread by @EveKeneinan

A very important point.

https://twitter.com/PithyJoe/status/1130504972150431744

A corollary is that “evil”—and who uses that old-fashioned term anymore, anyway? We’re so smart we know that there is no evil, only the “problematic” and the “not OK”—evil exists not in PERSONS or ACTIONS but IN THE SYSTEM.

It’s just in the air, somehow, somewhere.

Sargon was pointing out yesterdays that when gangs of Muslims attack people, the British media (and the US media does this to) reports that “violence broke out” or “flared up.”

Political violence is like WEATHER.

No one is RESPONSIBLE for it.

Reminds me of Sadiq Khan’s remarks that terrorism “just happens” in big cities.

It’s like weather.

I guess Tokyo just has an excellent climate.

Rousseau was the first to proclaim the idea of human perfectibility on earth.

Locke had no such delusion.

The American Revolution was Lockean, and was pretty damn civil as far as “revolutions” go.

The French Revolution was Rousseauian and was … not civil.

Hobbes thought that autocratic tyranny was better than anarchy—and he seems to be right about that. Look at Iraq post-Saddam or Libya post-Gaddafi. Also why we probably shouldn’t depose Assad in Syria.

But Hobbes seems to have regarded these options as an either/or.

Locke argued for an Aristotelian mean, of something like a Constitutional monarchy where the ruler is not above the law and the POLITEIA is a compact that guarantees equal fundamental rights to all.

Sounds good, but how to implement it?

America seems like the best attempt.

Rousseau got the MAD IDEA that if we could just make EVERYONE, as a COLLECTIVE the TYRANT that somehow SOCIAL JUSTICE would fall out of that.

Because the GENERAL WILL OF THE PEOPLE knows what is BEST FOR THE PEOPLE — by definition!

He forgot THE PEOPLE is made of persons.