Thursday 18 October 2007

A Chief Claim to Notice

“To-day I notice that every political passion is furnished with a whole network of strongly woven doctrines, the sole object of which is to show the supreme value of its action from every point of view, while the result is a redoubling of its strength as a passion. . . . Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds. It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity.”

Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2007), pp.26-7; original emphasis.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"intellectual organization of political hatreds": yes, but they are not the only follies around. There's "Juvenile Sentimentality", as in an example I saw the other day where some foolish woman was romancing on about learning from Einstein's example, as devoted husband, father... The man discarded a child and was serially unfaithful to his wives, whom he also bullied. But he was a Great Man, therefore...