12-30-2016, 11:48 AM
(12-30-2016, 12:14 AM)Galen Wrote:(12-28-2016, 08:19 AM)Odin Wrote: These Fascist lunatics are a threat to a free society. They are exactly the type Popper was talking about when he said that we might have to suppress the intolerant to preserve a tolerant society.
I think I have heard something very similar to this a long time ago: We have to destroy the village to save it.
Education beyond the level of rote memorization and narrow vocational training ideally opens minds so that people can think outside the normal strictures of dogma. A college in which the instructors are scared to disagree with the official ideology of the day cannot turn out people capable of independent thought. Politicians and causes come and go. Basic reality does not change.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.