Leo Tolstoy on the Obsolescence of the State as a Form of Government and the Antidote to Violence

“Violence no longer rests on the belief in its utility, but only on the fact of its having existed so long, and being organized by the ruling classes who profit by it.”

“To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears,” Octavia Butler wrote in her searing admonition about choosing our leaders. “To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.” But in some deep animal sense, to be led at all is to risk handing one’s own moral conscience over to an...