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Jacob Burckhardt and Ernest Renan were among the very few in the hopeful second half of the nineteenth century who sensed the ominous implications lurking in the coming millennium. Burckhardt saw the militarized society: “I have a premonition which sounds like utter folly, and yet which positively will not leave me: the military state must become one great factory…. What must logically come is a definite and supervised stint of misery, with promotions and in uniform, daily begun and ended to the sound of drums.”9 Renan's insight went deeper. He felt that socialism was the coming religion of ...more
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
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