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But neither of them were charismatic leaders, like Hitler, Mussolini, Perón, or Fidel Castro, who appealed to the “spirit of the tribe” in their speeches.
But neither of them were charismatic leaders, like Hitler, Mussolini, Perón, or Fidel Castro, who appealed to the “spirit of the tribe” in their speeches.
freedom is the supreme value, it is not divisible or fragmentary, but rather indivisible, and must be evident in every sphere—be it economic, political, social, or cultural—in a genuinely democratic society.
freedom is the supreme value, it is not divisible or fragmentary, but rather indivisible, and must be evident in every sphere—be it economic, political, social, or cultural—in a genuinely democratic society.
many democratic initiatives also failed in Latin America, because they respected political freedoms but did not believe in economic freedom—the free market—which is what brings material development and progress.
many democratic initiatives also failed in Latin America, because they respected political freedoms but did not believe in economic freedom—the free market—which is what brings material development and progress.
a natural sense of sympathy toward one’s neighbor is what draws one individual to another, something that would never occur if human actions were exclusively governed by reason.
a natural sense of sympathy toward one’s neighbor is what draws one individual to another, something that would never occur if human actions were exclusively governed by reason.
why cant reason promote it?
a natural sense of sympathy toward one’s neighbor is what draws one individual to another, something that would never occur if human actions were exclusively governed by reason.
why cant reason promote it?
The vision of man and society that permeates this book is positive and optimistic, for Adam Smith believes that, despite all the horrors that are committed, goodness—that is, moral sentiments—prevail over evil.
The vision of man and society that permeates this book is positive and optimistic, for Adam Smith believes that, despite all the horrors that are committed, goodness—that is, moral sentiments—prevail over evil.
Ortega was an elitist with respect to culture, but his elitism was not at odds with his democratic convictions because it focused on the creation of cultural goods and how they matched up to a demanding scale of values.
However, Ortega y Gasset’s liberalism, while genuine, is partial. His defense of individuals and their sovereign rights, of a small, secular state that stimulates rather than suffocates individual liberty, of a plurality of opinions and criticisms, does not include a defense of economic freedom and the free market.
He argues that the idea that a nation is built on communities defined by race, religion, or language is a myth
Ortega does not recognize that it is normal for outsiders to have a better understanding of what is happening inside dictatorial regimes, because censorship prevents those suffering under dictatorship from being fully aware of the situation in which they are living.
One of his most famous phrases was “Clarity is the courtesy of the philosopher,” a maxim that he always adhered to when it came to writing.
And in The Dehumanization of Art (1925), he described, with a wealth of detail and great accuracy, the progressive divorce—driven by the extraordinary revolution in form introduced by vanguard movements in music, painting, and literature—between modern art and the general public, a phenomenon without precedent in the history of civilization.
A freedom that is, at the same time, the driving force of material progress, of science, arts, and letters, and of a civilization that has produced sovereign individuals, with their independence, their rights, and their responsibilities that are always held in balance with those of other individuals, protected by a legal system that guarantees coexistence
Saint-Simonianism eliminates everything that could be the cause of division and inequality among people: private property, the market, competition, and, in the final instance, liberty, that is the source of inequalities, abuse, and exploitation in the capitalist system.
Needless to say, individualism does not mean the romantic vision whereby all the great events in history as well as the definitive advances in the scientific, cultural, and social fields are the products of the feats of exceptional individuals, of heroes.
A conservative, Hayek says, does not offer any alternative to the direction in which the world is traveling, while for a liberal what is essential is what we are moving toward.
Patriotism for liberals is a beneficial feeling, one of solidarity and love for the country in which they are born, for their ancestors, for the language they speak, for their shared history, something that is perfectly healthy and legitimate, while nationalism is a negative passion, a pernicious affirmation and defense of one’s own against the outsider,
By contrast he was always a firm defender of minorities, of the poor, and of the “culture clash” that, in his opinion, would be as enriching as the cultural collision between the Greek and Eastern cultures that produced the “Greek miracle” in the era of Pericles.
“Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories arises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles.
the backbone of his philosophy: a scientific theory (which in essence is different from a metaphysical theory) can only be called such if it can be “falsified” or refuted;
Those who think that one of the functions of social sciences is to “forecast” the future, to “predict” history are victims of an illusion, for that is an unattainable goal.
But the fact that there are no laws of history does not mean that there are not certain tendencies in human evolution.
history admits many coincidental, complementary, or contradictory interpretations, but no “law” in the sense of a unique and inevitable course of events.
Popper’s conception of written history seems exactly what I have always believed a novel to be: an arbitrary organization of human reality that protects men and women against the anguish produced by our intuition that the world, life itself, is a vast disorder.
in these works Popper lucidly defends the reformist method—both democratic and liberal—of a gradual and consensual transformation of society against the revolutionary desire to change society in an immediate, total, and definitive way.
For in the final instance, it is the way in which institutions resonate with these traditions that determines whether they succeed or fail. However well thought out these institutions might be, they will achieve their goals only if they are closely attuned to that ineffable, unwritten “moral framework” that is so decisive in the life of a nation.
Because although ideas are not made up just of words, as Barthes believed, without the appropriate words to embody and communicate them, ideas will never be all that they might be.
“Quand ça devient trop bête, je cesse de comprendre” (“When it becomes too stupid, I cease to understand”).
It is also not true that when the workers obtained power in the U.S.S.R., they became “liberated”: they are still slaves, not now to capitalists, but to political leaders who proclaim themselves as representatives of history,
These industrial societies have shown that “there is no incompatibility between political freedoms and wealth, between the mechanisms of the market and the rise in living standards: quite the reverse, the highest living standards have been achieved in countries that have political democracy and a relatively free economy.”
What is the use of such a dazzling intelligence if, after his return from his tour across the U.S.S.R. in the 1950s, in the worst period of the Gulag, he could state, “I have ascertained that there is a complete freedom of criticism in the Soviet Union.”
“Fair play” is only a technique that, like all narrative techniques, has just one function: to make the content more persuasive.
it is ideas that must give way if they come into contradiction with human reality, since if the reverse occurs, the streets are filled with guillotines and firing-squad walls and the reign of the censors and the police begins.
Among the preserved fragments from the Greek poet Archilochus, there is a line that says: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Unlike France, which turns its great thinkers and writers into media figures and popular icons, Britain hides them away and keeps them in the shadows
