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The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the product… - Steven Erikson
" "The argument was this: a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart.
And so, in the clash of these two extreme systems, one is witness to brute stupidity and blood-splashed insensitivity; two belligerent faces glowering at each other across the unfathomed distance, and yet, in deed and in fanatic regard, they are but mirror reflections.
This would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetically idiotic…
English
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About Steven Erikson
Steven Erikson (born 7 October 1959) is the pseudonym of Steve Rune Lundin, a Canadian archaeologist, anthropologist and novelist.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Steve Rune Lundin
Alternative Names:
Steve Lundin
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Shorter versions of this quote
a civilization shackled to the strictures of excessive control on its populace, from choice of religion through to the production of goods, will sap the will and the ingenuity of its people – for whom such qualities are no longer given sufficient incentive or reward. At face value, this is accurate enough. Trouble arrives when the opponents to such a system institute its extreme opposite, where individualism becomes godlike and sacrosanct, and no greater service to any other ideal (including community) is possible. In such a system rapacious greed thrives behind the guise of freedom, and the worst aspects of human nature come to the fore, a kind of intransigence as fierce and nonsensical as its maternalistic counterpart.
Additional quotes by Steven Erikson
Pogroms need no reason, sir, none that can weather challenge, in any case. Difference in kind is the first recognition, the only one needed, in fact. Land, domination, pre-emptive attacks — all just excuses, mundane justifications that do nothing but disguise the simple distinction. They are not us. We are not them.
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