But when the social entity grows large, becomes a megalopolis, a state, a federation, then the governing machine grows remote, impersonal, even inhum… - Anthony Burgess
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But when the social entity grows large, becomes a megalopolis, a state, a federation, then the governing machine grows remote, impersonal, even inhuman. It takes money from us for purposes we do not seem to sanction; it treats us as abstract statistics; it controls an army; it supports a police force whose function does not always appear to be protective.
Anthony Burgess (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) was an English writer and composer whose novels include the Malayan trilogy, A Clockwork Orange, the Enderby cycle, Nothing Like The Sun, Earthly Powers and The Kingdom Of The Wicked. He also produced critical works on Joyce, Lawrence, Hemingway and Shakespeare, and studies of language and of pornography.
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Because I'm too drunk to feel the pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be dead.
An eye for an eye, I say. If someone hits you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also? But the new view is to say no. The new view is that we turn the bad into the good. All of which seems to me grossly unjust.
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