“As [Isaiah] Berlin wrote to George Kennan in 1951, 'What we violently reject is ... the very idea that there are circumstances in which one has a right to get at, and shape the characters and souls of other men for purposes which these men, if they realized what we were doing, might reject.' The respect for individual liberty goes hand in hand with the recognition of human dignity as a fundamental principle and is incompatible with treating human beings as sheer material to be conditioned and shaped at will.” LibertyHumanismModerationMarxismTotalitarianismAuthoritarianismPolitical TheoryUtopianism Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes Source: Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes
“It was assumed that entire societies could be transformed and changed in a relatively short span of time if only enough people were prepared to accept and follow the principles and priorities set by a vanguard in possession of those timeless standards. The only things that remained to be done, [Isaiah] Berlin wryly noted, was to eliminate all obstacles (human and material) to progress before the process of building the radiant future could begin in earnest. This could be done in one step through violence or gradually through persuasion, threats, reeducation, disenfranchisement, dispossession of property, relocation, coercion, blackmail, denunciation, and, if necessary, terror.” ModerationMarxismExtremismAuthoritarianismUtopianismMonism Book:Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes Source: Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes