quotations about absolutism
Absolutism is much damned today. It's undemocratic -- damnable for that reason alone, even if its modern exemplars did not include genocidal tyrants the likes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. But Tsunayoshi and Louis were shaped by different times. A danger more dreadful than oppression loomed -- anarchy. Absolutism, to many, seemed an acceptable price to pay for order.
MICHAEL HOFFMAN
"Absolutism: an acceptable price to pay for order", Japan Times, June 18, 2016
We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.
BARACK OBAMA
Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 2013
Every country has its own constitution; ours is absolutism moderated by assassination.
ANONYMOUS RUSSIAN
attributed, Political Sketches of the State of Europe, from 1814-1867
By its very nature absolutism is inconsistent with the natural rights that people bring into society when they engage in the mutual contract that brings that society into existence.
A. C. GRAYLING
The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind
From the perspective of absolutism, the physical and the social world are formed by many natural laws, which yield unchanging truths.
A. MEHDI RIAZI
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Research Methods in Applied Linguistics
Islam in total emphasizes meaning over form, balance over extremity and reflection over reactionaryism, countering the absolutist mindset that seeks comfort in the simplicity of fixating on outward signs, symbols and labels. Doubt is not shunned in Islam but in fact encouraged and welcomed. Accordingly, based on this reading, the purpose of Islam is to counter man's absolutist tendency, which, in my estimation, is the main pillar of violent extremist ideology.
OZCAN KELES
"Violent extremist ideology: Islam by implication or absolutism by nature", Today's Zaman, March 20, 2015
Absolutism typically confers "right" and "wrong" monikers on the parties to a conflict and seeks to assist the "right" actor in prevailing over the "wrong".... By taking sides, the absolutist approach incentivises incumbents into to-the-death defences of their positions.
MICHAEL HARRIS
"Polarised Bashir debate fails to understand foreign policy", Business Day Live, July 23, 2015
Absolutism is a dangerous path to go down, when you stop seeing people as people, and start seeing them as a caricature, you rob yourself and your opponent of humanity. And without our humanity, we are nothing.
MARK E. ANDERSON
"The right-wing and absolutism", Daily Kos, April 5, 2015
Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Absolutism is an ideological tax haven, a place to harbor your beliefs free from the taxing challenge of learning new things and refining them.
JEREMY SHERMAN
"The More Accurate Term for 'Extremist' We Should All Consider Adopting", AlterNet, December 9, 2016
The controversy over the difference (or lack of one) between absolutism and despotism accompanies the whole history of absolute monarchy. The condition of subject will be retrospectively identified with that of the slave, and subjection with "slavery," from the point of view of the new citizen and his revolution (this will also be an essential mechanism of his own idealization).
ÉTIENNE BALIBAR
"Citizen Subject", e-flux, November 2016
Absolutism is often the seed of extremist ideology.
IMELDA SAAD
"Absolutism often the seed of extremist ideology: Terror experts", Channel News Asia, June 28, 2015
We sometimes imagine morality can be a set of moral absolutes: Thou shalt not kill or Thou shalt not commit adultery. In practice such absolutism is always mitigated by circumstances. Thou shalt not kill becomes -- Thou shalt not kill except in self defense. Or -- Thou shalt not kill except when drafted into the army and told to do so.
MARTIN FRITZ
Our Human Herds: The Philosophy of Dual Morality and a Theory of Moral Evolution
Absolutism is fragile: it can also, paradoxically, enable progress.
LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT
"The Romanovs' only loyalty was to absolute power", New Statesman, February 5, 2016
Absolutism is a dangerous path to go down, when you stop seeing people as people, and start seeing them as a caricature, you rob yourself and your opponent of humanity. And without our humanity, we are nothing.
MARK E. ANDERSON
"The right-wing and absolutism", Daily Kos, April 5, 2015
A sensible, mature society recognizes that extreme, destructive positions in the name of constitutional absolutism is just another form of fundamentalism; it seeks to prevent even the consideration of reasonable, responsive policies to address national problems by declaring them preemptively out of line.
EDITORS
"Make It Stop", The Boston Globe, June 15, 2016
Absolutism, in effect, seems to give a complete and coherent form to a power that is founded only upon itself, and that is founded as being without limits (thus uncontrollable and irresistible by definition). Such a power truly makes men into subjects, and nothing but subjects, for the very being of the subject is obedience.
ÉTIENNE BALIBAR
"Citizen Subject", e-flux, November 2016
It seems as if, at least in some ways and in some quarters of society, absolutism is on the upswing in America. As society becomes more diverse and life-style choices more wide ranging, absolutism can seem to be a port in an ever-raging storm.
JAMES C. ALEXANDER
Stories of a Recovering Fundamentalist
Comparing democratic and monarchical absolutism, we shall find that the latter must needs rest its power somewhere without the monarch himself; for, as has been several times observed, the monarch had personally no more power than the meanest of the crowd. He must be supported by opinion without him; but democratic absolutism is power itself -- it is a reality -- fearfully sweeping power. It is a real power, a torrent which nothing can stem. If an individual opposes monarchical absolutism, there is something heroic in it in the eyes of the people; if a man opposes democratic absolutism, he is at once considered a heretic, a traitor to the common weal.
FRANCIS LIEBER
Manual of Political Ethics
The absolutists are more often than not fighting for a right to peddle hate, bigotry.
SWATI CHATURVEDI
"Trolls with too much free time", Hindu Business Link, August 12, 2016