The Russian Nihilists, while of course being fools and the intellectual equivalent of children playing with matches, at least had the excuse of living in an often-cruel monarchy where there was mass poverty and mass misery, while still being under the sway of all sorts of techno-utopian dreams (steel, electricity and railroads will build…
The Russian Nihilists, while of course being fools and the intellectual equivalent of children playing with matches, at least had the excuse of living in an often-cruel monarchy where there was mass poverty and mass misery, while still being under the sway of all sorts of techno-utopian dreams (steel, electricity and railroads will build a glorious future!) and the Cult of Reason that promised to magically transform fractious apes into a brotherhood of bonobos; but our transgressive elite have no such excuses, they live in the safest richest most prosperous country ever created but want to"burn the whole system down" because someone somewhere has a wounded feeling and/or because there are still some flat surfaces that refuse to tell them they're the fairest of them all—when what they most crave is letting the whole planet know how special, stunning and brave they are.
Our transgressive elite are the equivalent of one of those child monsters from "My Super Sweet 16" who gets a new Porsche for her birthday but then weepily denounces her parents because it's the wrong color. They are afflicted with a terminal case of radical ingratitude and can only denounce and destroy what they could never build. If the price of freedom means living with a permanently aggrieved class of performing infants always searching for social fires to pour lighter fluid on, then maybe the rigid Russian aristocracy wasn't so backwards after all.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
The Russian Nihilists, while of course being fools and the intellectual equivalent of children playing with matches, at least had the excuse of living in an often-cruel monarchy where there was mass poverty and mass misery, while still being under the sway of all sorts of techno-utopian dreams (steel, electricity and railroads will build a glorious future!) and the Cult of Reason that promised to magically transform fractious apes into a brotherhood of bonobos; but our transgressive elite have no such excuses, they live in the safest richest most prosperous country ever created but want to"burn the whole system down" because someone somewhere has a wounded feeling and/or because there are still some flat surfaces that refuse to tell them they're the fairest of them all—when what they most crave is letting the whole planet know how special, stunning and brave they are.
Our transgressive elite are the equivalent of one of those child monsters from "My Super Sweet 16" who gets a new Porsche for her birthday but then weepily denounces her parents because it's the wrong color. They are afflicted with a terminal case of radical ingratitude and can only denounce and destroy what they could never build. If the price of freedom means living with a permanently aggrieved class of performing infants always searching for social fires to pour lighter fluid on, then maybe the rigid Russian aristocracy wasn't so backwards after all.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
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