The following excerpt is from an essay where the inimitable Theodore Dalrymple writes on how those who seek to 'enlighten' (NB the phrase at the top of my blog) often achieve the exact opposite and instead create 'chains of our own devices':
"What Habermas fails to recognize is that self-destruction—which he correctly implies has reached epidemic proportions among a segment of the population—grows out of attitudes to life, beliefs, and mentalities; it is not a mechanical response to a mechanical problem. And one of the beliefs that favors self-destruction is that no alternative to it is possible, because the world is so constituted, at least until the people’s saviors gain power, that one’s choices make no difference to the course of one’s life. This is precisely the belief that Habermas seeks to promote. But it is not true, at least in minimally open societies, as the success of various minorities demonstrates. Habermas and those who think like him are thus purveyors of Blake’s “mind forg’d manacles” that lead to so much misery in the midst of plenty."
"Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.” C. S. Lewis
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