'You've always been too frightened of talking nonsense, that's why you could never really do philosophy. I am not a utopian, I don't imagine that the state will wither away or the division of labour will cease or alienation will disappear. Nor do I think that we shall have full employment or a classless society or a world without hunger in any future that we can conceive of now. It's the wasteland next. Of course I think this society, our so-called free society, is rotten to the core - it's oppressive and corrupt and unjust, it's materialistic and ruthless and immoral, and soft, rotted with pornography and kitsch. You think this too. But you imagine that in some way all nice things will be preserved and all the nasty things will become less nasty. It can't be like that, we have to go through the fire, in an oppressive society only violence is honest. Men are half alive now, in the future they'll be puppets. Even if we don't blow ourselves up the future wil be, by your nice standards, terrible. There will be a crisis of authority, of sovereignty, technology will rule because it will have to rule. History has passed you by, everything happens fast now, we have to run to stay in the same place, let alone get a step ahead to see where we are. We've got to rethink everything --'
(It's better to create than destroy what's unnecessary)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Book And The Brotherhood - pg. 296
Labels: Iris Murdoch, Master-quotes
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