When Benoni Strang and Emma Reinhert complete their conversation:
"Emma Reinhart shivered a bit. She had glimpsed the fanatic." (p. 30)
We must understand and accept that this particular individual, Strang, has become fanatical on this issue but should not infer that anyone who is concerned about such an issue is fanatical. I remember a cross-purposes conversation with a fellow pupil at school. Because he was a bird-watcher, I remarked that I knew someone else who had become "fanatical" on the subject. He replied, "So, according to you, it is a subject for fanatics?" I was left floundering at the depth of the misunderstanding. First, by "fanatical," I had meant just "very enthusiastic," not anything else. Secondly, surely it is the case that someone can become "fanatical" about any subject, not that certain subjects are particularly appropriate for "fanatics"? I mention this because I think that it is all too possible that all radical social reformers are written off as "fanatics." The kind of energy that is admired in an entrepreneur like van Rijn can also be expressed in other kinds of creativity and social leadership.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't have much, if any, use for so called radical social reformers. When such people inevitably meet opposition and resistance, we have seen in real history how often such "reformers" have become blood drenched tyrants. Robespierre, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al, is only a partial listing of such monsters.
My view is that of Edmund Burke: REAL reform has to be prudent, patient, conciliatory, and avoid doing drastic harm.
Happy New Year! Sean
Sean,
But what do you make of Martin Luther King in the US or the opponents of Apartheid in South Africa?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think Edmund Burke would have approved of Martin King! The later did not advocate overthrowing the US, after all. And I've read somewhere that he was even a Republican, not a Democrat!
And I would have similar views of some, not all, of the opponents of apartheid in South Africa. That said, I'm not impressed by post apartheid South Africa, which has become a corrupt, kleptocratic, de facto one party regime.
Happy New Year! Sean
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