[Diamond]

The main teacher of the course returned it to me with the comment that it was "cynical."

That's you nailed the teacher's authoritarian, utopian mindset. There's nothing cynical about what you wrote. It's just realistic.

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"...For one reason or another, this mindset is oblivious to the fact that a fact (the descriptive) cannot lead directly to a command (the imperative). It is always mediated through the idea of what one ought to do (the prescriptive).¹

I recognized one of my favorite little books before I read the footnote:^)

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"8. Dirigist centralized government seems to have been a worldwide phenomenon during the first half of the 20th century. Its legacy in human suffering is unmatched in history. Of course, it didn’t just happen. People with certain world-views labored intensely to bring into being a world defined by their ideas of what constitutes man’s nature. It’s instructive to note both the means they used to do it and the ends they used to justify them. See Modern Times: a History of the 20’s to the 80’s by Paul Johnson. "

It bears repeating. They haven't changed. They're still at it.

Cordially,

[aruanan]

I just read through my paper again in light of what's been going on recently. When I wrote that I had no idea that things would again get this bad this quickly.

I'm going to have to go back and read The Abolition of Man again.