In the country, even in large towns, people have a knowledge of each other, and distress never rises to that extreme height it sometimes does in a metropolis.
Thomas Paine: “In the country, even in large towns, people have a knowledge of each other, and distress never rises to that extreme…”
Editor's note · Context
From his defense of the French Revolution, he contrasts social support in rural areas with the anonymity of large cities.
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Discussion and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?
Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.
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