Social discussion becomes Carlyle’s ultimate question of “Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?” Every utterance is necessarily a challenge; and suppressed because so taken; every association is a conspiracy and attacked because so imagined.
He illustrates how social discussions can devolve into confrontations when trust is lacking.
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More from Harold J. Laski
Yet such defects must not blind us to the general rightness of their insight.
Man is a one among many obstinately refusing reduction to unity.
If he stands alone, he has neither the knowledge nor the power to secure for himself proper protection.
When I obey the state, I obey the best part of myself.
Other voices in this conversation
