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December 1, 2014
“Democracy has terror for its means and totalitarianism for its end,”
Gómez Dávila once wrote.
In that single stroke an argument is initiated and ended. It is just one of thousands of sentences Gómez Dávila composed in his nearly 81-year life, but which very few have read. They covered every deep subject imaginable in the same terse, confident, clever, and intransigent manner, at only slightly varying lengths. These aphorisms, called escolios (“scholia” or “glosses”) by their author, stand on their own, ever at attention like a verbal infantry with bayonets armed, ready to return fire rather than to facilitate civil dialogue.Don Colacho's Epitaphs | The American Conservative
Posted by gerardvanderleun at December 1, 2014 10:52 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Like "hit and run."
Posted by: tripletap ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://americandigest.org/sidelines/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 2, 2014 4:59 AM
Like: Don't Play, Just Kill.
Posted by: chasmatic at December 2, 2014 9:50 AM
That aphorism about democracy never applied to the 100's year old Iroquois confederacy, and its contribution to our own Constitution.
The problem is not democracy -- government by the people -- but to the accumulation of power by the greedy minority who then devastate democracy.
Pretty melodious words may sometimes mask tedious turds. Read Don Colacho carefully. Brevity and banality are not contradictory.
Posted by: Stug Guts at December 2, 2014 3:46 PM
He's just dickin' with ya: he replaced "Communism" with "Democracy".
Clever, but it didn't take much thought. And of course, only the original is true.
Posted by: Smokey at December 5, 2014 10:51 AM