Scorn the One Who Has Been His Inferior

Tocqueville No comments

There is a natural prejudice that leads man to scorn the one who has been his inferior, long after he has become his equal; real inequality produced by fortune or law is always followed by an imaginary inequality that has its roots in mores; but among the ancients this secondary effect of slavery came to an end. The emancipated man so strongly resembled the men who were born free that it soon became impossible to distinguish him from them. What was more difficult among the ancients was to change the law; what is more difficult among modern peoples is to change mores, and for us the real difficulty begins where in antiquity it ended. This happens because among modern peoples the non-material and transitory fact of slavery is combined in the most fatal way with the material and permanent fact of the difference of race. The memory of slavery dishonors the race, and race perpetuates the memory of slavery.

Infested with Pirates

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 178
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As for the case of cornering and making monopolies in restraint of trade, that falls under the first of my two principles. It is simply a question of whether we have the moral courage to punish what is certainly immoral. There is no more doubt about these operations of high finance than there is about piracy on the high seas. It is merely a case of a country being so disorderly and ill-governed that it becomes infested with pirates.

Desperate & Reckless Habits

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 172
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If we proceed as at present in a proper orderly fashion, the very idea of property will vanish. It is not revolutionary violence that will destroy it. It is rather the desperate and reckless habit of not having a revolution.

Tolerably Contented Peasants

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 167
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There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there has never yet been a nation of utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.

Victims of Engineering

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 132
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We must remember that there is only one joyful engineer to a thousand bored victims of engineering.

Invention Outstrips Imagination

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 131
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It is really true that in these things invention outstrips imagination. Humanity has not got the good out of its own inventions; and by making more and more inventions, it is only leaving its own power of happiness further and further behind.

Increasing Their Liking for Life

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 125
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If we can make men happier, it does not matter if we make them poorer, it does not matter if we make them less productive, it does not matter if we make them less progressive, in the sense of merely changing their life without increasing their liking for it.

A Hard Taskmaster

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity p. 124
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Machinery may not yet be at its best; and perhaps lions and tigers will never be at their best, will never make their most graceful leaps or show all their natural splendours, until we erect an ampitheatre and give them a few live people to eat. Yet that sight also is one which we forbid ourselves, with whatever austere self-denial. We give up so many glorious possibilities, in our stern and strenuous and self-sacrificing preference for having a tolerable time. Happiness, in a sense, is a hard taskmaster.

A Productive Curse

G.K. ChestertonThe Outline of Sanity pp. 123-124
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There is no obligation on us to be richer, or busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or more progressive, or in any way worldlier or wealthier, if it does not make us happier. Mankind has as much right to scrap its machinery and live on the land, if it really likes it better, as any man has to sell his old bicycle and go for a walk, if he likes that better. It is obvious that the walk will be slower; but he has no duty to be fast. And if it can be shown that machinery has come into the world as a curse, there is no reason whatever for our respecting it because it is a marvellous and practical and productive curse. There is no reason why we should not leave all its powers unused, if we have really come to the conclusion that the powers do us harm.

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