From the blog Samisdata,
The post-terror cultivation of passivity speaks to a profound crisis of – and fear of – the active citizen. It diminishes us as citizens to reduce us to hashtaggers and candle-holders in the wake of serious, disorientating acts of violence against our society. It decommissions the hard thinking and deep feeling citizens ought to pursue after terror attacks. Indeed, in some ways this official post-terror narrative is the unwitting cousin of the terror attack itself. Where terrorism pursues a war of attrition against our social fabric, seeking to rip away bit by bit our confidence and openness and sense of ourselves as free citizens, officialdom and the media diminish our individuality and our social role, through instructing us on what we may feel and think and say about national atrocities and discouraging us from taking responsibility for confronting these atrocities and the ideological and violent rot behind them. The terrorist seeks to weaken our resolve, the powers-that-be want to sedate our emotions, retire our anger, reduce us to wet-eyed performers in their post-terror play. It’s a dual assault on the individual and society.
— Brendan O’Neil
If you wish to read O’Neil’s whole posting, you can find it at: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/after-manchester-its-time-for-anger
Spiked is very sound. I haven’t been going there as much lately because it riles me up. Need to toughen up.
The best line of defense against terrorism is a well prepared citizenry.
Good post.
“It’s a dual assault on the individual and society.”
Why are so many Americans buying into this? This topic needs to be explored.
Patrick Moynihan grasped the essence a long time ago.
“Defining Deviancy Down” was the method of transforming a culture of independent individuals into sheep.
If you erode values, then they have no means of rallying together.
It is a return to the warlord model over the free men model. Stalin would have smiled.
I hear you TKC, but why are Americans voluntarily allowing this to happen? Obviously, Stalin’s victims had no choice, but we still do as demonstrated on November 7.