Editorials & Other Articles

(snip)

Ever since Montaigne, European consciousness has accused itself of barbarity, and this self-accusation … is perhaps Montaigne’s most precious legacy — hence the serious resentment one can feel toward those who worship national identity and ignore what constitutes the heart, though perhaps the toxic heart, of Europe’s collective consciousness: the anxiety of now being the world’s barbarians.

This is “the scar that history has given us,” Boucheron continues, and ever since “we have been born already fissured, disturbed, uneasy.” Western history and culture contain more evidence of that unease that can possibly be enumerated, from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” to Thomas Jefferson, the father of American democracy, tying himself in knots over the evils of slavery to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (clearly referenced above by Boucheron).

In its most distilled form, MAGA ideology promises to salve that unease and heal the fissure, transporting its believers into an AI-slop alternate universe where the heart of darkness has been whitewashed and no one remembers slavery or imperialism or misogyny or thinks any of that was a problem. That’s a lot more ambitious than simply undoing the major political and social reforms of the last century. It’s more like transforming human consciousness, and the fact that it can’t be done doesn’t mean it won’t be massively destructive.

(snip)

https://www.salon.com/2026/02/08/magas-war-on-woke-has-a-long-history-like-400-years/



Thanks for the thread marmar