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Thursday, July 30, 2020

Nietzsche on Liberalism

In his book Twilight of the Idols (1888), Nietzsche makes a comment on liberalism: “Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. Their effects are known well enough: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic — every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization." Nietzsche is right. Once liberal institutions attain power, they start undermining the good ideas in politics, culture, and morality, and they lead to a decline in the intellectual standards.

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