23 May 2013

Future Threats

'By no means do I suggest ignoring the threats looming on our horizon: devouring globalization, demographic explosions, massive immigration, the pollution of nature, genetic engineering, etc. During an age of anxiety, it is healthy to repel happy illusions; it is salubrious to practice the virtues of active pessimism, those of Thucydides or Machiavelli. But it is just as necessary to reject the kind of pessimism that turns into fatalism.

The first error regarding future threats would be to regard them as inescapable. History is not the domain of fate but of the unforeseen. A second error would be to imagine the future as a prolongation of the present. If anything is certain, it is that the future will be different from how one imagines it today. A third error would be to lose hope in intelligence, imagination, will, and finally ourselves.'

Dominique Venner, Le Figaro, 19 January 2000

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gregor Mendel was a genetic engineer. Only good came of it. Fear not.

Anonymous said...

Dear Laguna Beach Fogey,

Thank you for posting something about our old master Dominique Venner. These words of him are a comfort and an objurgation for us who are still here. As you know, he was one of the greatest figures of our French radical Right; a man of courage, righteousness and high intellectual calibre, honored by his peers. If you are fluent in French, there is a two-hour substantial tribute to Venner that you can download here: http://www.meridien-zero.com/archive/2013/05/24/emission-n-145.html
Highly recommanded!

Best regards from France,
Marcion.

Cameron said...

Anyone else watching The Day of the Jackal (again) this weekend?

Ben Arnold said...

This is quite intelligent by your standards; keep it up.

Boisfeuras said...

It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)