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September 11, 2005
The passion for destruction is also a creative urge
The Economist finds comparisons between contemporary jihadis and 19th-century anarchists. "Revolutionary chic" is still with us. The words of anarchist, Errico Malatesta sound all too contemporary.
"The insurrectionary deed, destined to affirm socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious means of propaganda." This theory of "propaganda by deed" was cheerfully promoted by another great anarchist thinker, Peter Kropotkin, a Russian prince who became the toast of radical-chic circles in Europe and America. Whether the theory truly tipped non-violent musers into killers, or whether it merely gave a pretext to psychopaths, simpletons and romantics to commit murders, is unclear.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at September 11, 2005 08:09 AM
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