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The French revolution operated on assumptions much closer to those of the vision of the anointed. Where the American revolution deliberately created a government of elaborate checks and balances, to constrain the evils inherent in human beings, the French revolution concentrated vast powers in its leadership, so as to allow those who were presumably wise and benevolent to effect sweeping changes with little hindrance. Condorcet, as an intellectual supporter of the French revolution, could see no reason for the American system of checks and balances, in which society was to be “jostled between opposing powers” or to be held back by the “inertia” of its constitution. Indeed, even after the revolutionaries turned against him and threw him into prison, Condorcet still seemed not to understand the reason for limitations on government power.
The Vision of the Anointed
Thomas Sowell
The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt
It’s actually a decent translation of “Jesus,” whom the Greeks knew as Iesous (since they never heard of the letter “j”). Iesous, in turn, was a spin-off of Iesoue, the Greek word for Joshua, the Israelites’ leader following the death of Moses. But according to Ruck, the true origin of Jesus’s Greek name is the root for “drug” or “poison” (ios), which supplies the Greek words for “doctor” or iatros (ἰατρός).
The Immortality Key
Brian C. Muraresku and Graham Hancock
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