Computers, Privacy & the Constitution

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DanaDelgerSecondPaper 12 - 26 Jun 2009 - Main.EbenMoglen
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The Grand Inquisitor Meets Free Information

“In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, ‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’ They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them… They will marvel at us and look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so dreadful and to rule over them—so awful it will seem to them to be free.”

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-- TheodoreSmith - 12 May 2009

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  • Last time I said no one mentioned the quality of the writing, so this time everybody very politely noticed that you write well. I myself think that the problem once the Grand Inquisitor makes an appearance in anyone's writing, including Dostoyevsky's, is keeping the style from becoming grandiose. This, with a momentary lapse or two, you do in general quite well. But the greater naturalism of your first effort still seems preferable to me, even if only by a whisper.

  • Borrowing a complex allegory for use as an analogy of course only multiplies the difficulties of interpretation, so I'm not surprised that you and the commentators have a good deal to puzzle over. Not least, it seems to me, the conceptual tension between Dostoyevsky's mystical religious nationalism and Marx's scientific secular internationalism which sometimes seems likely to explode your sentences at the seams. Communism, it may be observed, has many mutually-surprising forms. For what it may be worth, I am with those who have offered "bread" as a synonym for "circuses," which would explain, I think, why Steve Jobs and Disney have come to rule both Romes.

  • Once again, at any rate, save for the possibility of a quick editorial pass to remove unnecessary purple, I see no means to improvement. Bravo.
 
 
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Revision 12r12 - 26 Jun 2009 - 01:25:02 - EbenMoglen
Revision 11r11 - 12 May 2009 - 18:48:41 - TheodoreSmith
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