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Sunday, April 09, 2006

On The Third Anniversary of a Grand Beheading

John Stuart Mill was late with On Liberty—he already had it, for the most part, and moved little in advancing its global prevalence. Nevertheless, his words have inspired many, and I think the ones he selected to close the great essay have especial salience as regards Iraq:

“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill, or that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.”

Three years ago on this day, men and children kept small by a dictator grew, even as a bronze gaud glorifying the monster was cut down by their hands.

Posted on April 9, 2006 05:07 PM. Permalink