Promises Are The Uniquely Human Way Of

Education Is The Point At Which We Decide Whether We Love The World Enough To Assume Responsibility For It, And By The Same Token Save It From That Ruin Which Except For Renewal, Except For The Coming Of The New And The Young, Would Be Inevitable. And Education, Too, Is Where We Decide Whether We Love Our Children Enough Not To Expel Them From Our World And Leave Them To Their Own Devices, Nor To Strike From Their Hands Their Chance Of Undertaking Something New, Something Unforeseen By Us, But To Prepare Them In Advance For The Task Of Renewing A Common World.

The Role Played By Education In All Political Utopias From Ancient Times Onward Shows How Natural It Seems To Start A New World With Those Who Are By Birth And Nature New. So Far As Politics Is Concerned, This Involves Of Course A Serious Misconception: Instead Of Joining With One's Equals In Assuming The Effort Of Persuasion And Running The Risk Of Failure, There Is Dictatorial Intervention, Based Upon The Absolute Superiority Of The Adult, And The Attempt To Produce The New As A Fait Accompli, That Is, As Though The New Already Existed.

Only Crime And The Criminal, It Is True, Confront Us With The Perplexity Of Radical Evil; But Only The Hypocrite Is Really Rotten To The Core.

Power Can Be Thought Of As The Never-ending, Self-feeding Motor Of All Political Action That Corresponds To The Legendary Unending Accumulation Of Money That Begets Money.

The Climax Of Terror Is Reached When The Police State Begins To Devour Its Own Children, When Yesterday's Executioner Becomes Today's Victim.