A lot of people want to be both correct and powerful. Rational selfhood and sovereign statehood comprise, together, a highly seductive intellectual and political objective. This most perfect union, joining veracity to supremacy, is the most alluring of all fantasies: a self whose single voice (for a self can, it is supposed, only have one) regularly speaks the truth, and whose identity abides unfailingly in a national state whose power prevails decisively, universally. Many of the most creative and dramatic projects since classical antiquity have emerged from these complementary aspirations. This helps to explain, for instance, striking parallels between political and ethical reasoning in the Enlightenment — as evidenced in the similarities (noted by Arjun Appadurai) in the Treaty of Westphalia and Immanuel Kant’s work on moral rationality.
My thoughts for the day.