> History seems to be moving inevitably towards a universal totalitarianism Honestly, we've been having this discussion since the rise of the centralized state

> History seems to be moving inevitably towards a universal totalitarianism Honestly, we've been having this discussion since the rise of the centralized state in the 12th century. The 20th century saw a lot of back and forth. I see nothing inevitable. > "civilization is the sophistication of evil" > Is there some strong evidence that contradicts this observation? If you use this as a definition of "civilization", then of course not, because it's a tautology. It's a hard word to lay out. If you use it in the sense of Kenneth Clarke's book "Civilization" (which, if you're going to use the word, you should read), then, no, not at all. Quite the contrary. Perhaps orthogonal.