More thoughts on the Lion Tamer

A couple of days ago we posted a few thoughts on the current dilemma facing western democracies and their strategic dilemmas. We even likened their position to that of a lion tamer in a cage. It turns out that other, greater minds have been thinking about the same problem quite independently of us. Will Hutton is a profoundly learned writer and commentator, and we have been following his columns and books for years. Here in the Observer he gives us his take on the terrible threats to democracy from the rise of the surveillance state. *(link below)

We at LSS don’t want to go all pompous and portentous on you, good readers. We hate to spoil a sunny day . But we will obseverve this: the countries we call “the west” are the only heirs to the traditions of the Renaissance and Enlightenment left. What is that tradition? Free intellectual enquiry and honest trade. These are what have given us such advantages as science to provide vaccines and predict the sorts of climate changes that felled earlier civilisations. Life in the alternatives will become stagnant-and a lot more ordered than you will like.

From Minsk to Hong Kong, people power just isn’t working any more | Will Hutton | The Guardian

#willhutton #observer #renaissance #enlightenment #democracy #science #freedom