Friday, February 10, 2017

Remark from Salazar on Dubious Concepts

"The attentive observer will notice that what is called political life in the world of today is, to a great extent, only agitation and that that agitation operates around primary feelings and imprecise concepts. Certain number of words or punchlines fly from continent to continent and take with them, in the simplicity and apparent clarity of the formulas, worlds of doubtful, if not entirely wrong, concepts. For example, the words freedom, democracy, dictatorship, rights of the people, before historians could track them or philosophers define them, already had they awoken emotional torrents, unleashed revolutions, altered the march of events." 
- António de Oliveira Salazar em "Oliveira Salazar - Discursos e Notas Políticas - 1928 a 1966 (Oliveira Salazar - Speeches and Political Notes - 1928 to 1966)", 2016

Text from O Horizonte Português - The Sun at Night