Quote#Politics & Power
The modern State is not the rational and intelligent product of…
Quote byRandolph Bourne · 1886–1918
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: ¶44. Published under "Psychology of the State," The State (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 25, which omits the Oxford comma in the first sentence..
English (original)
The modern State is not the rational and intelligent product of modern men desiring to live harmoniously together with security of life, property, and opinion. It is not an organization which has been devised as pragmatic means to a desired social end. All the idealism with which we have been instructed to endow the State is the fruit of our retrospective imaginations.
— Randolph Bourne
More from Randolph Bourne
War is the health of the State.
We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State.
How shall I describe Youth, the time of contradictions and anomalies? The fiercest radicalisms, the most dogged conservatisms, irrepressible gayety, bitter melancholy,—all these moods are equally part of that showery spring-time of life.
Our elders are always optimistic in their views of the present, pessimistic in their views of the future; youth is pessimistic toward the present and gloriously hopeful for the future. And it is this hope which is the lever of progress—one …
The State is a jealous God and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade everyone and all feeling must be run into the stereotyped forms of romantic patriotic militarism which is the traditional expression of the State …
Indeed, it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war.