“Spain…lit and carried the torch of national liberation, fighting the usurper as the very personification of evil, apostasy, and atheism. Napoleon, in his own way a child of the Enlightenment, had calculated with measurable, empirically verifiable quantities. A rising which derived its impetus from a combination of national, religious, and other spiritual forces represented an imponderable for which he had made no allowance and which therefore had proved a very unpleasant surprise.”
Am I alone at seeing a parallel; a repetition of history? Please note that I am not comparing the President to Napoleon save for the rationalization approach to policy, not am I comparing Spain to Iraq but for the intensity of the rebellion; it is the conflict between emotion and rationalism to which I draw your attention
From the book, A History of Prussia, by H. W. Koch, Dorset Press New York, 1978, a quote on page 188.
1 comment:
An interesting observation, warrants more investigation. Yet I would hardly pair the words 'Bush' (as in the current occupier of the Oval Office) and 'enlightenment' in any observation of any kind.
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