Book Review

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Diary of a Bad Year

01. On the origins of the state

Every account of the origins of the state starts from the premise that "we"—not we the readers but some generic we so wide as to exclude no one—participate in its coming into being. But the fact is that the only "we" we know—ourselves and the people close to us—are born into the state; and our forebears too were born into the state as far back as we can trace. The state is always there before we are. [...]

03. On democracy

The main problem in the life of the state is the problem of succession: how to ensure that power will be passed from one set of hands to the next without a contest of arms.

excerto de Diary of a Bad Year de J.M. Coetzee (disponível no NYRB)

[aL]