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| Narcissists? We've been heading in that direction for some time. |
In an over-used and most likely incorrectly attributed quotation,
when asked what the influence of the French Revolution had been on Western Democracy,
the Chinese Foreign Minister replied that is was too soon to tell. Given the apocryphal nature of the story, and
the layers of invention that the Internet places on such stories, we don’t know
if Zhou Enlai smiled as he said it. The
most significant shift that happened with the French Revolution – and the Enlightenment
generally – was the shift from peoples and tribes to individuals and
rights. The Cartesian
fundamental coigito ergo sum (I think
therefore I am) had made its way through the corridors of time and consequence
from arcane academic existential consideration to politics, and war, and
statecraft. If Millenials are accused of
being all about me, me and me on the cover of Time Magazine, it’s only because
we've been heading that way for several hundred years.
