2009-04-18

Politics of Josephus alive and well today

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Josephus detested political dissidents. He saw nothing good in anyone going out of their way to protest against the government.

All sorts of misfortunes also sprang from these men, and the nation was infected with this doctrine to an incredible degree . . . . This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves; . . . . (Antiquities, 18.1)

The same meme that equates politial protest with selfishness is, of course, alive and well today. From a Singapore newspaper:

The timely enactment of the Public Order Act will be an effective legal tool to check groups out to disrupt the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit scheduled to be hosted in Singapore in November.

We should not allow others to hijack these pro-Singapore events to satisfy their own selfish political agendas.

and then again in a Malaysian newspaper:

He said it was only a tiny group of irresponsible and selfish individuals who had been pushing this line of civil disobedience in Singapore.

Of course the same meme is with us wherever — even whenever — we live.

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