Immanuel Kant Quotes
Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.
Kant, Immanuel. "An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" Practical Philosophy, translated by Mary J. Gregor, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 18.
This is not only attributed by reliable sources but apparently Roosevelt had said this on several occasions. The word “radical” has had different shades of meaning at different periods of American History. The origin of the word from the Latin means someone who wishes to change things very rapidly and not gradually. In the time of the Civil War, the majority of the Republicans proudly referred to themselves as “radicals” or “radical Republicans” because they wanted to abolish slavery immediately. In the late 19th century the word “radical” referred to anarchists. From the Russian Revolution onward “radicals” were communists who presumably wanted to change governments throughout the work through revolution—very rapid change. However, in the early 20th century, radicals were people who wanted to reform and regulate businesses and monopolies rapidly and it is this sense he was a radical. But by style, he was a radical in most things in that he wanted to change things and change them rapidly.
And as the leader of the exploited, after his revolution he became a dictator himself, albeit a very popular one amongst most Cubans.
Later, when President McKinley was assassinated, many blamed Hearst for inflaming passions and sanctioning political assassination.
Saloth Sar Pol Pot. His view was that any small merchant or tradesman running a business was a capitalist, and all educated were enemies of the people. He moved entire populations out of the cities into the countryside where they would live as peasants or be murdered as about 20% of the entire population as. Therefore, in his warped view, the capitalists could no longer “control” Cambodia.
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy.
