Elizabeth Janeway Quotes
We put up with a lot to be saved from chaos. We always have.
Janeway, Elizabeth. Powers of the Weak. Knopf, 1980.
The import of this proverb that eventually things get so bad that people take radical steps to organize things. Unfortunately, historically when there have been periods of disorder and anarchy, a strongman or dictator usually takes over and provides the organization,
This is an excellent example of the twisted, self-fulfilling logic of the Afrikaners in justifying apartheid. Many Afrikaners were inveterate racists, and were also usually armed which was a rural tradition of their early immigration and the Zulu and Boer Wars. Those whites would cause a riot if a black was allowed into a white audience performance. That in turn would cause chaos. Therefore mixed audiences could not be allowed. It never occurred to Botha and his colleagues that the government’s responsibility was to control and restrict the white rioters and instigators. This was not unique Afrikaner thinking; the same logic prevailed throughout the American South in the Jim Crowe segregation era.
Elizabeth Janeway (née Hall) was an American author and critic.
