A review by baetsie
The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism by Pascal Bruckner

4.0

'The only war that ultimately matters, as we have known since the enlightenment, is the war of ideas that is waged day and night, attacking iniquities and denouncing scandals. it is this war, and not torture or bombing, that changes mentalities in depth, improves the condition of women and children, and leads religious believers to live their faith in a more tolerant way and to revise the most aggressive postulates of their sacred scriptures. This war has one defect: it is long. it extends beyond the term of a legislature, goes on over generations and even centuries. to win it, through education, the media, and culture, we have to use the weapons of reason and eloquence. We have to combine our impatience for freedom with the wisdom to wait.'