Civic Energies

Within a few hours of my last posting I started to wonder what the heck I was thinking of. I was half tempted to delete the entry altogether.

Now that Chris has commented on it though, I suppose I ought to think it through a bit. What do I mean by "civic energies"?

Worn Out?

These days, a passage from Rousseau's Social Contract keeps coming to mind.

Although a people can make itself free while it is still uncivilized, it cannot do so when its civil energies are worn out. Disturbances may then destroy a civil society without a revolution being able to restore it, so that as soon as the chains are broken, the state falls apart and exists no longer; then what is needed is a master, not a liberator. Free peoples, remember this maxim: liberty can be gained, but never regained.