By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on to which the alternative is a hopeless apathy, Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanised or brutalised control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.
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Livingstone on the Spirit of Criticism
The child of today is born into a world whose traditions and standards are weakened, a world with inherited good habits, but no ruling philosophy of life. Through the last and still more the present century, the solid and impressive mansion which had been slowly built up through centuries of Christian belief, was steadily bombed.
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Auden on the Time After Christmas IV
He is the Truth. / Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety
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Auden on the Time After Christmas III
In the meantime / There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, / Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem / From insignificance.
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Happy Public Domain Day, 2026
Veritas Journal is once again celebrating the raft of books, films, and works of art that enter the public domain in the United States today — now free to use, adapt, remix, or do with what you will. Look for a little remixed New Year's gift from Veritas Journal at the end of this article.
