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About this quote

What does it mean?
An empire assumes humans can be molded infinitely and denies any inherent human nature.
In plain terms
Empires pretend people can be changed completely and have no fixed nature.
What can you take from it?
Empires deny fixed human nature.

Where it applies

  • political theory
  • history
  • social engineering

Putting it to work

  • resist manipulation
  • study history
  • value human rights

Questions to consider

  • What is human nature?
  • How do empires shape people?

Another view

Human nature is debated and may not be fixed at all.

More from Albert Camus

  1. The doctrines of evolution and the notions of selection that accompany them have made of the future of society a final end. The political utopias that were gra…

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  2. The fecundity and the importance of a literary form are often measured by the trash it contains.

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  3. The divine availability of the condemned man before whom the prison doors open in a certain early dawn, that unbelievable disinterestedness with regard to ever…

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