“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.” — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

This represents the old statist thinking: That of the Nazis and the Communists and other failed attempts to forge the millions into an undifferentiated mass.

The new statist thinking goes in the opposite direction: Instead of trying to erase the essential questions — freedom versus coercion, individualism versus collectivism — the idea has become to bury them beneath piles of trivial and non-essential questions, then encouraging everyone to worry at the pile of bones rather than dig down in search of the meat.

Right or wrong? Discuss.