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The strength of chronical socialism lies in its anticipation of a natural state which the proponents themselves will never live to see. As with the Jews, who have been waiting for thirty-odd centuries and back out every time the Saviour turns up, very long-term socialism, too, is in no hurry at all. For our socialist, it is not a question of whether and how man will disappear, but a question of when. This determines the pace of his project. If only because of the enormous scale of time, just being part of the audience is not very attractive. Relativisation in the way of in a hundred-thousand years, nobody will live to see it anyway is alien to this philosophy. Operating within these time dimensions, you need rock-solid scientific optimism encouraging purposeful action, but without the obsessional neurosis of those who clamour for the instantaneous deed. Unlike the social-socialists, who regarded history as a narrow path which had to be cut through the jungle to the open land and the red sky of dawn, the nature-socialists need no exodus to a great purified beyond, but only a more viable nature. Ice Age never again!
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