modernization is about everyone becoming urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible. It is about learning how to cultivate people and symbols, not fields or herds. It is about pursuing wealth for the sake of learning, learning for the sake of wealth, and both wealth and learning for their own sake. It is about transforming peasants and princes into merchants and priests, replacing inherited privilege with acquired prestige, and dismantling social estates for the benefit of individuals, nuclear families, and book-reading tribes (nations). Modernization, in other words, is about everyone becoming Jewish.

- Orlando Figes quotes The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine.

If one ascribes certain (good) qualities to the whole nation, should not one be prepared that someone else would ascribe to the same nation some other (may be not so good) qualities? How about those who does not want to become Jewish - even if this is the only way to become modern, "where everyone becomes a stranger and the most successful people are the followers of Hermes, above all the Jews, who get on through their cleverness and their ability to act as go-betweens."?

Luddites wanted to destroy machines. Was their cause totally lost? One who wants to bring about the demise of Apolloninans, who are still the majority on this planet, should expect a blowback.  ¶ 3:44 PM