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toolslive 4 hours ago

> Democracy is safe in Spain!

iirc, The Prince from Machiavelli is required reading during secondary education. That will surely awaken their political awareness.

Telemakhos 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It was required when I was a student in American schools. I don't think it really had much to do with democracy, though. I suppose there are lessons that you could generalize to any state, like "don't hire mercenaries," but I wouldn't say that it gave lessons especially relevant to either Athenian style democracy or to the mixed constitutions called "democracies" from the late eighteenth century to the present.

sophacles 16 minutes ago | parent [-]

You don't think understanding how power hungry people think is important to protecting democracy? You don't think this has any relationship to how the ignorance worshipers and feebleminded trash got fooled into electing Trump and his goons?

mrexroad 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Re-reading it atm, for first time in ~25years, and I’m struck with how much of historical context my kids don’t have that I’d want them to before recommending it to them. I feel I had more of that context when I first read it, but maybe I’m rose tinting my initial reading.

otherme123 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The Prince from Machiavelli is required

In Spain? Never heard of that, and would not make sense. An italian author writting about politics in Florence?

toolslive 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have some Spanish ex-co-workers. I just verified it. They both had it on their required reading list in high-school. (one of them is in his 30s, the other in his 40s)

Muromec 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why would it not? Divine Comedy and Jack London were both required reading in my Ukrainian school (in translation of course). So was tolstoevsky unfortunately.

Mainan_Tagonist an hour ago | parent [-]

Why unfortunately? Tolstoy and Dostoevky are generally recognized as great authors. Being Russian does not make them retrospectively Putinist, does it?