Laudator Temporis Acti

Roger Scruton, News from Somewhere: On Settling (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 159:

Advocates of the global economy argue that it is an inevitable development of the capitalist system, and that it will spread freedom, prosperity and democracy around the globe. Much intellectual effort is wasted on such half-baked predictions, which are usually not predictions at all, but intentions in the minds of maniacs. By pretending to predict when you are really deciding, you exonerate yourself from blame. You describe your purpose as 'inevitable', `irreversible', a part of 'progress'. Anyone who resists is 'anachronistic', 'reactionary', a victim of 'nostalgia'. It was in such unsettling language that the revolutions of the twentieth century were sold to their gullible consumers, and the 1000-year Reich and the socialist millennium notwithstanding, people go on mouthing this trash and go on believing it.