The liberal-democratic man, just as his communist counterpart, lives in a world almost totally packed with conventions and interpretations, with very little space for individual initiative. He relies almost exclusively on ready-made formulas, moves within well-known stereotypes of thought and language through which he expresses his feelings of approval and disapproval and justifies his role in a community. The ideology that surrounds him is not only a set of concepts but also a system of mandatory practices: like an erstwhile African savage, he is expected to dance his ritual dances in order to manifest his tribal affiliation through the well-trained gestures and rhythms the village sorcerers taught him so that he could express his enthusiasm for the war his superiors thought it rational to wage against the enemies, or to give his joyful support of peace if this accords with the strategy of the tribe. For him there is no reality apart from that which bears the meaning given to it by the sorcerers. Nothing else exists, and if it does, it is not worth communicating.
Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies, pg.130-131.
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