The Logic of Authority

“She is one professor among thousands of professors in Turkey,” he said. “I have difficulty understanding those saying a professor should not be arrested while thousands of other people are being arrested in Turkey.”

Idris Naim Sahin, Turkey’s interior minister, explaining why he does not understand protests about the detention of Busra Ersanli, a well-known academic detained since a previous sweep this month against the KCK, a shadowy organization that Turkish authorities say includes Kurdish terrorists.

To the authoritarian mind thousands of detentions justify any one of them. Never once will the authoritarian entertain the idea that none of the detentions are justified.

This way to the gulag, if you please.