The more they spoke of right, the greater injustice was done.

From The History of the English People 1000-1154 by Henry of Huntington.  Page 31.  The record of bad governance by men corrupted by greed for power or money is not, obviously, a present day matter.  It has deep roots in human nature.  

In King William’s twenty-first year [1087], when the Normans had fulfilled the just will of the Lord upon the English people, and there was scarcely a noble of English descent in England, but all had been reduced to servitude and lamentation, and it was even disgrace­ful to be called English, William, the agent of this vengeance, ended his life. For God had chosen the Normans to wipe out the English nation, because He had seen that they surpassed all other people in their unparalleled savagery. Indeed, their character is such that when they have brought their enemies so low that they can cast them down no further, they bring themselves down, and reduce their own lands to poverty and waste. Always the Norman lords, when they have crushed their enemies, since they cannot avoid acting brutally, crush their own men also in wars. This is increasingly apparent in the best lands that God has made subject to them, that is, in Normandy and England, Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, and Antioch.

Thus in England they increased in those times unjust tolls and very evil customs. All the leaders had been so blinded by desire for gold and silver that it might truly have been said of them, ‘Whence it may be had, no one enquires, but have it they must.’ The more they spoke of right, the greater injustice was done. Those who were called justices were the source of all injustice. Sheriffs and officials whose responsibility was justice and judge­ment were more frightful than thieves and robbers, and crueller than the most cruel. The king himself, when he had leased out his lands as dearly as he could, would ignore his agreement and would give them to another who offered more, and then to another, always intent on getting more. Nor did he care how great an injury was done to the poor by petty officials. And so in this year God sent plagues of sickness and famine to England, and those who escaped the fevers died of hunger. He also sent tempests and storms, by which He killed many men, and did not spare animals or beasts.

Echoes of today when those who speak of social justice are the most likely to commit injustice.  

The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard

The Swing, c. 1767 by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

Click to enlarge.

From The Short History of Art by Susie Hodge.

The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Recognized by his frivolously light-hearted things, deft brushwork and soft lighting and colors, John Honoré Fragonard (1732 -1806) exemplifies the hedonism of the Rococo era.

A notorious philanderer, Baron de Saint Julien, commissioned the history painter Gabrielle Francois Doyen (1726 - 1806) to paint his young mistress being pushed on a swing by a bishop, while the Baron admired her legs from below.  Doyen refused to work, so Fragonard took up the challenge, but omitted any church references, and made the girl the main focus.

In a frothy pink silk dress, poised in mid-air, she is being pushed on the swing by an elderly admirer, who is unaware of her excited young lover looking up her skirt from the bushes below. Tantalizingly, she kicks off her shoe towards a statue of Cupid, the god of desire and love, who raises a finger to his lips to show that he approves of the clandestine love affair, while behind her are two disapproving cherubs.  At the time, a woman's shoeless foot symbolized nudity.  Deliberately ironic is her bergere or shepherd's hat, as shepherdess's, at least in France, were associated with virtue and purity.  This is considered to be one of the greatest paintings of the Rococo era and Fragonard's best known work.  It's asymmetrical composition, lush scenery and amalgamation of playfulness, insouciance and eroticism and epitomize the Rococo focus on innocent cheerfulness, with less respectable insinuations.

History

A Mayan skull with decorated teeth. pic.twitter.com/rrYxnyo2U5

— A Beautiful Culture (@ABeautifulCult1) January 31, 2022

 

An Insight

The family, rather than the individual, has always been and remains today the basic building block of our society, though its hold has clearly been weakening—one of the most unfortunate consequences of the growth of government paternalism. - Milton Friedman

— Cerebral Wisdom (@CerebralWisdom) January 18, 2022

 

Gasping for the oxygen of credibility

As the tide of authoritarianism, public health through emotionalism, and anti-science hysteria ebbs and recedes, there are many public figures left floundering on the shoreline in embarrassment and gasping for the oxygen of credibility.

El Gato Malo tears into a specific example with When the science™ fails, invoke histrionics.  

I see wonderful things

Rural church. St. Martin’s 13th-century church at Fifield Bavant in Wiltshire pic.twitter.com/RwDNb8slsG

— A Beautiful Culture (@ABeautifulCult1) January 30, 2022

 

The noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

For some reason, reflecting on the rapid shifting of focus from two-years of Covid-19 to the two months of tyranny in Canada to the (so far) first week of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it brought to mind the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The relentless insistence that we should all be focused on some passing tragedy and that we all should concede to a greater coercive intelligence, veiled and obscured, at the center of the State.  

These cycles of existential catastrophism married with a utopian optimism that everything can be fixed if we merely forfeit our individual independence are an evil manifestation.

We need to reclaim the conviction of Age of Enlightenment conviction in the value and responsibility of individuals.  

Offbeat Humor

Click to enlarge.

Most of all, you’re American, which is REALLY unfair. You better hope life never becomes fair.

From P.J. O'Rourke in a speech at the Cato Institute.  

Back to my favorite line by him, in a Cato speech roughly twelve years ago he talked about how he would respond to his daughter when she told him something was “unfair.” O'Rourke would say “You’re very cute. That’s not fair. You’re fairly well to do. That’s very unfair. Most of all, you’re American, which is REALLY unfair. You better hope life never becomes fair.”

"It could be said of democracy that all theory was against it and all experience for it."

From The Science of Liberty by Timothy Ferris.  Page 28.

Democracy has always been less popular than liberalism—if liberalism is a gift, democracy is the rattletrap truck that delivers it—and the two have distinctly different origins. Liberalism arose as a matter of principle, while democracy arose more for sociological than for intellectual reasons, and was always more about power than ideals. As Mill observed in 1859, the movements of societies toward democracy “are not the work of philosophers, but of the interests and instincts of large portions of society recently grown into strength.” Prominent among them were what the English called the gentry, a class whose wealth and influence came largely from scientific and technological innovations and free-market economies. They were trades and crafts people who gained power by gaining wealth, clawing their way to political prominence on the votes of previously disenfranchised multitudes who saw them as opening up fresh opportunities for all—which may explain why the poor, though impatient with snobs, demonstrate little animus toward the self-made rich. The process was not pretty, but it worked. “It could be said of democracy,” writes the historian Roland Stromberg, “that all theory was against it and all experience for it.”

It remains a phenomena crying out for an explanation.

Always trying to find additional insight by looking at the negative space but at the risk of appearing to conflate separate issues.    

In this instance, the negative space is what is not being reported out of the Ukraine.  What is it that we ought to be hearing about that we are not?  There are several candidates.  Until today, I have heard nothing or less than I would have expected about:

Spring thaw as an impediment to Russian maneuver.

Civilian casualties.

Ukrainian civilian food supplies.

Ukrainian civil services (trains, buses, hospitals, electricity, water, gas, telecoms, etc.) and their apparent resilience. 

Ukrainian military leadership and intended strategies.

On the last item, there is lots of reporting about the surprisingly effective resistance by Ukraine so far with much focus on patriotic Ukrainians taking up arms.  I am not discounting that.  But if the Russians have been effectively resisted so far, it almost certainly has to have been by the Ukrainian military.  I see almost no discussion about their preparations, plans, capabilities, or strategies.  

The other item, among many, in the negative space, is Covid-19.  The topic which has dominated western headlines for two years.

Up until World War II, battlefield deaths were always exceeded by deaths from disease.  Cholera, typhus, respiratory illnesses - there were a whole raft of diseases killing off troops before they ever made it to battle.  In World War II we got smart and we got good at maintaining the health of troops during and after battle.  

But the fundamental issue is always there.  We practice good hygiene and track and monitor troop health and provide good, targeted and rapid responses to disease.  We vaccinate more and we have better treatments than in the past.  It is a whole infrastructure of health to guard and protect precious life.  

And I have read absolutely nothing about the risk Covid-19 might pose to the combatants.  The Russians with 200,000 troops or more in close quarters and mobile conditions and the Ukrainians similarly exposed with a mix of mobile troop deployments and massive refugee population movements.  

Were Covid-19 the danger it has been made out to be, one would expect that it would have at least some operational impact and that there would be at least some discussion.  And I am not seeing that.

It may be as mundane an explanation as that we are between variants and February/March is a low point in the seasonality of that region.  Or that the Russian vaccine is highly effective (it would appear not).  Or that Russia and Ukraine are treating Covid as a state secret when it comes to the military and that is why there is no coverage.  Or that Covid is simply not operationally relevant to those young and healthy enough to be in the military.

Or any of a dozen other plausible explanations.  But it remains a phenomena crying out for an explanation and instead we have a yawning silence.

Data Talks

"Even in Sweden, where women are not dependent on a man to thrive, men with limited access to monetary resources are less attractive as potential partners." https://t.co/aIMtn4hidG pic.twitter.com/YUJ6ST8LrL

— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) February 3, 2022

 

The Landing of Columbus 1893 by Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902

The Landing of Columbus 1893 by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902)

Click to enlarge.

Nicely phrased - social status based on fragility is not a foundation for viable civilization

From Sunday Memepool by El Gato Malo

Consider the possibility that basing an entire societal status structure on “who can act the most fragile” has not provided a foundation for viable civilization.

History

A wonderful wide-eyed, shield-biting ‘berserker’ chess piece, carved from walrus ivory. One of the 12th-century Lewis Chessmen, found in a hoard on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, in 1831. Norse sagas describe berserkers as warriors who went into battle in a wild frenzy#Archaeology pic.twitter.com/DFAmJdUSZo

— Alison Fisk (@AlisonFisk) January 18, 2022

 

EU and European leadership?

Another observation arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Again, perhaps it is merely a function of my personal epistemic ecosystem.  

Clearly the governments of the west did not plan on how to respond to an actual invasion.  They must have anticipated it but the 24-72 hour window between the invasion and any sort of concerted response seems to indicate that anticipation had not been converted into advance planning.

But actions are now being taken including removing major Russian banks from SWIFT, freezing of foreign assets of those surrounding Putin, marshaling of supplies from European countries to be supplied to Ukraine, the activation of the NATO Rapid Deployment Force, etc.

What is striking to me is that these actions seem largely to be originating in Europe and particularly at the EU.  I have the impression of the EU taking a far more principled position than we are normally accustomed to it taking.  Individual countries such as Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Sweden seem also to be taking leading positions in support of Ukraine in a fashion unfamiliar in the past.

The US has long argued that our European allies in NATO and the EU in general needed to shoulder more of the burden of defense preparedness.  Trump especially used the bully pulpit to get European countries to raise their military spending (though to somewhat dubious outcomes). 

Europe and European countries taking the lead on an international issue is not undesirable, just unexpected.  During the Bosnian War of the 1990s, the US, through NATO, took the lead despite this being a war in Europe.  Allies rallied around but often making things more complicated.  

With Ukraine, it feels like Europe is owning the issue and leading.  

The counterpart is: What is the US doing?  We seem to be supporting our European allies and I am guessing that there are backroom negotiations going on.  Perhaps we are a catalyst and it is an intentional outcome for the EU to be seen as leading the response.

Perhaps.  While delighted that the EU might raise its international game, I am concerned whether this administration simply might not be up to the task of responding to an international crisis.  We'll see if that concern ends up being justified.  Or, indeed, whether any of these observations are actually valid.

But interesting.

Nicely phrased - totalitarian monasticism

On the topic of Zero Covid and the failure of lockdowns.  They have failed because:

Humans are adapted to social living, not totalitarian monasticism.

 

There should be a tsunami of real time reporting and there is instead a mere trickle

Just an observation and perhaps it is merely a function of my personal epistemic ecosystem.  It sure seems hard to get reasonably real and current information about the war in Ukraine.

With ubiquitous cellphones and social media I was anticipating a deluge of information and having to deal with the challenge of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the propaganda from the real.  That second challenge remains real.

But I haven't seen the cascade.  You go on twitter and in any 6-12 hour period it is the same half a dozen videos endlessly retweeted.  You go on the New York Times and it is much of a muchness with the information you have already gathered from Twitter.  Blogs and Substacks add a little more information but usually more weighted towards differences of interpretation than extra information.

Same videos, same pictures, same stale updates.  Lots of opinions, variously informed.  But no tidal wave of information.  

Why is there such a dearth?  I suspect at least part of it is that few American mainstream media corporations have offices or even many stringers in Ukraine.  No cameras on the ground as it were.  They are probably drawing from pretty much the same sources as everyone else.  

Possibly there is some sort of Russian, or possibly Ukrainian, internet constriction which is precluding information getting out.  Technically possible.  Russia certainly seems to have been up to some old tricks with regard to hacking and denial of service attacks.  But I don't have the impression that the internet or cell phone access is a particular problem.  Yet.  

So why is there so little information coming out when we have all the elements to make it happen?

A mystery to me.

An Insight

Imagine how much different the outcomes could have been, had the unscientific lock-downs never been deployed and the Nuremberg Code had been followed.

They made choices and from what I have been hearing from many is that "choices have consequences". 🤷

— Kris Eriksen 🇨🇦 (@KrisEriksen77) January 17, 2022

 

This is harder to do in a mixed-sex environment.

I have always been a first-wave feminist as an extension of my Classical Liberal belief in the rule of law and equality before the law.  In other words, all individuals should be treated equally before the law regardless of their sex (and race and religion).  There are, of course, some small differences to be accommodated based on the physical aspects of sex difference, but those are minor issues at the margin.  Everyone equal before the law is the overarching principle.  

Second-wave feminism, and more currently third-wave feminism, drift further into the margins or irrelevance based on ideology and defiance of reality, and are especially marked by an increasing accommodation of authoritarianism and coercion.  

In addition, second and third wave seem increasingly focused on casting women as marginal figures to be protected by the State from harsh realities.  Under these ideologies, women cease to have agency.  Under first wave-feminism, women were assumed to be strong and capable of playing an equal role with men in the concourse of life.  With second and third wave feminism, women seek special treatment owing to their frailty and weakness.

Bring back and cultivate strong, confident women.  

These choppy waters make it increasingly difficult to have good-faith arguments and more perilous to advance any hypothesis contra the extremist ideologues.  Consequently, I was surprised a couple of weeks ago to see Women's Tears Win in the Marketplace of Ideas by Richard Hanania.  The subheading is: How belief in the blank slate plus residual gender double standards create "cancel culture," and the difficulties of fighting back.

I am even more astonished after a couple of weeks that there has been little furore over his thesis.  

Having mentioned the concept a few times, many have been encouraging me to write a Substack on the feminization of political life and its connection to free speech issues. Noah Carl beat me to it, and the idea has also been picked up by no less an authority than Tom Edsall at the New York Times. I’ve already written about the overrepresentation of women in HR. We can understand the decline of free speech as a kind of female pincer attack: women demand more suppression of offensive ideas at the bottom of institutions, and form a disproportionate share of the managers who hear their complaints at the top.

What is left to contribute on the question of how feminization relates to pathologies in our current political discourse? First, I think that the ways in which public debate works when we take steps to make the most emotional and aggressive women comfortable have been overlooked. Things that we talk about as involving “young people,” “college students,” and “liberals” are often gendered issues.

This doesn’t always show up in the data, and many may not want to discuss anything controversial without having numbers they can refer to, lest they be accused of everything they say being a figment of their sexist imagination. Nonetheless, I think that anyone who has spent time paying attention to politics, journalism, or academia, or wherever people debate ideas, will understand what I’m talking about.

Second, I think there’s a certain weirdness to the arguments made by both sides of the gender issue. To simplify, you have the left, which leans towards the blank slate and opposes gender stereotypes but demands women in public life be treated as too delicate for criticism, and conservatives, who believe in sex differences but say to treat people as individuals. But if men and women are the same, or are only different because of socialization that we should overcome, there’s no good reason to treat them differently. And if they are different and everyone should accept that, then we are justified in having different rules and norms for men and women in practically all areas of life, including political debate. How exactly this should be done is something worth thinking about. Finally, I argue that much of the opposition to wokeness is distorted and ineffective because it avoids the gendered nature of the problem, which also makes fighting it difficult.

Read the whole thing for greater elaboration and for the links.  It is an uncomfortable argument yet there are some elements that are clearly true.  

Ed West references the piece in The fall of communism, the trouble with mental health awareness, and the Zemmourification of France.  He makes a couple of related points.

Public debate has historically involved all-male contests, and men know what the rules are when contesting other men; it’s almost like a contact sport, in which you expect to get hit and it’s nothing personal. Indeed, it’s considered dishonourable and unmanly to take it personally. This is harder to do in a mixed-sex environment.

What is more, the sex ratio of any political movement clearly has an influence on its style, and the Great Awokening is surely related to the huge increase of women at universities; its tone is quite different to, say, the 1968 protests, when radical Leftism was far more male-heavy.

An interesting discussion worth having but hard to have in our current public intellectual extremism.  

I see wonderful things

Fascinating world of ancient #glass: an amazing #Roman glass jug with a smaller glass jug inside – a so-called joke-jar that shows the skill of the glassmaker.
Probably made in workshop in Cologne, found in burial in Stein am Rhein, #Switzerland, 4th c. AD.
1/2#RomanArchaeology pic.twitter.com/WRecWwFkw3

— Nina Willburger (@DrNWillburger) January 20, 2022

 

Be not solitary, be not idle.

From The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton.

Only take this for a corollary and conclusion, as thou tenderest thine own welfare in this, and all other melancholy, thy good health of body and mind, observe this short precept, give not way to solitariness and idleness. “Be not solitary, be not idle.”

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/gtDjyQHU6Q

— Real Developments (@pdubdev) January 18, 2022

 

The more complicated society becomes, the more apparent become the benefits of liberty

From The Science of Liberty by Timothy Ferris.  Page 27.

Although thinkers long assumed otherwise, freedom is efficient. Perhaps it was the machine age, with its picture of society as resembling a factory run by a boss from a windowed aerie high above it all, that misled so many on this point, but by now it has become clear that the world is far too complex to be run by individuals or by committees of experts. No leader can assimilate enough information to accurately price tomatoes, much less chart the course of scientific or social advance. So the liberal ideal of peoples being free to decide matters for themselves turns out to have practical value—and the more complicated society becomes, the more apparent become the benefits of liberty.

Data Talks

Contrary to theoretical expectations, women perceived greater competitive tendencies in their fellow females when resources were abundant. https://t.co/K9AYzTzuz3 pic.twitter.com/ir8CLSWoIg

— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) February 4, 2022

 

Under the stars, 2020 by Paul Corfield

Under the stars, 2020 by Paul Corfield

Click to enlarge.

From The Anglo-Saxon World - An Anthology by Kevin Crossley-Holland.  An excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

VORTIGERN’S INVITATION

449 In this year Mauritius and Valentinus succeeded to the throne and ruled for seven years. And in their days Vortigern invited the English hither, and they then came in three ships to Britain at the place Ebbsfleet. King Vortigem gave them land in the south-east of this land on condition that they should fight against the Picts. They then fought against the Picts and had the victory wherever they came. They then sent to Angeln, bidding them send more help, and had them informed of the cowardice of the Britons and the excellence of the land. They then immediately sent hither a greater force to the help of the others. Those men came from three tribes of Germany; from the Old Saxons, from the Angles, from the Jutes. From the Jutes came the people of Kent and of the Isle of Wight, namely the tribe which now inhabits the Isle of Wight and that race in Wessex which is still called the race of the Jutes. From the Old Saxons came the East Saxons, the South Saxons, and the West Saxons. From Angeln, which ever after remained waste, between the Jutes and the Saxons, came the East Angles, the Middle Angles, the Mercians, and all the Northumbrians. Their leaders were two brothers, Hengest and Horsa, who were sons of Wihtgils. Wihtgils was the son of Witta, the son of Wecta, the son of Woden. From that Woden has descended all our royal family, and that of the Southumbrians also.

From those distant stirrings to the modern world.  Quite the unplanned journey.  

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

From The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, Line 25.

There is shadow under this red rock

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

The last line hearkening, presumably to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer burial service.  

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our low estate that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

In turn reflecting the majestic language of the King James Version of Genesis 3:19 where God speaks to Adam.

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

This is the punishment arising from Adam and Eve having eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  

Fear in a handful of dust indeed.

History

Third class menu on the Titanic. pic.twitter.com/tFZGXJeQfO

— A Beautiful Culture (@ABeautifulCult1) February 2, 2022

 

An Insight

A day later & nobody in the media is asking how a foreign terrorist entered the country, procured an illegal firearm & held up a synagogue without help and why he was killed when he wasn't holding hostages and why the FBI can figure out school parents motives faster than his.

— Rising serpent 🇺🇸 (@rising_serpent) January 17, 2022

 

You Raise Me Up

You Raise Me Up by COLOR MUSIC Children's Choir (Dnipro/Ukraine)

Double click to enlarge.

You Raise Me Up

by Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary

When troubles come and my heart burdened be

Then, I am still and wait here in the silence

Until you come and sit awhile with me

        You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

        You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas

        I am strong, when I am on your shoulders

        You raise me up to more than I can be

There is no life - no life without its hunger

Each restless heart beats so imperfectly

But when you come and I am filled with wonder

Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity

        You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

        You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas

        I am strong, when I am on your shoulders

        You raise me up to more than I can be

                You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

                You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas

                I am strong, when I am on your shoulders

                You raise me up to more than I can be

                You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

                You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas

                I am strong, when I am on your shoulders

                You raise me up to more than I can be

                You raise me up to more than I can be

 

I see wonderful things

Amazing footage of a blanket octopus unfurling her cape in the Lembeh Strait of Indonesia. pic.twitter.com/nUXlMJvokU

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) January 24, 2022

 

Offbeat Humor

Are people who read The Republic over and over again the ultimate cave trolls?

Asking for a friend. . .

— Steven F. Hayward (@stevenfhayward) January 11, 2022

 

Liberalism fosters science, which expands the intellectual and material universe, and liberalism can best cope with the changes that it and science have engendered.

From The Science of Liberty by Timothy Ferris.  Page 26.

The rapid changes in knowledge, power, and preference produced by the rise of science and technology have spotlighted the value of creativity. Back when the pace of change was glacially slow, the average person had scant opportunity to imagine, much less live, a life greatly different from that of his parents and grandparents: If you were the child of a peasant or a serf you almost certainly were going to remain in a similar station. Science and liberalism changed this dynamic. They opened up economic opportunities—if you could invent an improved clock or steam engine, or discover the universal laws of gravitation and inertia, you could become rich and famous regardless of whether your father was a carpenter, as was James Watt’s, or a farmer, as was Isaac Newton’s—and created a dynamic of progress that benefited not just the inventors but the general public. “In an advancing society,” noted the mathematician H. B. Phillips, “any restriction on liberty reduces the number of things tried and so reduces the rate of progress. In such a society freedom of action is granted to the individual, not because it gives him greater satisfaction but because if allowed to go his own way he will on the average serve the rest of us better than under any orders we know how to give.” This wasn’t clear in the old days, when few individuals enjoyed many benefits from creativity beyond hearing a stirring sermon from the pulpit or a new song produced by a bard from a faraway court. Today, the value of individual creativity is much more evident: Starting with the rise of literacy and libraries, and now expanding in a world of mobile phones and the Internet, people can appreciate that their well-being is enhanced by the creativity of others, and that the world’s total expertise far exceeds the personal understanding of any one individual. Hence the benefits of everyone’s being free to come up with new ideas and inventions become increasingly clear, even if most of their work is often too specialized for the rest of us to comprehend. Liberalism fosters science, which expands the intellectual and material universe, and liberalism can best cope with the changes that it and science have engendered.

Data Talks

Male elephant seals aim to get huge or die trying. Only the largest males get to mate, so the pressure to eat and grow is extreme | Science News https://t.co/0pwbAPJoBd pic.twitter.com/bmF8gOB7Qc

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 5, 2022

 

Lost, 2020 by Morten Lasskogen (Norwegian, born 1950)

Lost, 2020 by Morten Lasskogen (Norwegian, born 1950)

Click to enlarge.

History

Copper-Alloy Faucet and Conduit, 6th–7th century, #Byzantine pic.twitter.com/LF91CikRGr

— Eastern Rome (@romebyzantium) January 17, 2022

 

An Insight

I'm not joining their cult. When you've been in one they are MUCH easier to spot. pic.twitter.com/YGcCb086NN

— Christine (@CAbainbridge) January 17, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

Ferrapontov Monastery is situated in the Vologda region, in the north-western part of the Russian Federation between Borodaevskoe and Paskoe lakes, northwest of the city of Vologda. pic.twitter.com/9dKf3EgbaU

— A Beautiful Culture (@ABeautifulCult1) January 29, 2022

 

Offbeat Humor

The people who talk or write like this have a deep and profound distaste for humanity, which is why they adopt a dialect that implicitly locates themselves outside a human frame. pic.twitter.com/EWTEACPzFe

— Winter Youth (@MusingsOfYouth) January 17, 2022

 

But that's a good working theory

John Tierney identified "two founding principles" for his blog, Tierney Lab.  

• Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong.

• But that's a good working theory.

Data Talks

"As people tweet more about the politics, their tweets also become more hateful, toxic and negative over time." https://t.co/fr3I4YKb3X

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 3, 2022

 

Celestial Love

Celestial Love

by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

translated by John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)

No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair face I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies:

For she was born with God in Paradise;
Nor all the shows of beauty shed around
This fair false world her wings to earth have bound:
Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies.

Nay, things that suffer death, quench not the fire
Of deathless spirits; nor eternity
Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare.
Not love but lawless impulse is desire:

That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair
Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.

Shipwreck Victims on Ice Floe, 1876-1877 by François-Auguste Biard, (French, 1799 – 1882)

Shipwreck Victims on Ice Floe, 1876-1877 by François-Auguste Biard,  (French, 1799 – 1882)

Click to enlarge.

History

Zeus, in the form of a white bull, abducts Europa. Detail from a red-figure calyx-krater signed by the painter Asteas (fl. ca. 350-320 BC), from Paestum (Poseidonia) in south Italy. Now in the National Archaeological Museum, Paestum. Photo credit: Dave and Margie Hill. pic.twitter.com/3hpbIQRxH9

— Archaeology & Art (@archaeologyart) January 18, 2022

 

A reverse in a campaign of lawfare.

New developments.  From 2 Prosecutors Leading N.Y. Trump Inquiry Resign, Clouding Case’s Future by William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich, Kate Christobek and Nate Schweber.  The Subheading is "The resignations came after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, was said to have expressed doubts about the case."

President Trump's opponents have been conducting large-scale law-fare against him since at least 2015 when Trump announced his candidacy.  Lawsuits and congressional investigations against him have been a mainstay since then, through his 2016 victory, all through his administration, and now well into his post-presidency.

Being a real estate magnate in New York City, regardless of his policies or him as a politician, I have long thought that he might be especially vulnerable arising out of New York City real estate deals.  

But that has never happened.  The actual cases which have been brought have all seemed politically motivated fishing expeditions with only marginal credibility.  Again, not assessing the probability that real legal wrong-doing might have occurred.  It's just that what is legally pursued seems dramatically weak tea.

In this most recent wrinkle:

The two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his business practices abruptly resigned on Wednesday amid a monthlong pause in their presentation of evidence to a grand jury, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The unexpected development came not long after the high-stakes inquiry appeared to be gaining momentum and now throws its future into serious doubt.

The prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, submitted their resignations because the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Mr. Trump, the people said.

Mr. Pomerantz confirmed in a brief interview that he had resigned but declined to elaborate. Mr. Dunne declined to comment.

Without Mr. Bragg’s commitment to move forward, the prosecutors late last month postponed a plan to question at least one witness before the grand jury, one of the people said. They have not questioned any witnesses in front of the grand jury for more than a month, essentially pausing their investigation into whether Mr. Trump inflated the value of his assets to obtain favorable loan terms from banks.

The precise reasons for Mr. Bragg’s pullback are unknown, and he has made few public statements about the status of the inquiry since taking office, but the prosecutors had encountered a number of challenges in pursuing Mr. Trump. Notably, they had thus far been unable to persuade any Trump Organization executives to cooperate and turn on Mr. Trump.

In a statement responding to the resignations of the prosecutors, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg said that he was “grateful for their service” and that the investigation was ongoing.

Time is running out for this grand jury, whose term is scheduled to expire in April. Prosecutors can ask jurors to vote to extend their term but generally avoid doing so. They also are often reluctant to impanel a new grand jury after an earlier one has heard testimony, because witnesses could make conflicting statements if asked to testify again.

And without Mr. Dunne, a high-ranking veteran of the office who has been closely involved with the inquiry for years, and Mr. Pomerantz, a leading figure in New York legal circles who was enlisted to work on it, the yearslong investigation could peter out.

This is hard to interpret as political shenanigans.  New York City is profoundly blue and the District Attorney is a Soros-backed DA.  Hard to imagine any framing that involves the main protagonists wanting to go soft on Trump.

A straight reading would suggest that there was just never much evidence to support the allegations.

An alternative, and perhaps this is the more plausible, is that Democrats are clearing the decks for a bad election cycle.  I imagine there is not much more or less corroborating evidence as when the original allegations were made.  Absent any accumulated hard evidence, perhaps the Democratic Party simply does not want to be seen to perpetrating unwarranted law-fare.  

Between Afghanistan, inflation, an ever-tightening housing market, serial reversals on the Covid-19 policies, Ukraine and other international reverses, supply chain woes, etc. perhaps all this is clearing the political battlefield.  If I were a Democrat and I had a Grand Jury case to make that was both weak and might be decided anytime between July and November, perhaps I would not want that to be additional fuel for the political bonfire.

All speculation, but it is an interesting development.

It was a commitment to reason, to a sense of beauty

From 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei.  One of his experiences during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when ideological zealotry triumphed over human rights and Classical Liberalism.  

Father’s shelves were packed with literary works, but he had also accumulated a lot of art books. When I was little and not yet able to read the words, I had already begun to enjoy some of these volumes, with their eyecatching covers and illustrations: gilded Virgins, prints of Rembrandt’s bronze etchings, buildings and statues from the Classical and Renaissance periods.  These all gave wing to my imagination. I remember, too, poetry collections by Whitman, Baudelaire, Mayakovsky, Lorca, and the Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet. I was fascinated by the Picasso engravings in a volume of Paul Éluard’s poetry, and early Chinese revolutionary woodblock prints and traditional window papercuts that Father had acquired in Yan’an. When you turned the pages of the books, they would give off a unique aroma, telling you right away that they were from a different time and place. From an early age, we knew that these books and albums meant the world to Father, for every time he talked about them his face would light up. They helped him forget his worries.

But now, in the current climate, every little fiber of their linen covers posed a danger to us. After several home invasions by the Red Guards, Father decided to burn all his books, and I was his helper. We stacked the books up next to a bonfire, and one by one I tore out the pages and tossed them into the fire. Like drowning ghosts, they writhed in the heat and were swallowed by flames. At the moment they turned to ash, a strange force took hold of me.  From then on, that force would gradually extend its command of my body and mind, until it matured into a form that even the strongest enemy would find intimidating. It was a commitment to reason, to a sense of beauty—these things are unbending, uncompromising, and any effort to suppress them is bound to provoke resistance.

 

An Insight

The lab leak debate has got to be the biggest bamboozle operation of all time. Xi has successfully got Westerners obsessed over the origins of the virus, when they should be obsessing over the origins of the lockdown policy, which by the way originated in Xinjiang not Wuhan.

— Josh Luty (@josh_luty) January 17, 2022

 

We are doing research that could not be done even a decade ago. It wasn't possible.

From Sex, Ancestral, and pattern type variation of fingerprint minutiae: A forensic perspective on anthropological dermatoglyphics by Nichole A. Fournier and Ann H. Ross.  From the Abstract:

The effect of sex is insignificant. Ancestry is significant (Wilks' λ = 0.053 F value = 2.98, DF = 4,224, P value = 0.02), as is pattern type (Wilks' λ = 0.874 F value = 2.57, DF = 12,592.94, P value = 0.003). The ANOVA reveals that bifurcations are responsible for the variation between ancestral groups, while bifurcations and ending ridges vary between patterns. Logistic regression results suggest that total bifurcations can predict the ancestry of an individual (ChiSq = 6.55, df = 1, Prob > ChiSq = 0.01).

Translating from Academic, I believe they are saying that relying on fingerprints, you cannot identify the individual's sex but you can identify their racial/ethnic ancestry.

Whether it is a well founded conclusion or not, I have no opinion other than to note a pitiably small sample size.  

It is just striking to me that such research could only have occurred in the past decade or so.  Prior to that, we did not have the computing power or machine learning capacity to conduct such research.  

The people who are good at figuring stuff out (e.g., engineers) don’t tend to like politics. This is (one reason) why we have a lot of crappy policies.

From Why Are Some Fields More Left Wing? by Michael Huemer.  Speculative.

People who are more strongly interested in politics tend to be more left-wing. So moderates tend to be found in non-political fields, e.g., business or engineering.

• You might hypothesize that this is because politically engaged people tend to gather a lot of evidence about political issues, and the evidence actually supports leftism, so they become leftists. My knowledge about reality, though, suggests that this is false; politically engaged people tend to have lots of BS in their heads and don’t care about being accurate. So I have a different explanation:
• People don’t get interested in politics for practical reasons – almost everyone knows that their own contributions will never make a noticeable difference. It is also not mainly intellectual curiosity, because there are more intellectually stimulating topics to study. The main motivation for doing a lot of reading and talking about politics is entertainment, constructing a desirable self-image, bonding with others, and stuff like that.
• So the people who are strongly politically engaged tend to be the ones for whom those motives are especially strong, compared to other people.
• Those sorts of motives tend to support left-wing beliefs. I.e., left wing beliefs do better at giving you a desirable self-image, letting you bond with other intellectuals, etc.

He concludes the longer piece:

This explains why highly politically-interested people tend to be left-wing. There are a variety of motives for holding left- or right-wing beliefs, and a person’s actual beliefs are the resultant of these different motives. It happens that the motives supporting leftism overlap a lot with the motives for spending time on politics.

Unfortunately, the motives for being politically engaged have little to do with finding truth or helping society, so the people who have most influence also tend to be wrong a lot. The people who are good at figuring stuff out (e.g., engineers) don’t tend to like politics. This is (one reason) why we have a lot of crappy policies.

Obviously not an easily proved argument but I suspect directionally correct.

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse come to visit

From Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Wikipedia.  The Pale Horse in revelations:

This fourth, pale horse, was the personification of Death, with Hades following him, jaws open and receiving the victims slain by Death. Death's commission was to kill upon the Roman Earth with all of the four judgements of God—with sword, famine, pestilence and wild beasts. The deadly pale and livid appearance displays a hue symptomatic of approaching empire dissolution. According to Edward Bishop Elliott, an era in Roman history commencing within about 15 years after the death of Severus Alexander (in 235 AD[52]) strongly marks every point of this terrible emblem.

According to the prophet Ezekiel, the four horsemen were "sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague."

I had the bleak thought this morning that in only thirteen months we have already experienced plague and now sword.  Can famine and wild beasts be far behind?  

I don't think we face famine or wild beasts.  On the other hand, for the first time in decades, store shelves are going empty of routine supplies.  I don't think the supply chain disruptions are so bad that we will face either widespread shortages or famine.  On the other hand I would not have expected any minimally competent national or global leadership to have permitted the bad policies of the pandemic, the foolishness of Ukraine, or the absurdity of the supply chain disruptions.

And what is the fourth horsemen of wild beasts?  I don't want to even consider that.

I see wonderful things

This is ice on my dry sidewalk. I am blown away at its beauty. pic.twitter.com/uXBjvCwjBu

— hollyonthehill (@hollyonthehill) January 23, 2022

 

Roussel de Bailleul, Prince of a Norman Kingdom in Anatolia

A twitter thread on the short-lived Norman kingdom in Anatolia.  Roussel de Bailleul died in 1077.  Fromm Wikipedia.

Roussel de Bailleul (died 1077), also known as Phrangopoulos (Greek: Φραγγόπουλος, lit. 'son-of-a-Frank'), or in the anglicized form Russell Balliol was a Norman adventurer (or exile) who travelled to Byzantium and was a soldier under the Emperor Romanus IV (ruled 1068–71). He is also known as Ursellus de Ballione in Latin or Roscelin or Roskelin de Baieul, and Anna Comnena called him Ourselios (Οὐρσέλιος), also rendered Urselius.

Roussel ventured with the Apulian Normans to Italy, settled in Terra d'Otranto and served under Roger de Hauteville in Sicily. According to Geoffrey Malaterra, Roussel distinguished himself with his bravery at the Battle of Cerami, where he urged Count Roger to pursue the fleeing Saracens. Aside from this brief account by Malaterra, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena is the main source for Roussel.

He was at the Campaign of Manzikert in 1071, but did not participate in the battle, as he was previously dispatched by the Emperor Romanos to Khliat to forage and plunder.[1] Afterwards he remained in imperial service, and was sent into Asia Minor again with a force of 3,000 Franco-Norman heavy cavalry, where he conquered some territory in Galatia and declared it an independent state in 1073, with himself as prince, following the example set by his fellow Normans in the Mezzogiorno. His capital was Ancyra, now the capital of Turkey. He defeated the Caesar John Ducas and sacked Chrysopolis, near Constantinople. He then set up John Ducas as an usurper candidate to the imperial throne. By formally ceding lands that the Seljuk Turks had actually conquered, the emperor Michael VII persuaded the Seljuk warlord Tutush I to remove Roussel and both Ducas and Roussel were defeated and captured by Turkish forces. Roussel's wife paid the ransom demanded by the Turks and Roussel returned to Amasea, where he was given up by the people through a ploy of Alexius Comnenus (1074), then a general, later an emperor.

In 1077, he was ransomed from his Constantinopolitan imprisonment to lead a battalion against the rebel Nicephorus Botaniates. He defeated him, but then joined him. The emperor called up the Seljuks again and they defeated and captured him at Nicomedia. He was given over to Byzantium and executed.

Offbeat Humor

Holy shit Quebecs anti-jaywalking billboards don't fuck around 😳 pic.twitter.com/ouKyNTPtk9

— Andre Delamare🌊 🇳🇿#doublevaccinated (@delanightmares) January 16, 2022

 

Data Talks

Why do we shake our heads when we say no? Charles Darwin was probably on the right trail. https://t.co/TSP68Zc1Hr pic.twitter.com/gQ0RsArC9C

— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) February 4, 2022

 

Lady doing embroidery work by an open window overlooking Heidelberg by Henrik Nordenberg (1857-1928)

Lady doing embroidery work by an open window overlooking Heidelberg by Henrik Nordenberg (1857-1928) 

Click to enlarge.

History

The Great Depression. Children from Oklahoma staying in a migratory camp in California. 1936. pic.twitter.com/lIrhwEFirt

— A Beautiful Culture (@ABeautifulCult1) February 3, 2022

 

An Insight

The experts just aren't as expert as we are led to believe.

“The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.” - Paul Samuelson & William Nordhaus, Economics: An Introductory Analysis, 1989.

— David Waugh (@davidmwaugh01) January 14, 2022

 

I see wonderful things

This is probably my favorite dog picture of all time pic.twitter.com/bC9bsmhb28

— Soham (@SohamGadre) January 18, 2022

 

Guantanamera, Playing For Change, Song Around The World

Double click to enlarge.

Offbeat Humor

This is the fakest fake news in the history of fake newsery. pic.twitter.com/PB1yds4k1c

— Steven F. Hayward (@stevenfhayward) January 14, 2022

 

Data Talks

 

Other interesting questions:
- 70% we can rationally agree to disagree
- 54% mind uploading would be death
- 45% would accept immortality, 41% would refuse
- 36% the passing of time is an illusion, 25 it isn’t pic.twitter.com/eRA2AkfWD6

— Lionel Page (@page_eco) February 5, 2022

 

The Munich Agreement was a diplomatic failure but also a failure of forecasting

The Munich Agreement is usually remembered in the US as a failure of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain but it was a collective failure of Britain, France and Italy - the three main powers of western Europe and all three signatories to the betrayal of the Czechs.

The Munich Agreement (Czech: Mnichovská dohoda; Slovak: Mníchovská dohoda; German: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia, despite the existence of a 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic, for which it is also known as the Munich Betrayal (Mnichovská zrada; Mníchovská zrada). Most of Europe celebrated the Munich agreement, which was presented as a way to prevent a major war on the continent. The four powers agreed to the annexation of the Czechoslovak borderland areas named the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Adolf Hitler announced it was his last territorial claim in Europe.

Germany had started a low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, the United Kingdom and France on 20 September formally asked Czechoslovakia to cede its territory to Germany, which was followed by Polish territorial demands brought on 21 September and Hungarian on 22 September. Meanwhile, German forces conquered parts of Cheb District and Jeseník District and briefly overran, but were repelled from, dozens of other border counties. Poland also grouped its army units near its common border with Czechoslovakia and also instigated generally unsuccessful sabotage on 23 September. Hungary also moved its troops towards the border with Czechoslovakia, without attacking.

An emergency meeting of the main European powers – not including Czechoslovakia, although their representatives were present in the town, or the Soviet Union, an ally to both France and Czechoslovakia – took place in Munich, Germany, on 29–30 September 1938. An agreement was quickly reached on Hitler's terms, being signed by the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. The Czechoslovak mountainous borderland that the powers offered to appease Germany had not only marked the natural border between the Czech state and the Germanic states since the early Middle Ages, but it also presented a major natural obstacle to any possible German attack. Having been strengthened by significant border fortifications, the Sudetenland was of absolute strategic importance to Czechoslovakia.

On 30 September, Czechoslovakia yielded to the combination of military pressure by Germany, Poland and Hungary, and diplomatic pressure by United Kingdom and France, and agreed to give up territory to Germany on Munich terms. Then, on 1 October, Czechoslovakia also accepted Polish territorial demands.

The Munich Agreement was soon followed by the First Vienna Award on 2 November 1938, separating largely Hungarian inhabited territories in southern Slovakia and southern Subcarpathian Rus' from Czechoslovakia. On 30 November 1938 Czechoslovakia ceded to Poland small patches of land in Spiš and Orava regions.

In March 1939, the First Slovak Republic, a Nazi puppet state, proclaimed its independence. Shortly afterwards, Hitler reneged on his solemn promises to respect the integrity of Czechoslovakia by creating the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, giving Germany full control of what remained of Czechoslovakia, including its significant military arsenal that later played an important role in Germany's invasions of Poland and France. As a result, Czechoslovakia had disappeared.

Today, the Munich Agreement is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states".

In these, our current unsettled times, when we see shadows of totalitarian authoritarianism in our own government as well as among many other previously freedom loving countries, it is sobering to consider the Munich Agreement.

It is now seems obvious that the settlement was morally noxious and ineffective.  Czechoslovakia was betrayed and the betrayal merely strengthened and emboldened the looming threat from totalitarian authoritarian Germany under its National Socialist regime.

What is glossed over is that both Poland and Hungary were also co-conspirators to the ultimate dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.  Everyone had their national objectives and no one acted on principle.  

From the speeches in the British Commons upon Chamberlain's return from Munich clutching his soiled parchment and promises of peace in our time.  On October 5th, 1938, it was moved, following two full days of debate,  "That this House approves the policy of His Majesty's Government by which war was averted in the recent crisis and supports their efforts to secure a lasting peace."  

The debate and speeches began at 3:30pm and continued until 10:30 at night when the session was adjourned to be carried over to the next day.  

Churchill was one of the lone politicians and one of the few voices in the nation speaking against the policy of appeasement.  He forecast that appeasement would make Germany and National Socialism materially stronger (by absorbing Czechoslovak munitions, armor and air force, as well as industrial capacity) and territorially more ambitious.

Everyone else clutched at the fig leaf of the accord, in relief at averting an immediate armed conflict.

We face the same calculus these many years later.  We have confronted, and for the time being, have destroyed the territorial ambitions of the various Islamic Caliphates.  Simultaneously though, Russia has resurrected a simulacrum of its once fearsome military forces and is now incrementally slicing pieces off of a sovereign nation.  As with Munich, there is no obvious or easy answer.  

 Over to the East, China's economic reforms and freedoms have ended up, not in an evolution towards greater political freedoms but the reverse.  The economic successes have been put to a revitalized nationalism also expressed in territorial ambitions.

Here was one the typical voices for appeasement in the parliamentary debate on October 5th, 1938.

Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft I am sure the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. H. Nicolson) will recognise that, in rising this afternoon, I am not moved by any kind of hysteria. In the recent days through which we have passed, I, for one, cannot help thinking that it was very natural that not only all parties in the House of Commons, but the whole of this great nation, should have been moved as never before, except perhaps on one occasion in our lives, by a spirit, not of hysteria, but of very great thankfulness that the world had been spared this disaster. I also want to say, in view of certain criticisms that naturally appeared somewhere, that, from what little I saw, I feel that the air-raid precautions, as far as they went, were really remarkable in the extraordinary response of the people of our country. The calm resolve of the great majority of the British people was something of which we can all be proud. The weaknesses which displayed themselves at that time must make an imperative demand upon this House to see that the lessons are learned and every form of precaution perfected. 

 

It is naturally a matter of great regret to me to have to differ on any matter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill). I have had the privilege of working with him on so many causes, I have such immense admiration for his abilities and courage, and I know that he is actuated by the highest patriotic motives, and it is doubly to my regret that I find myself in complete difference with the main viewpoint that he has put this afternoon as to our position in the world. He started his remarkable speech by saying that Great Britain has suffered total and unmitigated defeat. Strangely enough, as far as I can see from the Press of the world, and especially the Press of those small nations which we are always mentioning, Great Britain is hailed as their saviour from a world calamity, and I feel that it is about time that it was stated in this Debate that, after all, it was not as a guarantor, but as a friend that we entered into this matter, and I think we in that act of friendship saved Czechoslovakia from annihilation.

My right hon. Friend spoke of our calling into being all the apparatus of crisis. I cannot help thinking that in the great flow of his oratory he probably regrets having used that phrase. The apparatus of crisis was not called into being; the 375crisis was there. We had to stiffen ourselves in a few hours into taking terrific decisions. Again, he said that we have not the slightest power to make good the pledge which was given to Czechoslovakia—I think he should have added "directly"—except by indirect action. Surely that must also have applied had a pledge been given months ago. I remember we had a long discussion at that time, and I ventured to say that if Britain was to pledge its word to stand by the Czechs, that was a pledge which could not be fulfilled, and must not, therefore, be uttered. I regret that we have now to give this pledge. I have always felt that we have burdens enough in our present commitments, and ought not to go meddling in the distant parts of Central Europe. But, although I have resisted the burden of further commitments, I feel that when Britain and France unitedly gave that advice to Czechoslovakia, to save the peace of the world by acting wisely, we had no alternative but to give that pledge to stand by their State in the days to come.

Not to pick on the Right Honorable Brigadier-General Sir Henry Croft - his was a common position, arrived at through empiricism, reason and logic.  His whole speech is worth reading.  

Incidentally, he makes mention of one thing which is particularly notable.  As true classical liberal credos slowly progress around the world in fits and starts, it is easy to lose sight of just how far we have come and how much has been accomplished in making Age of Enlightenment values the de facto norm of the world.  Croft mentions:

The second school of thought in this 376country I think can roughly be described as saying, "We realise that the dictatorial form of Government has now existed in a great many countries for many years, starting with Russia, Turkey, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Germany and Greece, and I suppose we can say the system is being built up in other countries—[An HON. MEMBER: "Poland."] Poland and Rumania—in fact I suppose we can almost say that if you run your finger across the map the large majority of the people from Vladivostok to Cape Finisterre are under dictatorships." The second school, I think, is of the opinion that there is no evidence of any great uprising of the people in those countries where they are subject to dictatorships, and, since you cannot wait for all this great range of countries to eliminate their firmly-established dictators, if the machinery of civilisation is still to work you have got to understand their mentality, you have got to work with them, and, if possible, you have got to reach agreement. In other words, we have either to talk with dictators whether they are dictators we like or dictators we do not like, or we have to fight them ultimately. You have either to reason with them and understand them or, it seems to me, inevitably war must come. 

From Vladivostok to Cape Finisterre, the territory is strewn with states at least mimicking Classical Liberal norms.  Many are mere shadows of a Classical Liberal state but most are reasonably well grounded (or so they seem, the counter-example of Canada being too present to set great store by the claim).  We have made progress, virtually all the developed world, other than China are reasonably well established democracies with human rights.  In contrast to the majority of dictatorships in 1938.

Churchill's response to the celebration around peace in our times and the policy of appeasement was articulate and regretful.  His was a different forecast.

I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost, who never flinched under the strain of last week—I do not grudge them the natural, spontaneous outburst of joy and relief when they learned that the hard ordeal would no longer be required of them at the moment; but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting. And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

What a gifted orator.  Nearly every sentence a necessary building stone to the next and all weighted in culture and meaning.  

As we face international challenges such as China and Russia and the internal ideological corruption represented by the totalitarian and authoritarian mind evidenced in Critical Race Theory, Social Justice Theory and Postmodernism, we confront the same challenge from which we still shrink.  The we need, in the face of these corrupting ideologies to exert a "supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour" in order to "arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time."

Rereading the debate, you hear reasonable positions and intelligent responses.  You hear good rationals for the unprincipled sacrifice of Czechoslovakia.  And there are several notes echoed today.  Emotions driving decisions.  The role of the media in amplifying positions.  The manufacture of crises for political ends.  The ever present danger of totalitarianism and authoritarianism in the face of Classical Liberal values.  

Churchill's was a different forecast against a roar of appeasement.  And he was proven right.