Reading, Watching 11.10.24

Perhaps the most astonishing lesson of World War Two is that, in the aftermath of total war and unconditional surrender, a hard reset of two very different cultures was possible. Judging from the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it certainly seems that one can bomb ideas—by obliterating many of the people who hold them. Kill a s

to participate in the great decisions of government. There was, Lippmann brooded, no “intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule.” Lippmann’s disenchantment with democracy anticipated the mood of today’s elites. From the top, the public, and the swings of public opinion, appeared irrational and uninformed. The human material out of wh

trust. Every presidential statement,

Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes co-operation impossible. In general, important civilizations start w