I Can Still Boss People Around. I

Words Can Make The Illness A Subject I Can Master, And Not One That One Simply Emotes Over.

What I Am Against Is False Optimism: The Notion Either That Things Have To Go Well, Or Else That They Tend To, Or Else That The Default Condition Of Historical Trajectories Is Characteristically Beneficial In The Long-run.

Today, Neither Left Nor Right Can Find Their Footing.

The Different American Experience Of The 20th Century Is Crucial Because The Lesson Of The Century For Europe, Which Essentially Is That The Human Condition Is Tragic, Led It To Have A Build A Welfare System And A Set Of Laws And Social Arrangements That Are More Prophylactic Than Idealistic. It's Not About Building Perfect Futures; It's About Preventing Terrible Pasts. I Think That Is Something That Europeans In The Second Half Of The 20th Century Knew In Their Bones And Americans Never Did, And It's One Of The Big Differences Between The Two Western Cultures.

We Need To Learn... How War Brutalises And Degrades Winners And Losers Alike And What Happens To Us When, Having Heedlessly Waged War For No Good Reason, We Are Encouraged To Inflate And Demonise Our Enemies In Order To Justify That War's Indefinite Continuance.