The book I am reading now is Robert Kaplan’s latest, Warrior Politics. I just started it yesterday, so I can’t really speak to it yet, but the following paragraphs are in the preface and they are definitely worth thinking about. Especially with the world crisis being what it is right now, and with IDIOTS (I saw them on the subway) holding anti-war signs … and what do the anti-war signs say? What is their way of expressing their anger at what is happening? By making signs that say “DRAFT THE BUSH TWINS”. THAT is the best they can come up with. Every other person on the train had a Draft the Bush Twins sign. This is the level of dialogue. These are the same people who keep screaming about how dissent and dialogue are not being allowed in this country. Well, if THAT’S what you want to debate about, then, no, I am not interested in opening up any kind of dialogue with you. I would rather talk with someone who disagrees with me, but who actually has a POINT.
Americans can afford optimism partly because their institutions, including the Constitution, were conceived by men who thought tragically. Before the first president was sworn in, the rules of impeachment were established. James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51 that men are so far beyond redemption that the only solution is to set ambition against ambition, and interest against interest: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Our separation of powers is based on that grim view of human behavior. The French Revolution, conversely, began with boundless faith in the good sense of the masses — and in the capacity of intellectuals to engineer good results — and ended with the guillotine.
Our Founders were constructive pessimists to the degree that they worried constantly about what might go wrong in human relations. Just as it is the writer’s job to inspire, it can also be his job to disturb — to say what his intended audience would rather not hear. Foreign policy, too, is often conceived in the light of worst-case scenarios. Thus, my pessimism and my skepticism may be germane. For the trials of statesmen in the new century will arise not from the many things that will go right in international relations, and which humanists will duly celebrate, but from the darker issues of this time.
Sirens have been wailing all morning. I cannot see out my windows because of the snow packed up against us. I will venture into the city. Join the planet again.
I wept for my city yesterday. I wept for what has occurred, but I also stood by that iron cross and thanked God that I lived here and, in a weird way, thanked God that I was actually here on that dreadful day. I live here. My friends who were out of town on that day were crushed that this THING would occur in their home, and that they would not be there.
It was terrible. But it certainly was important for me to go. To look at those empty acres, and to let go of what once was. Let it go. They’re gone. Those buildings are gone.
