This is so good. Thanks. Agree -> "administrations “got tough” and instituted blustering fuckheaded crackdowns, have turned their campuses into the anarchic battlegrounds that Republicans wanted them to be, been denounced by their own faculties, and earned the enduring enmity of their students. " And also. -> "But behind all these is a failure of imagination endemic to the human species, whereby you assume that your opponents are sniveling villains who will simply have to surrender before your implacable will, rather than people with interior lives and behavioral rules of operation much like your own, who will likely do exactly the same thing you would in the same circumstances. " Smart all through. Thanks for venturing into this impossible topic. I'm new on substack so really have no idea what I'm doing. I'd restack or share quote if I knew how to do that. But for starters, this was so nice to see, a reason I decided to try substack. I got to you via Peter Capatono and I got to him via Adrian Rivera. See you later!
I like your non-political commentary, but let me point out some factual errors here. First, Israel does not try to "kill everyone" in Gaza, it is obvoius things would look alot different if that was true.
Secondly, there are many examples in history of instances where everyone of a tribe or people was killed, or all males were killed and women and children sold into slavery and nobody came back. Just look into the history of the ancient Greeks or Romans.
It is also wrong that one has to choose to eradicate a people or do nothing in face of an ideological threat. You seem to have forgotten about the case of the Nazis you mentioned at the beginning midway in the text.
You also seem to imply that fighting a war in Gaza is a comparably "dumb disastrous decision" as the US made in Afghanistan or even iraq. Your own "colossal failure of imagination" here is that you can't fathom a genocidal cult not attacking one building, but swarming your entire country with death squads. Just a completely different situation.
Finally, it's obvoius that although the left might have given up on revolution they can clearly still symphathize with revolutionaries who see "violence and terrorism as a legitimate political tool". And the last stanza validates all prejudices about a class of people who will never understand that someone could be attached to a particular piece of land.
This is the piece i feared it would be from a writer i admire but in politics just can't help but be a stereotypical leftist including the talking points. But as man lives and learns, Theres always hope. Cheers.
One of my favorite quotes on this subject is from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts — a great Netflix animated series — where the title character realizes “you can’t END a war by fighting it”
We really do have to step back and find other solutions to our problems — you can’t kill your way to peace, it’s as simple as that
This reminds me of an article I read many years ago, by a British diplomat.
“Many years ago, on leaving university, I was asked to go to a windowless office in the Mall to see if I might be interested in becoming an agent of the British secret service. Over a series of interviews, it became clear that I was not cut out to be George Smiley, let alone James Bond. A single bit of wisdom that I picked up in that process has never left me, though. At one point, the interviewer set out the hypothetical details of a complex conflict in a distant corner of the world in which I was theoretically stationed.
What steps would I take to advise the desk in London of how to respond to this crisis? I set out a few embarrassing platitudes about gathering information from all sides, before coming to a firm opinion and a clear course of action. When I’d finished, my interviewer leaned back in his chair.
“There is a crucial question you haven’t asked yourself,” he said.
“There is?”
“Why do we need to have a strong, settled opinion about this conflict at all?”
In the years since, as strong, settled opinions about everything from homeschooling to hijabs have apparently become essential markers of personal identity, I’ve often been reminded of that put-down. It came to mind watching Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry and the inevitable, fevered which-side-are-you-on? arguments that followed. “Do I need to have a strong, settled opinion about this?” a voice in my head asked. On balance, I guessed, “probably not”.”
This is so good. Thanks. Agree -> "administrations “got tough” and instituted blustering fuckheaded crackdowns, have turned their campuses into the anarchic battlegrounds that Republicans wanted them to be, been denounced by their own faculties, and earned the enduring enmity of their students. " And also. -> "But behind all these is a failure of imagination endemic to the human species, whereby you assume that your opponents are sniveling villains who will simply have to surrender before your implacable will, rather than people with interior lives and behavioral rules of operation much like your own, who will likely do exactly the same thing you would in the same circumstances. " Smart all through. Thanks for venturing into this impossible topic. I'm new on substack so really have no idea what I'm doing. I'd restack or share quote if I knew how to do that. But for starters, this was so nice to see, a reason I decided to try substack. I got to you via Peter Capatono and I got to him via Adrian Rivera. See you later!
I like your non-political commentary, but let me point out some factual errors here. First, Israel does not try to "kill everyone" in Gaza, it is obvoius things would look alot different if that was true.
Secondly, there are many examples in history of instances where everyone of a tribe or people was killed, or all males were killed and women and children sold into slavery and nobody came back. Just look into the history of the ancient Greeks or Romans.
It is also wrong that one has to choose to eradicate a people or do nothing in face of an ideological threat. You seem to have forgotten about the case of the Nazis you mentioned at the beginning midway in the text.
You also seem to imply that fighting a war in Gaza is a comparably "dumb disastrous decision" as the US made in Afghanistan or even iraq. Your own "colossal failure of imagination" here is that you can't fathom a genocidal cult not attacking one building, but swarming your entire country with death squads. Just a completely different situation.
Finally, it's obvoius that although the left might have given up on revolution they can clearly still symphathize with revolutionaries who see "violence and terrorism as a legitimate political tool". And the last stanza validates all prejudices about a class of people who will never understand that someone could be attached to a particular piece of land.
This is the piece i feared it would be from a writer i admire but in politics just can't help but be a stereotypical leftist including the talking points. But as man lives and learns, Theres always hope. Cheers.
Thank you so much for this
Tim, thank you for this … but tell us how you really feel. In addition to doing nothing in a crisis, I am also a big fan of running away.
One of my favorite quotes on this subject is from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts — a great Netflix animated series — where the title character realizes “you can’t END a war by fighting it”
We really do have to step back and find other solutions to our problems — you can’t kill your way to peace, it’s as simple as that
This reminds me of an article I read many years ago, by a British diplomat.
“Many years ago, on leaving university, I was asked to go to a windowless office in the Mall to see if I might be interested in becoming an agent of the British secret service. Over a series of interviews, it became clear that I was not cut out to be George Smiley, let alone James Bond. A single bit of wisdom that I picked up in that process has never left me, though. At one point, the interviewer set out the hypothetical details of a complex conflict in a distant corner of the world in which I was theoretically stationed.
What steps would I take to advise the desk in London of how to respond to this crisis? I set out a few embarrassing platitudes about gathering information from all sides, before coming to a firm opinion and a clear course of action. When I’d finished, my interviewer leaned back in his chair.
“There is a crucial question you haven’t asked yourself,” he said.
“There is?”
“Why do we need to have a strong, settled opinion about this conflict at all?”
In the years since, as strong, settled opinions about everything from homeschooling to hijabs have apparently become essential markers of personal identity, I’ve often been reminded of that put-down. It came to mind watching Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry and the inevitable, fevered which-side-are-you-on? arguments that followed. “Do I need to have a strong, settled opinion about this?” a voice in my head asked. On balance, I guessed, “probably not”.”