In my latest Loonie Politics column I argue that NATO meeting in Turkey instead of expelling it indicats a collapse of faith in the Western civilization NATO was created to protect.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I draw a connection between the mental paralysis of cultural relativism and the inability of Western nations to defend themselves militarily.
“You can make your book with roguery, but vanity is incalculable.”
Cecil Rhodes to John Buchan, who met Rhodes and worked for him toward the end of Rhodes’ life, quoted in Roger Kimball, “‘Realism coloured by poetry’; Rereading John Buchan,” in The New Criterion September 2003 online
In my latest National Post column I call on Parliament to rein in the overweening pride and overreaching presumptions of Canada’s courts, especially the Supreme Court.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I deplore the prideful inability of people in public life to admit an error and apologize even though, weirdly, it would be better PR than their flailing efforts at spin control, as well as better statecraft and soulcraft.
In my latest National Post column I urge media, observers and citizen-voters to devote less attention to partisan ephemera and more to deep structural problems that will bring self-government crashing down if not addressed and fairly soon.
“While the differences between Anglo-French and German motivations, which we stressed earlier, remained distinct for soldiers and civilians during the entire war, the sensibilities of the British and French had moved toward the German [particularly regarding abandoning restraint with regard to methods.... The Western nations moved in the course of the war toward stronger social control but also toward a new spiritual liberality. Within this paradox, as the social and cultural welds seemed to split away from each other, would lie the essence of the modern experience.”
Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era
On the 9th Hour podcast I joined theatre artist Breanna Doyle and host Charley to discuss heroes and villains in history, finding truth among shifting interpretations, and what it means for us today.