“L’histoire, qui nous apprend ce qui arrive dans le monde, nous montre également les grands événements et les médiocres; cette confusion d’objets nous empêche souvent de discerner avec assez d’attention les choses extraordinaires qui sont renfermées dans le course de chaque siècle. Celui où nous vivons en a produit, à mon sense, de plus singuliers que les précédents.”
La Rochefoucauld Maximes (start of Réflexions Diverses XIX. Des événements de ce siècle)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the proposal to exempt Quebec MNAs from an oath of allegiance to our actual Constitution in favour of some pompous make-believe is a dangerous relativist attack on the rule of law.
“More than 1,500 pieces of graffiti were preserved in Pompeii when that Roman city was buried in volcanic ash 1,922 years ago. They include: ‘Aufidius was here.’ ‘Marcus loves Spendusa.’ ‘I am amazed, O wall, that you have not collapsed and fallen, since you must bear the tedious stupidities of so many scrawlers.’ Source: The Washington Post.”
Globe & Mail July 12, 2001 p. A16
On Monday I spoke to the Royal Canadian Military Institute about a number of surprises regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some of which should not have been surprising.
“But history is no respecter of Congresses. For some reason or other (it may be an historical law, which thus far has escaped the attention of the scholars) ‘nations’ seemed to be necessary for the orderly development of human society and the attempt to stem this tide [post-1815] was quite as unsuccessful as the Metternichian effort to prevent people from thinking.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
In my latest Epoch Times column I contrast our supposed new strategy for dealing with Communist China’s aggression with the iconic American Cold War strategy document NSC-68 and ours comes off looking mentally, verbally and morally feeble.
IIn my latest Loonie Politics column I urge everyone to consider the long-term consequences for our political culture if the authorities get away with smirking their way through an inquiry and a national security scandal.
“Over the centuries, historians and philosophers have put together a certain idea about how Western civilization developed. It began in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Arabs developed our numbers, the Phoenicians the first phonetic alphabet, the Greeks democracy, the Romans large-scale government, the Hebrews a single god and a system of morals, and the Christians a spirituality based on redemption and grounded in a vast international church. The Roman Empire fell and the Dark Ages descended, until the arrival of the Renaissance, then the Age if Science and the Enlightenment, colonialism, the romantic era, modernity, and perhaps something we now call the postmodern age. In this sketchy account, humanity passes civilization down the centuries like a baton in a relay race…. This account remains, up the present, the essential background to all discussions of western culture, even for those who dispute it. Critics may argue with this or that part of it, or rewrite bits of it: still, the master narrative remains, because we have not concocted a credible substitute.”
Robert Fulford The Triumph of Narrative