“He [Lucius Cornelius Sulla, a high-performing debauchee] was well versed in Greek as well as Roman literature, was a discriminate collector of art (usually by military means), had the works of Aristotle brought from Athens to Rome as a part of his richest spoils, and found time, between war and revolution, to write his Memoirs for the misguidance of posterity.”

Will Durant Caesar and Christ

“A remarkable quirk of our current moment in history is how hard people work to assure themselves and others that those they disagree with have no valid point – nor even a perspective of their own. Ever since the October 7 attacks on Israel last year, I’ve tried my best to adhere to a very simple rule: my time and energy are finite. I have demands upon both. I’m not going to spend a single moment of time or calorie of energy trying to change anyone’s mind about the situation in the Middle East. I’m not going to argue or reply to anyone who disagrees with me, beyond a polite acknowledgment. There is simply no value for me in a debate. That being said, I have been genuinely surprised over these last almost 12 months by how little even Israel’s many harsh critics seem to value understanding the Israeli perspective.”

Matt Gurney on The Line October 3, 2024 [in places frankly he flirts with relativism, but you can understand a differing point of view without succumbing to mental or moral paralysis]

“Even the Jacobins, the revolution’s dominant and most radical faction, had initially been welcoming to the clergy. For a while, indeed, priests were more disproportionately represented in their ranks than any other profession. As late as November 1791, the president elected by the Paris Jacobins had been a bishop. It seemed fitting, then, that their name should have derived from the Dominicans, whose former headquarters they had made their base. Certainly, to begin with, there had been little evidence to suggest that a revolution might precipitate an assault on religion.”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

“The citizens no longer listen to good advice, for the belly has no ears.”

Cato the Elder, quoted in Will Durant Caesar and Christ

In my latest Epoch Times column I suggest we could make party platforms less preposterous and ephemeral by insisting that the politicians explain to us what practical obstacles they see to implementing their focus-grouped visions.

“Germany, which had been united as recently as 1871 and within one generation had become an awesome industrial and military power, was, on the eve of war [World War I], the foremost representative of innovation and renewal. She was, among nations, the very embodiment of vitalism and technical brilliance. The war for her was to be war of liberation, a Befreiungskrieg, from the hypocrisy of bourgeois form and convenience, and Britain was to her the principal representative of the order against which she was rebelling. Britain was in fact the major conservative power of the fin-de-siècle world.”

Author’s “Preface” in Modris Eksteins Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Era

“The two strategies for ending the culture war – incremental restrictions, and ‘leaving it up to the states’ – have a history. In the 1800s, the Democratic Party wanted to leave slavery up to the states. In those days too Democrats were ‘pro-choice,’ but about slavery, not abortion. In those days too they thought ‘leaving it up to the states’ would end their culture war. That hope was futile. It didn’t end the culture war over slavery, but only prolonged and inflamed it. Eventually we had a real war which nobody wanted. ‘Leaving it up to the states’ won’t end the culture war over abortion, any more than it ended the culture war over slavery. As slavery exercised a malignant influence on our politics and culture then, so abortion exercises a beastly influence on our politics and culture today. Ironically, in our time the mantle of ‘leaving it up to the states’ has been taken up not by Democrats, but by the Republicans. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is treated as an excuse to drop the whole issue. I am not surprised that the Democrats of our own day take ‘joy,’ as they say, in the liberty to kill children, but I am gravely disappointed that the Trump/Vance campaign is repeating the mistakes which the other party made over slavery. One would have hoped that they would take their inspiration not from Stephen Douglas, but from his opponent Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance, we are listening.”

J Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” September 9, 2024 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/ending-the-culture-war-over-abortion]

In my latest Epoch Times column I explore the ongoing fascination with the Catholic Church on the part of people who scorn its teachings.