Adverse Political Quotes

Spending time looking for what is missing in your life is futile; if you fail to look within yourself. When we challenge everything we believe we are, we reveal that which we never knew about our own selves.

My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn't how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.

Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind. We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen. Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty. I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it. Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine's theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation's leaders when they framed the Constitution. Certainly we may believe that Washington had a considerable voice in the Constitution. We know that Jefferson had much to do with the document. Franklin also had a hand and probably was responsible in even larger measure for the Declaration. But all of these men had communed with Paine. Their views were intimately understood and closely correlated. There is no doubt whatever that the two great documents of American liberty reflect the philosophy of Paine. ...Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession. In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour... Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}

the general or prevailing opinion in any subject is rarely or never the whole truth; it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied

Adversity sure does gives you trouble, but it keeps you humble.

Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection that they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice. The idea of saying no to the emotional demands of a parent, spouse, lover or authority figure may be practically inconceivable. Thus, it is not uncommon to find adult survivors who continue to minister to the needs of those who once abused them and who continue to permit major intrusions without boundaries or limits. Adult survivors may nurse their abusers in illness, defend them in adversity, and even, in extreme cases, continue to submit to their sexual demands.

Dreams and freedom are the same. In order for them to be, they come with a price.

Anger is an assertion of rights and worth. It is communication, equality, and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice, passion, clarity, and motivation. Anger is instrumental, thoughtful, complicated, and resolved. In anger, whether you like it or not, there is truth. Anger is the demand of accountability, It is evaluation, judgment, and refutation. It is reflective, visionary, and participatory. It's a speech act, a social statement, an intention, and a purpose. It's a risk and a threat. A confirmation and a wish. It is both powerlessness and power, palliative and a provocation. In anger, you will find both ferocity and comfort, vulnerability and hurt. Anger is the expression of hope. How much anger is too much? Certainly not the anger that, for many of us, is a remembering of a self we learned to hide and quiet. It is willful and disobedient. It is survival, liberation, creativity, urgency, and vibrancy. It is a statement of need. An insistence of acknowledgment. Anger is a boundary. Anger is boundless. An opportunity for contemplation and self-awareness. It is commitment. Empathy. Self-love. Social responsibility. If it is poison, it is also the antidote. The anger we have as women is an act of radical imagination. Angry women burn brighter than the sun. In the coming years, we will hear, again, that anger is a destructive force, to be controlled. Watch carefully, because not everyone is asked to do this in equal measure. Women, especially, will be told to set our anger aside in favor of a kinder, gentler approach to change. This is a false juxtaposition. Reenvisioned, anger can be the most feminine of virtues: compassionate, fierce, wise, and powerful. The women I admire most—those who have looked to themselves and the limitations and adversities that come with our bodies and the expectations that come with them—have all found ways to transform their anger into meaningful change. In them, anger has moved from debilitation to liberation. Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.

Never show anger, ill temper, or vengefulness, all disruptive emotions that will make people defensive. In the politics of large groups, welcome adversity as a chance to show the charming qualities of magnanimity and poise. Let others get flustered and upset—the contrast will redound to your favor. Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself.

preemptive strike n. A blow or punch delivered by military aircraft to a target who is suspected of being adverse to one's plot for world domination.

Poverty doesn't scare me, ignorance does. Work doesn't scare me, laziness does. Pleasure doesn't scare me, pain does. Charity doesn't scare me, weakness does. Chastisement doesn't scare me, flattery does. Friendship doesn't scare me, betrayal does. Enmity doesn't scare me, anger does. Marriage doesn't scare me, divorce does. Love doesn't scare me, heartache does. Sex doesn't scare me, parenting does. Ambition doesn't scare me, envy does. Adversity doesn't scare me, boredom does. Risk doesn't scare me, cowardice does. Competition doesn't scare me, mediocrity does. Defeat doesn't scare me, weakness does. Misfortune doesn't scare me, bitterness does. Maturing doesn't scare me, infirmity does. Life doesn't scare me, regret does. Aging doesn't scare me, death does. Existence doesn't scare me, oblivion does. War doesn't scare me, bloodshed does. Government doesn't scare me, corruption does. Politics doesn't scare me, manipulation does. Revolution doesn't scare me, tyranny does. Rebellion doesn't scare me, slavery does. Ideology doesn't scare me, fanaticism does. Religion doesn't scare me, immorality does. Faith doesn't scare me, hopelessness does. Morality doesn't scare me, evil does. God doesn't scare me, extremism does.

Whether the elite public high schools of New York were overwhelmingly Jewish in one era or overwhelmingly Asian in a later era, their lack of demographic “diversity” seems not to have adversely affected their educational performances or their graduates’ achievements in later life. And that is what such schools are there for, not to present a tableau that matches fashionable preconceptions.

Even political systems follow a form of rational tinkering, when people are rational hence take the better option: the Romans got their political system by tinkering, not by “reason.” Polybius in his Histories compares the Greek legislator Lycurgus, who constructed his political system while “untaught by adversity,” to the more experiential Romans, who, a few centuries later, “have not reached it by any process of reasoning [emphasis mine], but by the discipline of many struggles and troubles, and always choosing the best by the light of the experience gained in disaster.

Some of the political and historical texts that inform the arguments made here are “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946); The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert Camus (1951); The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz (1953); “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel (1978); “How to Be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist” by Leszek Kołakowski (1978); The Uses of Adversity by Timothy Garton Ash (1989); The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt (1998); Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (1992); and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014).

Some of the political and historical texts that inform the arguments made here are “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946); The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert Camus (1951); The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz (1953); “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel (1978); “How to Be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist” by Leszek Kołakowski (1978); The Uses of Adversity by Timothy Garton Ash (1989); The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt (1998); Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (1992); and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014). Christians

Deuteronomy’s notion of tithes—that for two out of three years surplus is shared broadly with the disadvantaged, and in the third year is given to them outright—is sound economics when seen in light of conceptions of redistributive economics in primitive societies. In modern capitalist societies, surplus earnings are placed into savings, and insurance policies are taken out to hedge against various forms of adversity. The laws of tithing may be construed as another element in a program of primitive insurance. In a premodern society, A will give some of his surplus in a good year to B, who may have fallen on hard times in exchange for B’s commitment to reciprocate should their roles one day be reversed.

SOME People are subject to a certain delicacy of passion,1 which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adversity. Favours and good offices° easily engage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure; but they are as sensibly touched with contempt.° People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent° sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers: But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal: And when a person, that has this sensibility° of temper, meets with any misfortune, his sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the chief part of our happiness. Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains; so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, that men of such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable. There

The matter of sedition is of two kinds: much poverty and much discontentment....The causes and motives of sedition are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy persons, strangers; dearths; disbanded soldiers; factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth them in a common cause.' The cue of every leader, of course, is to divide his enemies and to unite his friends. 'Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions...that are adverse to the state, and setting them at a distance, or at least distrust, among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies; for it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united.' A better recipe for the avoidance of revolutions is an equitable distribution of wealth: 'Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.' But this does not mean socialism, or even democracy; Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; 'the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people;' and 'Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?' What Bacon wants is first a yeomanry of owning farmers; then an aristocracy for administration; and above all a philosopher-king. 'It is almost without instance that any government was unprosperous under learned governors.' He mentions Seneca, Antonius Pius and Aurelius; it was his hope that to their names posterity would add his own.

The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism. What actually happened was that great parts of the Jewish people were at the same time threatened by physical extinction from without and dissolution from within. In this situation, Jews concerned with the survival of their people would, in a curious and desperate misinterpretation, hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means for keeping the people together so that the assumption of external antisemitism would even imply an external guarantee of Jewish existence. This superstition, a secularized travesty of the idea of eternity inherent in a faith in chosenness and a Messianic hope, has been strengthened through the fact that for many centuries the Jews experienced the Christian brand of hostility which was indeed a powerful agent of preservation, spiritually as well as politically. The Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred—and this all the more innocently because their assimilation had by-passed Christianity in its religious and cultural aspect. Confronted with an obvious symptom of the decline of Christianity, they could therefore imagine in all ignorance that this was some revival of the so-called "Dark Ages." Ignorance or misunderstanding of their own past were partly responsible for their fatal underestimation of the actual and unprecedented dangers which lay ahead. But one should also bear in mind that lack of political ability and judgment have been caused by the very nature of Jewish history, the history of a people without a government, without a country, and without a language. Jewish history offers the extraordinary spectacle of a people, unique in this respect, which began its history with a well-defined concept of history and an almost conscious resolution to achieve a well-circumscribed plan on earth and then, without giving up this concept, avoided all political action for two thousand years. The result was that the political history of the Jewish people became even more dependent upon unforeseen, accidental factors than the history of other nations, so that the Jews stumbled from one role to the other and accepted responsibility for none.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being might suit our moment. Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here is perhaps not a great work of art; Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America is better. One novel known by millions of young Americans that offers an account of tyranny and resistance is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If you or your friends or your children did not read it that way the first time, then it bears reading again. Some of the political and historical texts that inform the arguments made here are “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946); The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert Camus (1951); The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz (1953); “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel (1978); “How to Be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist” by Leszek Kołakowski (1978); The Uses of Adversity by Timothy Garton Ash (1989); The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt (1998); Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (1992); and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014). Christians

Believing in race can be compared to believing in astrology. People who have faith in astrology find constant confirmation that horoscope predictions are reliable and that astrological signs determine personality types. For the faithful, the twelve divisions of the zodiac are as accurate as Blumenbach’s five divisions of human beings. The funny thing is, biostatisticians can find significant medical differences according to astrological signs. In the 1990s, a major randomized clinical trial compared the effectiveness of an intravenous drug, an oral aspirin, and a placebo to treat 17,000 patients who were hospitalized with signs of a heart attack. The study found a huge overall statistical benefit for patients who got the aspirin over the placebo. To test the strength of the outcome, the researchers divided the patients into twelve subgroups by their astrological signs. They found that the zodiac made a difference: their statistical analysis showed that patients born under Gemini or Libra suffered an adverse effect from aspirin.72 Unsurprisingly, physicians laughed off this finding because it was more scientifically plausible to interpret the results as an insignificant coincidence. But an astrology enthusiast would take it as proof that zodiac signs determine people’s health and drug response.

What to read? Any good novel enlivens our ability to think about ambiguous situations and judge the intentions of others. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being might suit our moment. Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here is perhaps not a great work of art; Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America is better. One novel known by millions of young Americans that offers an account of tyranny and resistance is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If you or your friends or your children did not read it that way the first time, then it bears reading again. Some of the political and historical texts that inform the arguments made here are “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell (1946); The Language of the Third Reich by Victor Klemperer (1947); The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (1951); The Rebel by Albert Camus (1951); The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz (1953); “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel (1978); “How to Be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist” by Leszek Kołakowski (1978); The Uses of Adversity by Timothy Garton Ash (1989); The Burden of Responsibility by Tony Judt (1998); Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning (1992); and Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev (2014).

The same effort to conserve force was also evident in war, at the tactical level. The ideal Roman general was not a figure in the heroic style, leading his troops in a reckless charge to victory or death. He would rather advance in a slow and carefully prepared march, building supply roads behind him and fortified camps each night in order to avoid the unpredictable risks of rapid maneuver. He preferred to let the enemy retreat into fortified positions rather than accept the inevitable losses of open warfare, and he would wait to starve out the enemy in a prolonged siege rather than suffer great casualties in taking the fortifications by storm. Overcoming the spirit of a culture still infused with Greek martial ideals (that most reckless of men, Alexander the Great, was actually an object of worship in many Roman households), the great generals of Rome were noted for their extreme caution. It is precisely this aspect of Roman tactics (in addition to the heavy reliance on combat engineering) that explains the relentless quality of Roman armies on the move, as well as their peculiar resilience in adversity: the Romans won their victories slowly, but they were very hard to defeat. Just as the Romans had apparently no need of a Clausewitz to subject their military energies to the discipline of political goals, it seems that they had no need of modern analytical techniques either. Innocent of the science of systems analysis, the Romans nevertheless designed and built large and complex security systems that successfully integrated troop deployments, fixed defenses, road networks, and signaling links in a coherent whole.

Environmental pollution is a regressive phenomenon, since the rich can find ways of insulating themselves from bad air, dirty water, loss of green spaces and so on. Moreover, much pollution results from production and activities that benefit the more affluent – air transport, car ownership, air conditioning, consumer goods of all kinds, to take some obvious examples. A basic income could be construed, in part, as partial compensation for pollution costs imposed on us, as a matter of social justice. Conversely, a basic income could be seen as compensation for those adversely affected by environmental protection measures. A basic income would make it easier for governments to impose taxes on polluting activities that might affect livelihoods or have a regressive impact by raising prices for goods bought by low-income households. For instance, hefty carbon taxes would deter fossil fuel use and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change as well as reduce air pollution. Introducing a carbon tax would surely be easier politically if the tax take went towards providing a basic income that would compensate those on low incomes, miners and others who would lose income-earning opportunities. The basic income case is especially strong in relation to the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. Across the world, in rich countries and in poor, governments have long used subsidies as a way of reducing poverty, by keeping down the price of fuel. This has encouraged more consumption, and more wasteful use, of fossil fuels. Moreover, fuel subsidies are regressive, since the rich consume more and thus gain more from the subsidies. But governments have been reluctant to reduce or eliminate the subsidies for fear of alienating voters. Indeed, a number of countries that have tried to reduce fuel subsidies have backed down in the face of angry popular demonstrations.

John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Economics of Innocent Fraud, provided a still stronger condemnation of prevailing economic and social science, arguing that in recent decades the system itself had been fraudulently “renamed” from capitalism to “the market system.” The advantage of the latter term from an establishment perspective was: “There was no adverse history here, in fact no history at all. It would have been hard, indeed, to find a more meaningless designation—this is a reason for the choice…. So it is of the market system we teach the young…. No individual or firm is thus dominant. No economic power is evoked. There is nothing here from Marx or Engels. There is only the impersonal market, a not wholly innocent fraud.” Along with this, “the phrase ‘monopoly capitalism,’ once in common use,” Galbraith charged, “has been dropped from the academic and political lexicon.” Perhaps worst of all, the growing likelihood of a severe crisis and a long-term slowdown in the economy was systematically hidden from view by this fraudulent displacement of the very

The drugs commonly used for pain relief in labour can adversely affect the baby’s responses and make him reluctant to breastfeed.

The unfortunate reality is that democratic transformations of other societies are often beyond the means of outsiders to achieve. Not all societies are equally well positioned to become democratic at any given moment. Structural prerequisites may not be in place; an adverse political culture can pose obstacles. Truly liberal democracies may make for better international citizens, but helping countries get to that point is more difficult than often recognized—and the attempts often riskier, as immature or incomplete democracies can be hijacked by demagoguery or nationalism.

Amenophis enjoyed a relatively stable political climate and could exalt in the trappings of power, calling himself Egypt’s Dazzling Sun. The pharaoh, had Hadrian known it, was on many counts a ruler with whom he might reasonably have identified himself; although Hadrian deliberately associated himself with the lives of dead heroes and a life lived bravely in the face of political or military adversity, the sumptuous Amenophis was more Hadrianic in achievement and influence than the Homeric and untimely dead Memnon.

As a result of our wrong thinking and supineness, we American citizens tend to breed a mass of men whose interests in governmental matters are often adverse to ours, who are thoroughly drilled, thoroughly organized, who make their livelihood out of politics, and who frequently make their livelihood out of bad politics.

The Lady and the Samurai Gibran was right. Love had beckoned her to follow his steep path and had embraced her. And true to his words, “the sword hidden among his pinions” wounded her that she may know the secrets of her heart, “and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.” Thomas was correct as well. Love’s katanainoru “swordpray” was as it should be, fabulously bedaʐᶎling. The Samurai were on board thought she, when they made their seven-fold Code of Bushidō–benevolence, courage, honor, justice, loyalty, politeness and sincere veracity. She would not be a love void cymbal, a kymbalon that tinkled away in the dark night of her soul anymore. She was whole now, a woman, more, no, “greater than the sum of her makeup” according to Aristotle, and in her completeness she, as Archimedes suggested, was strategically going to secure a lever immense enough to move the world . . .

While an extreme and violent case, Bullets in Envelopes shows that the conditions of Iraqi academics in exile are part and parcel of global trends marked by the commercialization and corporatization of higher education adversely affecting academic, social, and political freedoms of writing, thinking, and speaking truth to power. As such, countries and societies are being totally reshaped (and destroyed) in alarming ways. Bullets in Envelopes is about academics, but it’s not written for academics only. The stories in the book prove that the Iraq war is far from over. Instead, it has been happening over and over in other countries too.

He labored under a terrible strain that would have destroyed a lesser man. Ennobled by adversity and leading by example, he had been dismayed and depressed but never defeated. The cheerless atmosphere at Valley Forge was much more the rule than the exception during the war. Few people with any choice in the matter would have persisted in this impossible, self-sacrificing situation for so long. Washington’s job as commander in chief was as much a political as a military task, and he performed it brilliantly, functioning as de facto president of the country. His stewardship of the army had been a masterly exercise in nation building. In defining the culture of the Continental Army, he had helped to mold the very character of the country, preventing the Revolution from taking a bloodthirsty or despotic turn. In the end, he had managed to foil the best professional generals that a chastened Great Britain could throw at him. As Benjamin Franklin told an English friend after the war, “An American planter was chosen by us to command our troops and continued during the whole war. This man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best generals, baffled, their heads bare of laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their employers.

[Robert] Pastor explains that the United States did not want to control Nicaragua or other nations in the region, but it also didn't want to allow developments to get out of control. It wanted Nicaraguans to act independently, except when doing so would affect US interests adversely. In short, Nicaragua and other countries should be free: free to do what we want them to do, and should choose their course independently, as long as their choice conforms to our interests. If they use the freedom we accord them unwisely, we are entitled to respond with violence, in self-defence.

And George Kennan, at the age of ninety-three, warned that “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.” He feared it could be the beginning of a new cold war, and in this he was prophetic. Kennan knew that empires do not vanish into thin air.

Thein Pe was the political writer par excellence. His very first work of fiction wove a nationalist message into a romance partly inspired by Romeo and Juliet.52 Khin Myo Chit is the story of a Burmese Muslim girl who is unable to give up her religion to marry the young Buddhist she loves. Nor can she ask the young man to convert to her religion as this would have an adverse effect on his nationalist activities. The couple decide to part and the girl dies of a broken heart, leaving a letter urging the young man to carry on with the struggle for Burma’s independence. Thein

When Operation Flood was sanctioned I knew that it was a massive and extremely complex operation and we would need all the help we could possibly get from all quarters. It was in this connection that, one day, I called on J.R.D. Tata, Chairman of one of India’s largest industrial houses, one known for its commitment to quality and for its patriotism. I met him and explained to him the entire concept behind Operation Flood. I told him that such an enormous task would be extremely difficult to pull off alone and I requested him to spare six managers from the house of Tatas for one year, to help us improve the nation’s dairy industry. I could pay them only public-sector salaries, but within that, I assured him, I would pay them the best that I could. At the end of that year, his managers would return to his company, far richer for their thorough understanding of cooperatives and of agriculture. I was confident that it would be an extremely valuable experience for his managers. J.R.D Tata listened to me very patiently and then told me that since this was not a decision he alone could take I would have to present it to the board. I agreed to do so and met the board and once again explained the intricacies of the entire project to the members. They, too, listened very politely, smiled and nodded. But that is as far as they were prepared to go. To this day, I do not know whose decision it was, but we were loaned not even a single manager from the Tata Group. After all, would it have so adversely impacted the Tatas if they had deputed six managers to the NDDB and that, too, for a brief period of one year? The incident left me with a bitter taste and justified my belief that, in the ultimate analysis, the corporate world and the cooperative world are distinctly different. I

So to the generally well-intentioned men in my life, please consider this: no matter what I accomplish or how self assured I am feeling, the aforementioned dickhead bouncers of the world will still believe they have a right to demand my time and attention, even when I want to be alone. They will still insist I be polite and cheerful, even while they make me uncomfortable and afraid. They will still comment about my body and allude to sexual violence, and then berate me for being “stuck up” if I don’t receive it with a sense of humour. They will still choose to reinforce their dominance with a reminder that they could hurt me if they wanted to, and that I should somehow be grateful if they don’t. This has made me defensive. It has put me more on my guard than I would like to be. Decent male humans, this is not your fault, but it also does not have nothing to do with you. If a woman is frosty or standoffish or doesn’t laugh at your joke, consider the notion that maybe she is not an uptight, humourless bitch, but rather has had experiences that are outside your realm of understanding, and have adversely colored her perception of the world. Consider that while you’re just joking around, a woman might actually be doing some quick mental math to see if she’s going to have to hide in a fucking bathroom stall and call someone to come help her, like I did three days ago.

4. The Third Step in the Mental Training. To be the lord of mind is more essential to Enlightenment, which, in a sense, is the clearing away of illusions, the putting out of mean desires and passions, and the awakening of the innermost wisdom. He alone can attain to real happiness who has perfect control over his passions tending to disturb the equilibrium of his mind. Such passions as anger, hatred, jealousy, sorrow, worry, grudge, and fear always untune one's mood and break the harmony of one's mind. They poison one's body, not in a figurative, but in a literal sense of the word. Obnoxious passions once aroused never fail to bring about the physiological change in the nerves, in the organs, and eventually in the whole constitution, and leave those injurious impressions that make one more liable to passions of similar nature. We do not mean, however, that we ought to be cold and passionless, as the most ancient Hinayanists were used to be. Such an attitude has been blamed by Zen masters. "What is the best way of living for us monks?" asked a monk to Yun Ku (Un-go), who replied: "You had better live among mountains." Then the monk bowed politely to the teacher, who questioned: "How did you understand me?" "Monks, as I understood," answered the man, "ought to keep their hearts as immovable as mountains, not being moved either by good or by evil, either by birth or by death, either by prosperity or by adversity." Hereupon Yun Ku struck the monk with his stick and said: "You forsake the Way of the old sages, and will bring my followers to perdition!" Then, turning to another monk, inquired: "How did you understand me?" "Monks, as I understand," replied the man, "ought to shut their eyes to attractive sights and close their ears to musical notes." "You, too," exclaimed Yun Ka, "forsake the Way of the old sages, and will bring my followers to perdition!" An old woman, to quote another example repeatedly told by Zen masters, used to give food and clothing to a monk for a score of years. One day she instructed a young girl to embrace and ask him: "How do you feel now?" "A lifeless tree," replied the monk coolly, "stands on cold rock. There is no warmth, as if in the coldest season of the year." The matron, being told of this, observed: "Oh that I have made offerings to such a vulgar fellow for twenty years!" She forced the monk to leave the temple and reduced it to ashes.[FN#238]

The U.S. civilian leadership was shirking its responsibility to develop a high-level strategic approach to the most significant political and diplomatic challenge of this conflict. It was yet another example of America’s almost instinctive reflex to lead with the military in moments of international crisis. Civilian officials, as much as they may mistrust the Pentagon, are often the first to succumb. They seem remarkably adverse to exploring the panoply of tools they could bring to bear—let alone to putting in the work to develop a comprehensive strategic framework within which military action would be a component, interlocking with others. What is it, I found myself wondering, that keeps a country as powerful as the United States from employing the vast and varied nonmilitary leverage at its disposal? Why is it so easily cowed by the tantrums of weaker and often dependent allies? Why won’t it ever posture effectively itself? Bluff? Deny visas? Slow down deliveries of spare parts? Choose not to build a bridge or a hospital? Why is nuance so irretrievably beyond American officials’ grasp, leaving them a binary choice between all and nothing—between writing officials a blank check and breaking off relations? If the obstacle preventing more meaningful action against abusive corruption wasn’t active U.S. complicity, it sure looked like it.

At points on the day’s spectrum of adverse political developments, he could have moments of, almost everyone would admit, irrationality. When that happened, he was alone in his anger and not approachable by anyone. His senior staff largely dealt with these dark hours by agreeing with him, no matter what he said. And if some of them occasionally tried to hedge, Hope Hicks never did. She agreed absolutely with all of it.

When Donald Trump's crude comments about women surfaced during his presidential campaign, these progressive university folk were among the first to criticize him. The same people who tell their students anything goes when it comes to sex acted offended in order to score political points. I'm not defending his comments--not at all--but since when did they care about the adverse [e]ffects of objectifying women? Why should Trump's comments come as a surprise when many of those same professors champion "sex weeks" on their respective campuses, replete with seminars that include porn stars and even prostitutes as guest speakers? Doesn't the feigned shock expressed by the progressive Left seem just a bit disingenuous when we know as empirical fact this same faculty has no compunction at all about using similar vulgar language in their classes and would quickly belittle and shout down any "prudish" conservative such as me who tried to say otherwise? Everything, from their celebration of The Vagina Monologues to the cover of Cosmo to the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated and nearly every beer commercial known to man, unapologetically portrays females as literal objects of sport to be enjoyed first and foremost for their body parts. So why the feigned outrage over Trump's comments?

This day I remember well. It is the very first moment in my life when I saw desperation enacted by hate. I watched as the second plane flew into the second tower, the pit in my stomach plummeting to a place I have yet to recover. The devastation of those jumping, the visions of cement and debris falling from the sky like thunder. I remember not being able to reach my friends and coworkers, the fear paralyzing me as I imagined them fighting for their lives and the lives of countless others. I remember my cousin who was in the Pentagon who was narrowly spared that day. That day — like it did for so many — that changed me. Forever. And while we honor those lost and remember those who did such things, remember that it was everyone coming together that saved this nation. It was us standing beside one another regardless of politics or religion, race or gender, and no one cared about wealth or poverty, or anything else for that matter. In that moment America stood tall. Today we are completely undone … unraveled and our excuse is moot. I wish we could, as a nation, realize that 9/11 represented a multitude of things. Our freedom, our fear, our triumphant spirit to overcome tragedy and terrorism—foreign and domestic—and our ability to eliminate prejudice when confronting human decency. Today we remember the many lives lost, those still suffering, and those who bravely and courageously continue to do all they can to protect our freedom to speak out, to challenge oppressors, and to rise above the lunacy. New Yorkers are proof that communities of all colors, beliefs and socio economic statuses can come together in the face of adversity. I hope this country — state by state — can stop acting like children and instead act like human beings. That we can be worthy of the months and weeks and days that followed 9/11 when we rose to the occasion as a collective whole.

Political extremists, because they are intractable and impossible to bargain with, are, by definition, childish. They’re a bunch of fucking babies. Extremists want the world to be a certain way, and they refuse to acknowledge any interests or values outside their own. They refuse to negotiate. They refuse to appeal to a higher virtue or principle above their own selfish desires. And they cannot be trusted to follow through on the expectations of others. They are also unabashedly authoritarian because, as children, they are desperate for an all-powerful parent to come and make everything “all right.”40 The most dangerous extremists know how to dress up their childish values in the language of transaction or universal principle. A right-wing extremist will claim she desires “freedom” above all else and that she’s willing to make sacrifices for that freedom. But what she really means is that she wants freedom from having to deal with any values that do not map onto her own. She wants freedom from having to deal with change or the marginalization of other people. Therefore, she’s willing to limit and destroy the freedom of others in the name of her own freedom.41 Extremists on the left play the same game, the only thing that changes is the language. A leftie extremist will say that he wants “equality” for all, but what he really means is that he never wants anyone to feel pain, to feel harmed, or to feel inferior. He doesn’t want anyone to have to face moral gaps, ever. And he’s willing to cause pain and adversity to others in the name of eliminating those moral gaps. Extremism, on both the right and the left, has become more politically prominent across the world in the past few decades.42 Many smart people have suggested many complicated and overlapping explanations for this. And there likely are many complicated and overlapping reasons.43

much longer-lasting adverse effect of the pandemic: the fact that Americans who were in utero during the pandemic had, over the course of their lives, reduced educational attainment, higher rates of physical disability, and lower income relative to those who went through fetal development immediately before or after.119 Those born at the crests of the three waves also had higher lifetime risk from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.120 Similar impacts on fetal development have also been found for other countries, including Brazil, Italy, Norway, Sweden,121 Switzerland, and Taiwan.122 There is also some evidence that the Spanish flu eroded social trust in the countries most adversely affected.123

ENLARGING OUR HORIZONS Most of us as Christians tend to think of the sovereignty of God only in terms of its immediate effect upon us, or our families or friends. We're not too interested in the sovereignty of God over the nations and over history unless we are consciously and personally affected by that history. We are only vaguely interested in the political turmoil and wars of distant nations unless, for example, a missionary friend of ours can't get an entrance visa to his country of ministry. But we must remember that God promised to Abraham and to his seed that all nations will be blessed through Christ (Genesis 12:3, 22:18; Galatians 3:8). Someday that promise will be fulfilled for, as recorded in Revelation 7:9, John saw "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb." God has a plan to redeem people from all nations and to bless all nations through Christ. However, as we look around the world today what do we see? We see over one-half of the world's population living in countries whose governments are hostile to the gospel, where missionaries are not allowed, and where national Christians are severely hindered from proclaiming Christ. How do we trust God for the fulfillment of His promises when the current events and conditions of the day seem so directly contrary to their fulfillment? We can take a lesson from the example of Daniel. Daniel understood from the Scriptures in the prophecy of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and realizing that seventy years was almost complete, Daniel set himself to pray (see Daniel 9). He recognized that his people were in exile because of their sins and he recognized that a sovereign God, and only a sovereign God, could restore them from their exile. He trusted in the sovereignty and faithfulness of God, therefore he prayed. We might say he pleaded God's promise to Jeremiah. Neither God's sovereignty nor His promise to restore the exiles caused Daniel to lapse into a fatalistic, do-nothing attitude. Daniel realized that God's sovereignty and God's promise were intended to stimulate him to pray. Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer. Daniel prayed and God answered. As we saw in chapter four, God moved the heart of the Persian king to permit and even encourage all the exiles who wanted to, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. As we look at the condition of the world today, so utterly hostile to the gospel, we must also look at the sovereignty of God and at His promises. He has promised to redeem people from every nation, and He has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, We must, then, trust God by praying. Some will go to Those nations as God opens doors, but all of us must pray. We must learn to trust God, not only in the adverse circumstances of our individual lives, but also in the adverse circumstances of the Church as a whole. We must learn to trust God for the spread of the gospel, even in those areas where it is severely restricted. God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly. He is sovereign over the officials of government in lands where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for their faith in Him. And He is sovereign over the nations where every attempt is made to stamp out true Christianity. In all of these areas, we can and must trust God.

ENLARGING OUR HORIZONS Most of us as Christians tend to think of the sovereignty of God only in terms of its immediate effect upon us, or our families or friends. We're not too interested in the sovereignty of God over the nations and over history unless we are consciously and personally affected by that history. We are only vaguely interested in the political turmoil and wars of distant nations unless, for example, a missionary friend of ours can't get an entrance visa to his country of ministry. But we must remember that God promised to Abraham and to his seed that all nations will be blessed through Christ (Genesis 12:3, 22:18; Galatians 3:8). Someday that promise will be fulfilled for, as recorded in Revelation 7:9, John saw "a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb." God has a plan to redeem people from all nations and to bless all nations through Christ. However, as we look around the world today what do we see? We see over one-half of the world's population living in countries whose governments are hostile to the gospel, where missionaries are not allowed, and where national Christians are severely hindered from proclaiming Christ. How do we trust God for the fulfillment of His promises when the current events and conditions of the day seem so directly contrary to their fulfillment? We can take a lesson from the example of Daniel. Daniel understood from the Scriptures in the prophecy of Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and realizing that seventy years was almost complete, Daniel set himself to pray (see Daniel 9). He recognized that his people were in exile because of their sins and he recognized that a sovereign God, and only a sovereign God, could restore them from their exile. He trusted in the sovereignty and faithfulness of God, therefore he prayed. We might say he pleaded God's promise to Jeremiah. Neither God's sovereignty nor His promise to restore the exiles caused Daniel to lapse into a fatalistic, do-nothing attitude. Daniel realized that God's sovereignty and God's promise were intended to stimulate him to pray. Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer. Daniel prayed and God answered. As we saw in chapter four, God moved the heart of the Persian king to permit and even encourage all the exiles who wanted to, to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. As we look at the condition of the world today, so utterly hostile to the gospel, we must also look at the sovereignty of God and at His promises. He has promised to redeem people from every nation, and He has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, We must, then, trust God by praying. Some will go to Those nations as God opens doors, but all of us must pray. We must learn to trust God, not only in the adverse circumstances of our individual lives, but also in the adverse circumstances of the Church as a whole. We must learn to trust God for the spread of the gospel, even in those areas where it is severely restricted. God is sovereign over the nations. He is sovereign over the officials of our own government in all their actions as they affect us, directly or indirectly. He is sovereign over the officials of government in lands where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for their faith in Him. And He is sovereign over the nations where every attempt is made to stamp out true Christianity. In all of these areas, we can and must trust God.

Low trust is the greatest cost in life and in organizations, including families. Low trust creates hidden agendas, politics, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, win-lose thinking, defensive and protective communication.

We committed acts of aggression in the continent and we need to study these in detail and leave the results to posterity. Political leaders had ‘failed to grasp’ the need to dig into Japan’s past and squarely face up to it.

Bernadotte succeeded in focusing international pressure of some kind on Israel, or he had at least produced the potential for such pressure. In order to counteract this, the Israeli architects of the ethnic cleansing programme realised they would need to involve the state’s diplomats and the Foreign Ministry more directly. By July the political apparatus, the diplomatic corps and the military organisations within the new State of Israel were already working harmoniously together. Prior to July, it is not clear how much of the ethnic cleansing plan had been shared with Israeli diplomats and senior officials. However, when the results gradually became visible the government needed a public relations campaign to stymie adverse international responses, and began to involve and inform those officials responsible for producing the right image abroad – that of a liberal democracy in the making. Officials in the Foreign Ministry worked closely with the country’s intelligence officers, who would warn them in advance of the next stages in the cleansing operation, so as to ensure they would be kept hidden from the public eye.

For more Americans, the political system surrounds us in much the same way water surrounds fish. It's just what we know. It's normal. And while we complain about its performance, we don't question its nature because we don't believe it can change. We accept dysfunction, gridlock, and government in action - even in the face of national adversity - as normal. And when we return to our polling places on election day and yet again see only two choices on our balance - neither of which we really like - we accept that as normal, too. Here's what else has become normal for far too many Americans over the last 50 years: A quality-of-life downturn so significant that, when compared with the thirty-six other peer democratic countries with advanced economies, we Americans are near the bottom across numerous dimensions we once pioneered. We are thirty-third and access to quality education, thirty-third and child mortality, twenty-sixth and discrimination and the violence against minorities, and thirty-first and the clean drinking water - just to name a few. The actual water in America is getting bad now.

For more Americans, the political system surrounds us in much the same way water surrounds fish. It's just what we know. It's normal. And while we complain about its performance, we don't question its nature because we don't believe it can change. We accept dysfunction, gridlock, and government in action - even in the face of national adversity - as normal. And when we return to our polling places on election day and yet again see only two choices on our balance - neither of which we really like - we accept that as normal, too. Here's what else has become normal for far too many Americans over the last 50 years: A quality-of-life downturn so significant that, when compared with the thirty-six other peer democratic countries with advanced economies, we Americans are near the bottom across numerous dimensions we once pioneered. We are thirty-third and access to quality education, thirty-third and child mortality, twenty-sixth and discrimination and the violence against minorities, and thirty-first and the clean drinking water - just to name a few. The actual water in America is getting bad now.

Because this is not okay. Most people feeling extreme discontent in their most important relationships does not contribute positively to the world at large. I don’t know how to measure just how much all of the interpersonal fuckery is adversely affecting us on a societal scale (think civil and political unrest), but I struggle to imagine that there are very many members of violent, angry mobs who would report high relationship satisfaction at home.

The projection of the celestial zodiac and constellations were traced by astronomical priests who presented the two halves as being in diametric opposition. The hemisphere of winter was adverse and contrary to that of summer. Through continual metaphor, the priestly words acquired a moral sense, and the two halves became enemies. From that moment, all astronomical history of the constellations was changed into political history.

Yes, countries such as Syria and Egypt are poor, and their populations are primarily Muslim. But these countries also systemically differ in other ways that are far more important for prosperity. For one, they were all provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which heavily, and adversely, shaped the way they developed. After Ottoman rule collapsed, the Middle East was absorbed into the English and French colonial empires, which, again, stunted their possibilities. After independence, they followed much of the former colonial world by developing hierarchical, authoritarian political regimes with few of the political and economic institutions that, we will argue, are crucial for generating economic success. This development path was forged largely by the history of Ottoman and European rule. The relationship between the Islamic religion and poverty in the Middle East is largely spurious.

Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don't crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don't even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self- effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don't need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you've known them for a while it occurs to you that you've never heard them boast, you've never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren't dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life's essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, 'the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.' These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.

Practically every radical cause in America today shows the influence of this postmodernist assault. From radical feminism to racial and sexual politics, postmodern leftists blend their unique brand of cultural criticism with the political objectives of these movements. In their intellectual laboratories -- the cultural studies and humanities programs at American universities -- they apply theories of structuralism, poststructuralism, and deconstructualism to achieving the political objectives of the New Left. The results are a cornucopia of identity theories promising perfect diversity. They include radical multiculturalism, critical race theory, African-American criticism, feminist theory, gender and transgender theories, gay and "queer" theories, Latino studies, media "criticism", postcolonial studies, and indigenous cultural studies, to mention only a few. The latest identity cause to add to the list is the "neurodiversity" movement in which, as its supporters put it, autism, "ought to be treated not as a scourge to be eradicated but rather as a difference to be understood and accepted". All adversity, even that which is biologically inherited, can be wiped away by simply adjusting one's attitudes.

Occasionally, even today, you come across certain people who seem to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented, scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled, and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have learned from joy and pain. Sometimes you don’t even notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline. They radiate a sort of moral joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of sacrificial service with the same modest everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it. They make you feel funnier and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you’ve known them for a while it occurs to you that you’ve never heard them boast, you’ve never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren’t dropping little hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments. They have not led lives of conflict-free tranquillity, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone some way toward solving life’s essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either— but right through every human heart.” These are the people who have built a strong inner character, who have achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. After a life of seeking balance, Adam I bows down before Adam II. These are the people we are looking for.

In the social dilemma of the tragic commons, popularised by Garrett Hardin (1968),[51] a group of famers has access to a common grassed area upon which to sustain their individually owned herds of sheep. Each farmer, being rational, wishes to keep as many sheep as possible on the commons in order to make more money – the sheep being a mechanism for converting common property (grass) into individual wealth. However, if the grass is consumed faster than the rate at which it grows (because the number of sheep is unsustainable) the farmers are collectively disadvantaged. The dilemma is that a farmer who adds extra sheep to the commons receives all of the profit, while the cost of doing so is distributed to the group. Each farmer, therefore, has an individual incentive to increase their use of the land even though doing so reduces the productivity of the land, and affects them all adversely. The selfish, though rational, short-term individual preferences of the farmers undermine their longer-term individual interests. Furthermore, the agential behaviour of the farmers creates structural barriers to collective reform because once one farmer overuses the common resource without being punished the action becomes legitimised. The rational behaviour of individuals can thus create collective irrationality. Solving this collective-action problem is typically understood to require either the conversion of the common resource into privately owned property (the exploitation of which is, therefore, regulated by the private owners because they have incentives to maintain its productivity), or through the creation of a public authority that is capable of regulating the amount of the common resource available to an individual.[52] But there is also another option: that the farmers lobby wealthy landowners from the neighbouring village to give them more land and more grass and thus prevent an outbreak of violence between the famers that may affect those beyond the borders of the commons.

Let me give you one of my favorite examples of the difference between trying and endeavoring. When a new motorway was built, taking passing traffic away from Colonel Sanders’ restaurant, his business crumbled. About to retire with just a paltry military pension, he was facing a bleak future. But the one thing he knew he had that was of value was a mighty fine chicken recipe. He didn’t have the money to open a new restaurant, but he figured he could franchise his chicken recipe to other restaurateurs and earn a slice of every chicken meal sold. After all, he had been selling his special chicken recipe for years in his own small restaurant: how hard could it be? The answer was: very. The first restaurant he went to politely asked him to leave with the words: ‘We have a good chicken recipe of our own already; why would we want to pay you for another?’ The same thing happened at the next place he endeavoured to persuade. And the next. But he persisted. Guess how many no’s he got before someone agreed to give his ‘finger-licking’ recipe a ‘try’? The elderly Colonel Sanders had to knock on 1,009 doors before someone gave him a yes and the legend and business empire that became Kentucky Fried Chicken was finally born. Now, how many of us, after the first 50 no’s, might have thought that maybe we should quit (or at least check our chicken recipe!)? What about after ONE THOUSAND no’s? I reckon most people wouldn’t even have got to the hundredth door, and long before they rang the 1,009th doorbell they would have given up. ‘Well, we tried our best’ would have been a fair assessment. But not for the good colonel! Colonel Sanders - he really was an army veteran with some great military doggedness - had that spirit of determination, that endeavor , not to quit until he had found the thing he was looking for. Trying often comes before failure. Endeavour more often leads to success. But they are just words, I hear you say. Why does it matter whether we say ‘try’ or ‘endeavour’? It matters, believe me. Our words become our attitudes and our attitudes become our life.

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects. There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests. It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

The pursuit of personal development is a tapestry woven with threads of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement. Staying motivated is an art, requiring the cultivation of a mindset that finds inspiration in every challenge. True happiness springs from aligning your pursuits with your passions, and self-improvement is the compass guiding you towards the best version of yourself. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continuous refinement, learning from experiences, and embracing resilience in the face of adversity. A crucial aspect of this journey is the discernment to distance yourself from toxic people and political ideologies that threaten your well-being, ensuring a path of positive growth and fulfillment.

The symphony of motivation, happiness, and self-improvement orchestrates a harmonious life where each note contributes to the melody of personal growth. Staying motivated requires the cultivation of a mindset that draws inspiration from challenges, transforming adversity into opportunities for learning and advancement. Happiness, the crescendo of a life well-lived, unfolds when one aligns their actions with their authentic self. To be better and stronger involves a commitment to continual self-discovery, learning, and growth, while navigating away from toxic influences—be it toxic people or political ideologies—ensures a path of positive transformation and genuine fulfillment.

The essence of personal growth lies in the interconnected principles of staying motivated, cultivating happiness, and committing to ongoing self-improvement. Motivation, the fuel for progress, thrives on a mindset that seeks inspiration in challenges, transforming adversity into stepping stones for growth. Happiness, the ultimate destination, blooms when your actions align with your authentic self, fostering a sense of fulfillment. To be better and stronger requires a dedication to continual learning, resilience in the face of setbacks, and the wisdom to recognize and avoid toxic influences, whether in personal relationships or political spheres, ensuring a journey marked by positive transformation and genuine well-being.

Trump’s reflex effort to talk his way out of anything, however, even a public-health crisis, only undercut his and the nation’s credibility, with his statements looking more like political damage control than responsible public-health advice. One particularly egregious example was a news report that the Administration tried to classify certain public-health information regarding the United States on the spurious excuse that China was involved.33 Of course China was involved, which is a reason to disseminate the information broadly, not restrict it. This, Trump was reluctant to do throughout the crisis, for fear of adversely affecting the elusive definitive trade deal with China, or offending the ever-so-sensitive Xi Jinping.

solutions to market saturation might sound straightforward—add new geographies, support more formats and business models, and other tips that sound like common sense. However, the challenge is in the execution, which can’t be underestimated. Launching in every major country around the world while simultaneously staying on top of a hypergrowth startup in a core market is not easy. Yet that’s exactly what eBay had to do, building one of the most valuable internet companies in the 1990s while simultaneously adding the international business, “Buy It Now,” and new product verticals. Once these obvious growth levers are mined, what’s next? Eventually new products have to be layered on. It’s hard to ask teams to start and build new products from scratch. It’s difficult enough as a startup, but trying to do this inside a larger company adds myriad of complexities—there’s internal politics, distractions, lack of resources, adverse selection of talent, and dozens of other challenges.

On the one hand, the people, with their peculiar “despair of politics” (as Trevor-Roper has put it), their eager fatalism, their wallowing in petulance and perversity, what Haffner calls their “resentful dimness” and their “heated readiness to hate,” their refusal of moderation and, in adversity, of all consolation, their ethos of zero-sum (of all or nothing, of Sein oder Nichtsein), and their embrace of the irrational and hysterical. And on the other hand the leader, who indulged these tendencies on the stage of global politics.

When confronted with adversity, the cunning dreamer will seek not only to overcome obstacles but also to exploit them. By identifying the weaknesses of your adversaries and the vulnerabilities in their defenses, you can turn adversity to your advantage, using the very challenges that stand in your way to propel you closer to your goals.

A second and more radical response opens up when you reject the “speech is violence” view: you can use your opponents’ ideas and arguments to make yourself stronger. The progressive activist Van Jones (who was President Barack Obama’s green jobs advisor) endorsed this view in February of 2017 in a conversation at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics. When Democratic strategist David Axelrod asked Jones about how progressive students should react when people they find ideologically offensive (such as someone associated with the Trump administration) are invited to speak on campus, Jones began by noting the distinction we described in chapter 1 between physical and emotional “safety”: There are two ideas about safe spaces: One is a very good idea and one is a terrible idea. The idea of being physically safe on a campus—not being subjected to sexual harassment and physical abuse, or being targeted specifically, personally, for some kind of hate speech—“you are an n-word,” or whatever—I am perfectly fine with that. But there’s another view that is now I think ascendant, which I think is just a horrible view, which is that “I need to be safe ideologically. I need to be safe emotionally. I just need to feel good all the time, and if someone says something that I don’t like, that’s a problem for everybody else, including the [university] administration.”90 Jones then delivered some of the best advice for college students we have ever heard. He rejected the Untruth of Fragility and turned safetyism on its head: I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.