Alex Warfel

“The leveling effects of fairness concerns were significantly mediated by regime type. In World War I, the democracies of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada were prepared to “soak the rich,” whereas more autocratic systems such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia preferred to borrow or print money to sustain their war effort. The latter, however, later paid a high price through hyperinflation and revolution, shocks that likewise compressed inequality. Especially during World War I, before a common template for funding mass mobilization warfare had been established, the mechanisms of leveling therefore varied considerably between countries.”
― Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

“In an optimally functioning dignity culture, people are assumed to have dignity and worth regardless of what others think of them, so they are not expected to react too strongly to minor slights. Of course, full dignity was at one time accorded only to adult, white men; the rights revolutions of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries did essential work to expand dignity to all. This is in contrast to the older “honor cultures,” in which men were so obsessed with guarding their reputations that they were expected to react violently to minor insults made against them or those close to them—perhaps with a challenge to a duel. In a dignity culture, however, dueling seems ridiculous. People are expected to have enough self-control to shrug off irritations, slights, and minor conflicts as they pursue their own projects. For larger conflicts or violations of one’s rights, there are reliable legal or administrative remedies, but it would be undignified to call for such help for small matters, which one should be able to resolve on one’s own. Perspective is a key element of a dignity culture; people don’t view disagreements, unintentional slights, or even direct insults as threats to their dignity that must always be met with a response.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure

“The sovereign power [or soft despot] extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules . . . it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure

“We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason. . . . On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?1”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure