Status Updates From Europe: Grandeur and Decline

"Isolationism, whether British, American, or Chinese, is a form of idealism: it rests on the belief that you alone possess standards of right & civilisation"

"In 1923 it seemed certain that Western values & beliefs would soon encircle the globe. All other civilisations-Mohammedan, Chinese, Hindu-were dead or dying. Soon everyone would wear a collar & tie; keep office hours; exercise vote by ballot; practise birth control; drive an automobile; pay an income tax; enjoy freedom from arbitrary arrest. By 1950 it had become clear that Western man exported his mechanical...

"men sought the 'causes of war' as though war were the most unusual, instead of the most regular, of human activities. Not every civilisation has Christianity, not every civilisation has machinery, not every civilisation has monogamy: they all have war"

"In 1950 men were conscious of being more pre-war than post-war. The war they lived through had not even been dignified with a name of its own; it was merely world war II, a repeat performance, & interest was already focused on world war III."

"If the Americans would not divide the world with the Russians, the only alternative would have been to impose a free Eastern Europe on the Russians in 1945 by superior force. This was too logical for the Americans. They hoped vaguely for a Russian change of heart & so...drifted into the cold war. This was not an issue of power. It was a clash between two fundamental conceptions of the world-the one logical &...

"Historians seek to be detached, dispassionate, impartial. In fact no historian starts out with his mind a blank, to be gradually filled by the evidence. Is it conceivable, for example, that any document would have induced Macaulay to confess that the Glorious Revolution had been after all a great mistake? Or even conceivable that Ranke might have come to regret the rise of Prussia as a Great Power? The historians...

[Kaiser] "William II was not a ruler; he was a medium. He reflected the political mind of Germany & expressed it with genius...Had William surrendered altogether to his demagogic impulses, he would have anticipated Hitler's undisputed power. As it was, his upbringing & conscience reined him in; the King of Prussia restrained the German Emperor"

"it has always puzzled me why people should expect members of a foreign office...to understand what is going on in the world. They are a monastic order-cut off from their own country by having to deal with foreigners & foreign questions, & yet cut off from the foreigners by belonging to their own country. They have to translate hard, often unpleasant, facts into artificial fine spun formulas; & they often...

"The 19th C travelled hopefully. We have arrived. Everyone is prosperous, secure: television sets & 2nd hand cars firmly embedded as a cost of living. The will of the people prevails at every general election-a will no doubt accurately expressed in a precise balance between 2 equally ineffective parties. Keynesian principles guard us against every economic ill & now the hydrogen bomb...guards us against war...

"If rationalist individualism is true, then Socialism must follow from it. It is not true; & that is why we have not got socialism"

which at least is a kinda good news bad news kinda thing...or the other way round depending on how you look at it.

"The great scientist is not distinguished by guessing less, but by betting better"

"If history has any lesson it is that men should resist this temptation & should recognise that no member of a community can escape responsibility for its actions. The historian or scientist does well to lead a dedicated life; yet, however dedicated, he remains primarily a citizen. To turn from political responsibility to dedication is to open the door to tyranny & measureless barbarism"

"It is a curious fact that every European war between 1815 & 1914 was exploded by the power standing on the defensive: England & France insisted on the Crimean war; Austria on the wars of1859, 1866, & 1914; & France on the war of 1870. It is also a curiosity how little military considerations weighed in the decision to provoke war or avoid it"

"Though Bismarck lacked humbug, he did not lack principles. Only they were not liberal principles. They were principles founded in distrust of human nature, principles of doubt & restraint. When men dislike Bismarck for his realism, what they really dislike is reality"

"Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars & killed thousands; the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions"

"Had Tocqueville remained longer in power he would have anticipated the foreign policy of Vichy; for, arguing that France was in decline, he proposed to build up a united Germany as a barrier against Russia. There is some danger in public life from stupid politicians; there is even more from politicians who are too clever"

"Marx, prophesying revolution for the rest of his life, was in fact foretelling the revolution of 1848 which he had experienced as a young man; but he drew the wrong conclusion. Far from industrial development producing revolution, it was a protection against it"