Brendan > Recent Status Updates

“This was the great dilemma of Northern Song elite culture: the burst of new vitality represented by Ouyang Xiu and Wang Anshi, and even by extraordinary geniuses such as Su Shi, soon became routinized in individuals’ and families’ pursuit of status and advantage, deemphasizing intellectual engagement. A new elite was formed by the examination system, more open to talent, considerably more egalitarian in tone,

“Legitimate political parties could not take form, and any who expressed political disagreement were, by definition, morally deficient, hence insidious. ‘Loyal opposition’ could not be acknowledged within a system of politics defined by ethical and personal rather than by operational and institutional norms. China still struggles with the heritage of this eleventh-century political failure.”

“The elite constituted through [the exam] process dominated Song life — in respect to the operation of government, the formulation of all aspects of policy, the establishment of social standards throughout the realm, the trends in literature and the arts…the definition of ethical standards, and the exploration of new horizons in philosophy.

“Literary skill lay at the heart of intellectual life, and at this period of Chinese history [i.e. the Song Dynasty], intellectual life came to bear even more directly on political careers and on policy than had previously been the case. ‘Scholar’ and ‘official’ virtually became terms that, both ideally and practically, defined each other.”

“When we examine these historical events quite analytically, the incompatibility of Buddhist doctrine with the basic orientations of steppe life would seem to be obvious, but social behavior is seldom governed by detached, rational analysis. The great appeal of Buddhism [to steppe peoples] lay in its accessibility; some measure of its fundamental truth was open to almost any mind, and seeming contradictions between

“Giving the Khitan and other steppe peoples their due, however, does not demand that we forgo all value judgments. Quite simply, for most of us (though not necessarily for everyone), the norms and peculiar achievements of Chinese civilization hold more intrinsic value than do those of the nomads. The refinement of their learned, humanistic tradition did not make all Chinese admirable: they neither precluded all

“Observing [the Uighurs, Shatuo Turks], the Khitans probably saw quite clearly that when a steppe people by degrees gave up its nomadic mobility in exchange for a more comfortable sedentary life, it ran great risks of having to compete with the Chinese on their ground. Losing in that way their comparative advantage inevitably cost the nomads their cultural integrity; they slowly became just ‘little Chinese.’”

“Even though Stone Age man everywhere appears to have been nomadic in the sense of wandering about in search of food, pastoral nomadism as it developed in Inner Asia is quite different. It is an advanced form of social organization, the preference of people whose forebears probably had practiced agriculture…To those reluctant agriculturalists the alternative of nomadism offered more than did the hard life of

“Reconciling the promise of a Jewish ‘national home’ with the rights of the Arabs who were already there had been hard enough in the 1920s. The flood of refugees from Nazi oppression in the 1930s made it all but impossible. London’s prewar plan was to appease the anger of the Palestine Arabs at the growing Jewish migration by fixing a limit to ensure a permanent Arab majority. With its future settled as an

You know a history book is going to be great when it starts with an extended discussion of the development of roads and canals and their influence over changes in economics and communications.

And yes, I’m 100% serious about that…this is the stuff that is obscured by the famous names and battles, but actually shapes our world far more durably to the present day

“[Qing dynasty] officials, who struggled to keep order, collect the land revenue, maintain the waterways, and manage the grain reserves, faced increasing resistance from a discontented population. Their authority and prestige had already been undermined by the ‘privatizations’ in the era of commercial expansion as licensed merchants took more control over tax collecting, water conservancy, and the grain tribute

“It is the way with all men that, if they do something only for the sake of winning rewards and benefits, then, the moment they see that the undertaking may end unprofitably or in danger, they will abandon it. Therefore rewards, punishments, force, and deception are in themselves not enough to make men put forth their full efforts or risk their lives…If the rulers and superiors do not treat the common people

“Thus India provided its European invader with the resources that could be turned to the task of conquest. Astonishingly early…the Company created its own ‘security zone’ and made itself an Indian power, competing in Indian terms with Indian rivals. […] The effect was to shift the balance of cost and risk away from Britain, the ultimate beneficiary of Indian empire, and toward the hybrid ‘Anglo-Indian’

“The ‘Cotton Kingdom’ [of the United States] and its slavery system, Lancashire industry, and British rule in India were thus bound together by an extraordinary symbiosis. In this respect, as in so many others, however ‘anti-colonial’ their political views, Americans were the indispensable sleeping partners of Europe’s expansion into Afro-Asia.”

“When you see good, then diligently examine your own behavior; when you see evil, then with sorrow look into yourself. When you find good in yourself, steadfastly approve it; when you find evil in yourself, hate it as something loathsome. He who comes to you with censure is your teacher; he who comes with approbation is your friend; but he who flatters you is your enemy.”

“The native borrowing of Spanish cultural elements did not represent native culture loss or decline, but rather adaptability and vitality. Natives tended to view borrowings—be they Spanish words, concepts, ways of counting, worship, of building houses, or of town planning—not as loans but as part of community practice and custom. They view them not as Spanish, nor even as native, but as local

“Only very gradually did community autonomy erode under demographic and political pressures from non-native populations. From the native perspective, therefore, the Conquest was not a dramatic singular event, symbolized by any one incident or moment, as it was for Spaniards. Rather, the Spanish invasion and colonial rule were part of a larger, protracted process of negotiation and accommodation.”

Fascinating detail from a 16th century Nahuatl song that inverts the typical narrative:

“the song’s lyrics present the war [i.e. the ‘Spanish Conquest’] as a kind of civil or local conflict, between rival city-states within the same ethnic and linguistic area. The Spaniards play important roles, but secondary ones as agents of native ambition whose eventual triumph isn’t really a triumph.”

“If we were to create [a hypothetical average conquistador], he would be a young man in his late 20s, semiliterate, from southwestern Spain, trained in a particular trade or profession, seeking opportunity through patronage networks based on family and hometown ties. Armed as well as he could afford…he would be ready to invest what he had and risk his life if absolutely necessary in order to be a member of

“As was often the case, the quick Spanish victory was a myth that masked years of conflict among Spaniards and among natives as well as between them.”

“When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

“It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on— You are never sure of a good impression being durable. Every body must sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.”

“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet…some lines of feeling”

“It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another. Therefore let men take heed of their company.” (V.i)

(Ironically spoken by the great comic wise-fool, Falstaff, just as he is about to lose access to Prince Hal forever…)

Alack, why am I sent for to a king,
Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
Where with I reigned? I hardly yet have learned
To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
Give sorrow leave a while to tutor me
To this submission. Yet I well remember
The favors of these men: were they not mine?
Did they not sometime cry ‘All hail!’ to me?
So Judas did to Christ: but he in twelve
Found truth in all but one;

“…for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and, humored thus,
Comes at last, and with a little pin

“Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which shows like the grief itself, but is not so:
For Sorrow’s eye, glazéd with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects,
Like perspectives which, rightly gazed upon,
Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,
Distinguish form…” (II.2)

“O that I were a fool! / I am ambitious for a motley coat/ … / I must have Liberty / Withal, as large a charter as the wind, / To blow on whom I please, for so fools have. / … / Invest in me my motley, give me leave / To speak my mind, and I will through and through / Cleanse the foul body of th’ infected world, / If they will patiently receive my medicine.” (II.7)

“But…I have long been surprised at my own wisdom—and doubtful of it too. That’s why I think it’s necessary to keep reinvestigating whatever I say, since self-deception is the worst thing of all. How could it not be terrible, indeed, when the deceiver never deserts you even for an instant but is always right there with you? Therefore I think we have to turn back frequently to what we’ve already said”

Plato parodies the purveyors of wisdom who charge money—still relevant today:

“To be sure, if I’d attended Prodicus’ 50 drachma lecture course, which he himself advertises as as an exhaustive treatment of the topic, there’d be nothing to prevent you from learning the precise truth about the correctness of names straightaway. But as I’ve heard only the 1 drachma course, I don’t know the truth about it