Pensées

22.05.2020 – A leader, generally hated and universally mistrusted, could wield an interesting form of power. Knowing in advance that whatever he says will be vociferously opposed because he is the one saying it, he writes his own script and that of his opponents. A dictator must force public opinion as he wills; a mistrusted democratic leader lets our prejudices do the work for him.

07.02.2020 – I never fail to find hidden sources of fatigue right at the moment when I need to get up.

09.01.2020 – Classical liberalism is the end of politics. This is why I’ve hitherto been unable to think beyond classical liberalism.

23.12.2019 – The greatest casualties of Donald Trump’s presidency: rational thought and the English language.

20.11.2019 – Whether cats, dogs, or children, cardboard boxes are the best invention ever.

01.10.2019 – Liberal thinking can be so constraining.

07.09.2019 – I adhere to moderation and am frightened by all extremes. Theories are thankfully mitigated by reality and our willingness not to follow through on our logic. If there is a connection between Protestantism and relativism, then there is also a connection between Catholicism and totalitarianism.

28.08.2019 – I wonder if walking more than driving in a city makes us care more about its aesthetics. When you drive from one location to another you don’t experience the sights and sounds the same way as you do when you take the time to walk. Do people who walk more have more beautiful cities?

04.06.2019 – J’aime trouver l’esprit de la modestie également dans les hommes et dans les femmes. Aujourd’hui c’est audacieux à préférer des limites à des libertés puériles.

01.06.2019 – A man is defined by his ability to entrap and encompass all things: good ideas, bad ideas, and bellybutton lint.

08.05.2019 – Wenn ein wesentlicher Teil des Totalitarismus aus dem überpolitisierten Leben entsteht, muss es daher zugegeben werden, dass eine Demokratie, deren natürliche Neigung auf immer intensivere politische Empörung unter dem schwatzhaftigen Gesindel gerichtet ist, mangels Mäßigung und Augenmaß unausweichlich in eine Art Totalitarismus zusammenstürzen muss? Wenn die Antipode der Politik, der totalitären Sklaverei, die ungehemmte bürgerliche Gesellschaft ist, zu welchem Ergebnis werden wir nach und nach gerückt, wenn wir in unserer Seele keinen Raum für das freie, unpolitisierte Denken finden? Die Freiheit der Demokratie erfordert Verantwortung, das ist schon längst klar. Die Verantwortung, unsere Politisierung zu verneinen.

03.05.2019 – There’s a strange dynamic by which we claim to concede power to the people but yet we foster the creation of an elite – an elite that fights amongst itself about who best represents the people to whom it does not belong.

13.12.2018 – Sitzung der Bezirksvertretung: was für eine geniale Gelegenheit, mich den oft ungeäußerten Meinungen der 50 oder so Vertretern des erhabenen volonté générale zu unterordnen! Was für eine aufregende Demonstration der echten konkreten Politik! So viele einstimmige Zuweisungen von allen Parteien! So durchaus gedeichselt!

13.10.2018 – Per le colline cammino, sotto un sole cadente i cui raggi gentili mi toccano la faccia. Le foglie rosse e gialle si sdraiano intorno a me, i lenzuoli della terra. Il vento dolce e rinfrescante mi sospira la questione eterna che mi tuona la mente con una forza sempre più presente quando sono lontano dal rumore inevitabile della città ma in comunione silenziosa con le tante creazioni di Dio: la cerca antica della virtù contro l’ossessione moderna per la libertà, per l’uguaglianza e per lo sviluppo dell’individuo. La questione del migliore regime, fondato sia sul primato del solo re che sul gruppo dei migliori che sul popolo contro i regime per cui la produttività e il consumerismo sono la Parola che ci fornisce tutti i benefici e garantisce che abitiamo davvero nel migliore di tutti i mondi possibili. A chi dare ragione quando tanti per i secoli hanno dato risposte diverse? Scende il sole, scendo anch’io, alza l’ombra che mi abbraccia di una freddezza che mi porta dentro. Lascio fuori i ritmi ben temperati della natura, ed ora mi trovo nell’amicizia delle creazioni dell’Uomo, dove i ritmi si scontrano, si passano, alcuni crollano qua mentre degli altri emergono là. Tutti i mondi sono qua. Tutto un bel casino. La mia questione non è la sola. Ho trovato compagnia, il contrappunto affidabile alla tranquillità esterna; la solidarietà contro la solitudine. Mi metto a tavola, un buon calice di vino rosso mi aspetta. E sono pronto. Come dice Roger Scruton: to drink in thoughts and to think in draughts.

11.10.2018 – De mon père je suis le bénéficiaire de beaucoup de choses que j’ai déjà détaillé ailleurs. Depuis longtemps je suis confus à l’égard de mon héritage maternel. Aujourd’hui je suis très reconnaissant de l’avoir trouvé : une affabilité qui se caractérise par la semblance d’une faiblesse tantôt nerveuse, tantôt charmante, mais toujours accueillante, avec une simplicité désarmante qui ne pouvait être jamais reproduite par mon père sans un grand effort évidemment artificiel.

09.10.2018 – One of the most difficult things for me to countenance is that two people in dispute might not, given enough time and patience, resolve their dispute through reason. I hate the idea that two perfectly reasonable people might simply have to conceal certain arguments from one another, fully cognizant of the fact that they would not even get to first base with their interlocutor. Is this the meaning of prudence? Is this why Socrates was famous for irony? Are there some truths that can be disclosed not with Nietzsche’s sledgehammer but only with Socratic wit? How can I move my interlocutor to my position? How do I know when I can no longer prevail upon my interlocutor’s reason, or he upon mine?

07.10.2018 – Do animals find things funny? Do they have a sense of humour? Or is that unique to humans?

07.10.2018 – I might read too much. I see it as an obligation to read and learn new things but my interests are so narrow as a result. As I was reading a biography of Montesquieu in Paris and then, more recently, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Leadership in Turbulent Times, particularly the bit on Teddy Roosevelt, I was struck by how much I seem to have lost that natural curiosity for all sorts of things, if ever I had that curiosity, and I think I did. Roosevelt and Montesquieu, for example, were keenly interested in the natural world and went outside to experience and explore it. I go outside not for enjoyment but either because I have to, my company desires it, or because it aids me in improving myself (in terms of physical or mental health, for example). It’s all so utilitarian still. Perhaps what I should do is stop reading entirely for a while, put myself into situations of extreme boredom and then let necessity provoke creativity.

This narrow-mindedness is connected to another vexing issue: with all of my writing and reading and thinking I still don’t feel I have anything interesting to say. I constantly fall back on interpreting some old thinker’s work in light of present problems or something of the sort, be it Aron, Cicero, Machiavelli, Thucydides, etc. Am I using them as an intellectual banister? Are they preventing me from actually seizing the issue at hand?

29.09.2018 – Riding from Matzleinsdorfer Platz into the centre I saw a gigantic and beautiful work of graffiti on the side of a building. Artists are commissioned from all over the world to come to Vienna and add a small and nevertheless noticeable contribution to the city’s aesthetic merits. What problems do we have when the city’s politicians already do so well to foster the arts, their study and production, and ensure that there are no extremes of wealth disparity that would prevent the average man from partaking in such splendour? Is this city already at the end of history?

28.09.2018 – J’ai toujours pensé que j’étais destiné pour la grandeur. Je ne peux pas imaginer mon futur sans la grandeur. Manque de l’imagination ?