Author Archives: Martin van Creveld

“Overcoming” the Past

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Living here in Germany, specifically in Potsdam near Berlin, as my wife and I are doing at the moment, one cannot but admire the Germans’ efforts to make up for what has long been the greatest national crime of all, i.e. the Holocaust. Including ten of billions paid in reparations to survivors, their families, and the State of Israel; including a total ban on the pubic display of Nazi symbols of every kind, from the swastika to the so-called Hitler Gruess; including many museums, big and small, that deal with the topic and do what they can to educate the public about it; including a foreign and defense policy that has long been consistently favorable to Israel; including any number of films, plays, public lectures, and books, all of them devoted to ensure that nothing of the ind wil ever recur; and so on and so on right down to the so called Stolpersteine, bricks that are cemented into the pavements of many cities, each one bearing the name of a Jewish individual or family who used to live nearby but lost his/her/their life/lives to the terrible events of 1939-1945. In the whole of history, no group and no people has ever done more to “come to terms” with its past.

And yet it is not “enough.” Nothing can be. What is not clear is why this should be so. After all, both Stalin and Mao Zedong killed more people than Hitler did. Looking back over history, including recent history, finding rulers who tried to do away with entire groups of people is all too easy. Besides, six million? Five? Four? Three? What difference does it make? Two factors may go some—but only some—way to explain the peculiar horror with which the holocaust is associated. First, most genocides took place during, and as a result of, a war waged against the groups in question, i.e enemies. However, the Jews as such were never enemies of Germany. If anything, to the contrary. Many foreign Jews, especially those of Central and Eastern Europe, saw Germany as a model their own countries might well adopt. Most German Jews were very proud to be not only German citizens but bearers of German Kultur; quite some would have joined the Nazi Party if only they had been permitted to do so.

The second explanation is that Hitler an his henchmen systematically targeted not only adults but children too. Not accidentally, by way of “collateral damage,” but deliberately and by design. As Israel’s national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, once wrote, “avenging a small child is something not even the devil has been able to do.” Enough said.

Help men who have impotence problem viagra no prescription australia to get and sustain the erection for several hours. Psychological factors play a major role cheap generic tadalafil in many conditions of low libido in younger men. But before you buy Kamagra jelly, check for the reviews of the product then you would actually find out that the exact combination of products that can only happen after first taking the time to master several important steps. viagra in india price If you are the one facing some problems with your vision then it’s high time for you to schedule an appointment tadalafil from india with an expert chiropractor Vista CA has to offer. In my experience, the great majority of Germans seem to be well aware of these realities. It was only yesterday that I heard an acquaintance of mine say that, whenever his country’s hymn was played in some international forum, he felt somewhat ashamed. Not exactly a sign of psychological health, given that anyone in Germany today who is less than 92 years old can hardly have had much to do with the crimes of yore. A few try to fight back by denying the Holocaust or belittling it; it is they who receive most attention both in- and outside Germany. As one would expect, most try to forget about them and go on with their lives as best they can.

So here is a little story of something that happened to me some time ago. I was having a snack and a tea in the lobby of Munich’s Vier Jahreszeiten, one of those hotels that like to add the title “noble” to their names. Doing so I noticed a young woman perhaps 18 or 19 years old. Wearing an apron, she was helping re-organize part of the lobby for a party or reception to be held later in the evening; spreading out table cloths, arranging glasses, and the like. I asked her whether she was aware of the fact that this lobby had been one of Hitler’ favorite haunts during this stays in Munich. In return, all I got was a bland stare.

Considering both the Germans and the Jews, taking the long view, perhaps it is better that way?

Guest Article: Is Playing Chess Good for You?

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By

Renzo Verwer

Chess has been the subject to a torrent of publications. Chess is supposed to be popular among young people. Chess helps students do better at school. In particular, the Dutch psychologist Karel van Delft is an enthusiastic proponent of these ideas. Chess, he says, is capable of bestowing not a single benefit but several different ones. It brings people closer together. It promotes concentration, self confidence, and creativity. It is a kind of mental gymnastics and teaches players how to cope with difficult situations. By providing immediate and clearly visible feedback to one’s moves, it can even bring young offenders back to the straight and the narrow.

Speaking for myself, I love the game. More so, perhaps, than some grandmasters do; that is why I went to watch the recent Dutch championship tournament. However, the kind of worship mentioned in the previous paragraph always makes me a little uncomfortable. Is chess really what tea used to be in seventeenth-century Holland (and what cannabis supposedly is today), a cure for any- and everything? Some people, including the Dutch international master Hans Ree, are not so sure. The idea that chess can strengthen the will and develop logical thought, he says, is pure nonsense. To the contrary: authoritarian countries consciously and deliberately use the game in order to prevent people from thinking; this is done by canalizing them into an isolated culture that, separated as it is from ordinary life, has no further consequences for the latter. Chess as the opium of the people, perhaps? He also mentions the cruel joy he experienced as he saw his opponent squirming. Not the best or healthiest of emotions, he says.

This is something I know from my own experience. “What an idiot. He did not dare pursue his advantageous position but tried to husband his miserable pawns instead, with the result that he lost. What I felt was pure contempt. And if that causes you to despise me, that is your good right.

I asked Karel van de Weide, one-time Dutch grand master, to give me his considered view of the game. Here is what he told me:

Advantages? Chess is mental gymnastics. It helps you with your arithmetic and also to postpone the onset of dementia. Whoever is good as chess is someone. That is something I sometimes miss, for by now I am a nobody and will probably never recover my former status. As one of my colleagues, upon being dropped from the FIDE list, exclaimed: ‘I simply ceased to exist!’ (he may have been joking). Others argue that chess plays a useful role by providing some people who cannot easily fit into society with something they are good at. Agreed. And a certain kind of recognition too, of course.

And what are the disadvantages of chess? Chess may promote autism. It keeps you away from women [MvC: men play chess much better than women do, which is why, in tournaments, the sexes are separated] and is sufficiently demanding to keep you away from other, perhaps more useful, forms of training. It may make those who take it up as a career more accident prone, decreases their chances of making good, economically, and can even help turn them into social outcasts. As has been said about former Dutch champion Maarten Solleveld, had it not been for this obsession with chess he could have got his position as a professor of mathematics at Leiden much earlier than he did.
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Another prominent Dutch player and author, Tim Krabbé, told me about the less sympathetic aspects of chess, as experienced and observed by him. Especially in the kind of coffee house where the game is played:

Chess bears a strong resemblance to addiction, the kind you get by taking drugs—though I myself have never been addicted to them. Doing something you cannot resist even though you know that you should stop is very, very bad for your life. None of the prefaces to the books that teach the young how wonderful the game is and how to play it have a word to say about this danger. No, chess is always great, good for the brain and I do not know what else. Truth is, chess can be very dangerous and people should be made aware of that fact.

The psychologist Paul Kirchner criticizes the kind of research that “proves” that chess is good for all kinds of things. Nor is chess the only activity that has been advertised in this way. “Similar claims” he says, “have been made on behalf of other fields of study. Such as learning Latin, geometry, and, today, writing code; it all seems so simple and logical. Truth is, you can learn all kinds of procedures. But a procedure that will enable you to master all procedures does not exist.”

In other words: by learning how to play chess, the most important thing you learn is… how to play chess.

 

* Renzo Verwer (Woerden, the Netherlands, 1972) is an author and a dealer in second hand books. He has published books about love, work, and the chess master Bobby Fischer. His most recent one (in Dutch) is titled Freedom of Thought for Beginners. His website is www.artikelzeven.nu. His books: http://www.amazon.com/Renzo-Verwer/e/B00ITG41ES/chess.

Should Sex Change Operations Also Be Banned?

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To this day, following thousands upon thousands of years of human history, no one knows whether God (or the gods, but in the present context that does not matter) “really” exists. Witness Immanuel Kant, no less. Raised in a Pietist household, for years he tried to prove the existence of God. Only to conclude that the question could not be settled either way and was, therefore, a matter of pure belief. However, that has not prevented billions of people, probably the majority of those who have ever lived, from believing that He does; nor from using their belief, real or pretended, as a basis on which to expand their own political and military power by rewarding those who agreed with them and persecuting those who did not. As Mao Zedong might very well have said, often religion grew out of the barrel of a gun. As I myself like to say, a religion is a sect that has acquired cannon. In quite some places around the world that remains true to the present day.

Similarly, after thousands upon thousands of years of history no one knows whether homosexuality is or isn’t “natural” to humankind. In the Christian West at any rate, following the book of Leviticus, it was long considered a deadly sin. As a result, those who practiced it were often subject to some of the cruelest available punishments from being burnt at the stake down. If this is no longer the case today, then that is not because modern science, breaking with Kant, has finally discovered “the truth” about the matter. But simply because a greater number of people are prepared to support, or at any rate tolerate, homosexuality than are not. As Napoleon said, victory goes to the big battalions. Particularly in modern democratic countries where most issues are ultimately settled by counting noses either during elections or with the aid of public opinion surveys. And particularly if, like the early Christians, using means fair or foul they succeed in getting the media on their side.

And why am I writing about this? Because, reflecting the situation in many other countries as well, currently in Israel a great debate—if “debate” is the right term to describe a rather ugly process whereby both sides do what they can to shut up the other—is going on. The person who triggered it is Netanyahu’s new minister of education, Rafi Peretz. Peretz is a practicing Jew as well as a rabbi who takes his religion seriously. No sooner was he appointed to his post then he suggested that gays might want to undergo conversion treatment and benefit from it. How dare he! What chutzpa!

He provides effective and best cheap levitra generic recommended for you ED treatment is available in different forms of consumption like tablets, jellies, and soft tablets. The particular filters are generic viagra germany as follows: Culligan WSH-C125, one of the best tips to cure aging effects is through managing stress. You will find, soon after all, cruises to be taken, many old friends to be visited, and plenty sildenafil online purchase of beaches to be walked hand-in-hand at sunset/sunrise. Kamagra is one of the best medicines available generic super viagra in the market but only few of them 1- In order to ensure yourself that the quality and quantity; both are critical from the pregnancy point of view. The response to Peretz was immediate and strong. Any number of psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, educationalists and other learned worms crawled out of the woodworks and hurried to the printed page, the microphone, and the TV camera. So, of course, did leaders and activists of the Gay Liberation Movement; aware that their power depends largely on numbers, they do what they can to prevent people from deserting them. Peretz was a racist. He was a bigot. He was a “dark” figure emerging out of the equally “dark” middle ages. He was unfit to hold any public post, let alone one in which he was in charge of educating hundreds of thousands of young people. He should be denounced. He should be fired. He should be ostracized. He should, if the appropriate legal paragraph could be found (thankfully, as of the present, it could not) be put on trial and convicted and punished.

As to conversion treatment, it was carried out by quacks as if there were no quacks in other fields where consults are involved, from housing agents to e(con)omics. It was useless (as if no other forms of psychological treatment were). It was unscientific (as if any kind of psychological treatment is or can be “scientific”). It might make those who tried it develop all kinds of psychological problems (as if it were not psychological problems that made people turn to the treatment in the first place). The  practice should be prohibited (as, in quite a few countries and states, it is), and those who engage in it, if they did so on a professional basis, disqualified.

All this, in the name of choice, equality, openness, toleration, and similar concepts held sacred by the politically correct crowd both in Israel and a great many other countries. All this, at least partly in order to prevent people from developing doubts and ceasing to support the Gay Rights Movement. And all this makes me ask: If this kind of conversion, voluntarily undertaken of course, is banned, shouldn’t the same apply to the much more problematic, much more dangerous, sex change operations as well?

Guest Article: How to Avoid War with Iran

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By

William S Lind*

When President Trump called off an airstrike on Iran with the planes already in the air, he justified the hopes many of us had placed in him in 2016.  No other president would have had the guts to do that.

Unfortunately, while that action avoided war with Iran last week, the danger of war remains high.  The confrontation between the U.S. and Iran is almost certain to continue.  It is strategically disadvantageous for both parties.  But powerful domestic political factions will continue to drive it nonetheless.  In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard Corps needs the American threat to justify its own domestic power and the benefits of corruption that flow from it.  In Washington, the Likud lobby, which includes people highly placed in the White House, desperately wants a war between the U.S. and Iran so Israel’s Likud-led government can seize the West Bank (see my column, “Bait and Switch”, in the latest issue of The American Conservative).  So, the question becomes, how do we continue to confront Iran without war breaking out?  That seems to be the best realistic objective.

Both sides may have offered up the beginnings of an answer.  President Trump called off the airstrike when he was told it would kill around 150 Iranians.  Iran had only shot down an American drone.  No American lives were endangered, and the Pentagon has no shortage of drones.  Similarly, the Iranians said they did not shoot down an American P-8 naval patrol aircraft they claimed had also invaded their airspace because doing so would have killed Americans.  In other words, both sides called a halt at the point where their actions would have caused casualties.

The same has been true of Iranian attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf–if the attacks were in fact actions of the state of Iran, which is by no means clear.  They could have been done by elements of the Revolutionary Guard Corps that do want a war, without authorization.  Those Revolutionary Guards could have been in the pay of another power that wants a war, such as Saudi Arabia or Israel.  The “Iranian sailors” could have been German soldiers dressed up in Polish uniforms.  History has witnessed such things.

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This kind of ritualization of war is historically common.  Ritualized war is in fact far more frequent than total war.  The reason is obvious: the cost is lower.  Each side gets to preen, pump, do its victory dances and so on while their respective societies carry on normal life.  Think of it as the NFL without the big salaries.

After a campaign of mutual annoyance but not war has gone on long enough, both Iran and the U.S. may come to realize a negotiated solution would benefit both.  President Trump has made it clear he is open to that outcome.  So far, Iran’s leadership is not.  But I suspect the Iranian people are, and the Ayatollah cannot ignore them forever.

What everyone needs now, except Likud and its American agents, is no war, i.e., no casualties.  If President Trump continues to insist on that rule and the Iranians do the same, the war fever will eventually break.

* William S. (”Bill”) Lind is the author of the Maneuver War Handbook (1985) and the 4thGeneration Warfare Handbook (2011) as several other volumes that deal with war. This article was originally published on traditionalRight on 22.7.2019.

Then You Are a Thought Criminal

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If you do not believe that what “everybody” thinks is necessarily true –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do not believe global warming is real, or that it is caused by human actvity –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe people should have the right to kill themselves by smoking, as long a they do not force their habit on others –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do not believe that being somewhat overweight is bad for your health –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do not believe private organizations such as Facebook should have the right to censor your every word –

`Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe homosexuality is a sin (which I personally don’t) –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe equality is problematic because it involves putting down the able and the industrious and comes at the expense of liberty –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe diversity is problematic because it can make it harder for people to work together –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.
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If you believe school is not necessarily the best place to educate your children –    

Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe young children have a right to be brought up by their mothers rather than by strangers, if possible –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe some jobs, primarily those involving heavy physical labor and ground combat, are not suitable for women –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do not believe that women have always and everywhere been oppressed –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do not believe every accusation of “sexual harassment” and “rape” is necessarily true –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you do believe that at least some such accusations are motivated by the prospect of gain –

            Then you are a s\thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

If you believe professors and students should have the right to fall in love with each other, as Abelard and Heloise did –

            Then you are a thought criminal and deserve to have your face eaten away by rats.

*

As for me, I am proud to be a thought criminal.

Full of Kunstim, Isn’t He?

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When I was a child in Ramat Gan, a town not far from Tel Aviv, my mother used to speak of kunstim. I am willing to bet that, with the possible exception of my younger brothers, no one in the world knows what the term means; so let me explain. In 1950 my parents, Leo and Greet van Creveld, left their native Netherlands for the young state of Israel. As time went on they both learnt to speak decent, though not quite perfect, Hebrew. My mother in particular used to speak of kunstim. In Hebrew as it was spoken at the time, a kunz—not, pay heed, kunst, but kunz—stood for a cheap trick. Obviously my mother confused this term with kunst, the Dutch (and German) term for art (as, for instance, in “the art of writing”). To kunz she added the Hebrew suffix im, used to turn nouns from the singular into the plural. It was as a result of this strange process that the word kunstim came into the world and was used in our home. As I just said, it mcant “cheap tricks.”

Over the last few months, The Donald has been engaging in kunstim. First, providing no new information whatsoever, he accused Tehran of violating the nuclear deal arrived at under his predecessor and announced that he was withdrawing from it. Next he said he had provided the Swiss Embassy with a number that the Mullahs could use to talk to him, should they feel like doing so (they did not). Next he sent some additional forces to the Gulf, albeit that they are not nearly sufficient for waging a full-scale campaign against a country as large and as powerful as Iran. Next, the Iranians having shot down an American drone, he said that the US would not simply let that incident pass. Next, apparently caught by his own words, he suggested that the Iranians might have intercepted the drone by mistake. Next, when the Iranians told him, loud and clear, that it had not been a mistake, he threatened retaliation. Next, claiming that the planned retaliatory strike as submitted to him by the Pentagon, was “disproportional” and would lead to too many Iranian casualties he cancelled it even though the planes were (or depending on whom you believe, were not) in the air. Next he let it be known that the attack had not been canceled, only put on ice. Throughout all this he keeps saying that he does not want war; but he also keeps threatening that, in case a war does breaks out, Iran will be “obliterated.”

Has the man gone bonkers, crazy, nuts? Quite some people, including not just the editors of Mad Magazine but some of his onetime closest associates as well, think so. After all, he has always been a megalomaniac and an unpredictable one at that. I, however, am willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Instead I suggest that, to understand what he is doing, we take a look at the principles of strategy. As everyone who has ever practiced it with some success knows, at bottom it is all a question of deception. If you are strong, pretend to be weak. If you are weak, pretend to be strong. If you are preparing to attack, pretend to be ready to defend. If you are concentrating at place X, pretend to be doing so at place Y. On some occasions you should go straight for your objective; on others, the best way is the roundabout one. Avoid the obvious and always do the unexpected. Threaten, relent, bluff. Mislead your opponent. Keep him off balance, put him into a situation where he is damned if he does and damned if he does not.

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All this, of course, means playing with fire. The more so because, amidst all the bluffs, the deceptions and the feints separating truth from falsehood, reality from make-believe, is very difficult. It may even be impossible. Devising kunzim to unbalance your opponent and cause him to lose his way, you are quite likely to lose your own.

And that, I suggest, is what is happening to Trump.

But What Is It Doing at Oxford?

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Theodore Zeldin is a retired Oxford professor. During his academic career his interests have reached from the reign of Napoleon III to freedom, gastronomy, and the future of work among other things. He is also a public intellectual who has been called one of the world’s most influential hundred scholars. The list of organizations that have sponsored his work, or invited him to speak, or presented him with some kind of award, is well-nigh endless. One of his books, An Intimate History of Humanity (1994), was even used by Australia’s National Museum as the basis of an exhibition of the emotions of that continent’s inhabitants. It was brought to my attention by a friend and former student who sought to help me with a project I am working on. That is why I want to write about it here.

In this particular volume, Zeldin’s objective is to show that some of people’s most intimate experiences—hope, solitude, love, sex, food, to mention but a few—are not the same at all times and in all civilizations. Instead he argues that, like anything else, they are historically-governed, meaning that they keep changing along with culture and society as a whole. As always with him, the volume focuses on France which Zeldin, the son of a Jewish-Russian couple who moved from Palestine to England, uses as a kind of gold standard for all other countries and societies to measure themselves by. Each chapter—even most of the few that supposedly deal with men—opens with an interview with one woman meant to illustrate some aspects in the emotional life of all others. Each interview is mixed with Zeldin’s ruminations on who she is, how she fits into society, how other societies have tried to deal with similar problems, and so on.

Why Zeldin only interviews women—who, after all, only form half of humanity—is never explained. But never mind. A typical interview, focusing on sex, is with a woman named Alicia R. Ivars. Spanish by origin, educated in France, she speaks four languages though none perfectly (who cares?). She is a professor (where? Of what?) and a self-appointed geisha—in the sense that she sees her destiny in pleasing others and avoids difficult question like who she is, what she is doing in this world, and so on. She always wears “amazing” attention-drawing clothes, runs a restaurant called “Garden of Delights,” and is “a world authority on olive oil.” What follows is a short extract of Zeldin’s text to give you an idea of what it is like.

“Sex is a separate matter, a distinct activity, ‘not to be ruined by an excess of intimate feelings or confidences, because then you become a slave to it.’ That does not mean Alicia wishes to avoid intimate feelings. ‘I have never been afraid of my intimate feelings. I have always enjoyed psychotropic experiences without panicking at the idea of losing contact with my inner self or with my body. I know which melody, which rhythm, which smell or caress or stroke will provide me with my desired intimate feeling.’ Engaging in sex is thus comparable with cooking; both create pleasure, ‘intimate feelings,’ both enable one to create such feelings in another. She distinguishes first of all ‘pure sex.’ In her youth she had this with a ‘Tantric man,’ with whom she carried on an ‘ultra-erotic correspondence, with a profusion of illustrations’ and whom she visited two or three times a year for the ‘actualization of all our fantasies.’”
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“… There is no reason, she thinks, why there should be any limits to sexual activity. I have not yet found limits to my predisposition… She remembers the visit of a foreigner to whom she was ‘very attracted: I could have played and enjoyed with her, she so wonderful to me, so much in need of affection, just recently a widow, we probably had telepathic sex.’” “At a young age, [Alicia] taught herself to cut her own hair, and has never been to a hairdresser since. That is the sign of her independence. Her hairstyles are always exotic like nobody else’s.”

“In Canada,” says another woman named Florence, selected to exemplify the nature of desire, “she met a marvelous man. For four days they talked. He was not afraid to say what he felt; he seemed authentic. “He satisfied my desire for harmony and gentleness.’ But she does not know what will become of this friendship, which appeals only to one side of her. ‘He does not put me in danger. I need not to have complete emotional security.’ Time will tell.” And so on, and so on, the kind of “luv” talk mixed with psychobabble one may expect to find in any women’s magazine with a minimum of “intellectual” pretense.

This is the kind of verbal diarrhea one expects to find in women’s weeklies. But what is it doing at Oxford?

I Ask You

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Life sometimes does strange things and brings together strange people. Some weeks ago I had a strange experience I want to tell you about.

It all started a few months ago when I got an invitation to speak at Salzburg, Austria. The request came from a person by the name of Killian Harbauer, who introduced himself as an “accredited parliamentary assistant” to Herr Franz Obermayr, a member of the European Parliament. I understood that the audience was to consist of the members of a right-wing student organization. The topic was to be my book, Pussycats, in which I tried to explain why, over the last few decades, whenever a military encounter took place, the Rest has been regularly beating the West. The book, whose German title is Weicheier (soft-boiled eggs), has been published by an Austrian firm.

I had addressed this topic in Austria before, and I was going to do so again in Germany soon. Which is why I did not take very long to say yes. On 25 May I arrived in Salzburg and was taken very decent care of. Here it might be worth adding that Salzburg itself is a beautiful city with quite some attractions to gladden a tourist’s heart. Well worth visiting.

Preparing for the meeting, I found myself in something of a fix. The audience, I believed, would consist of students. Students everywhere tend to be young and, being impecunious, dress somewhat informally. I therefore wondered whether or not I should put on a tie; in the end, I decided to follow my normal principle of dressing up. Imagine my surprise when, upon arrival, I saw—not a bunch of young students, but a whole lot of elderly men between about sixty and seventy. There must have been almost a hundred of them, all impeccably dressed in dark suits. A few younger lads were also present, but they can hardly have formed more than ten percent of the total.

The meeting was held in what the Germans call a lokal. Inside it was fairly dark, which at first made it a bit hard for me to see what was going on. Having adjusted, I saw that many of the men were wearing all kinds of chains, colored ribbons and feathers, etc. over their suits. One even wore a Napoleon-style hat! Painted on the walls or fixed to them were various emblems that had to do with the past glories of German/Austrian history. Taking up the place of honor along one wall, was a table. It was covered with a white cloth and on it were arranged three shining, sharp-looking, swords.

At this point I could no longer restrain my curiosity and asked Killian what it was all about. It turned out that this was the Burschenschaft Frankonia. Burschenschaften, perhaps best explained as associations of young, somewhat roguish, young men, started making their appearance at German universities soon after 1815. Originally their central concerns were freedom—these were the years when Metternich and the Reaction did their best to prevent the up-and-coming middle classes from upsetting the prevailing socio-political order—and German unification. Others were holding meetings at which prodigious quantities of beer were drunk, occasional fights broke out, and some chairs, windows and heads might be broken.

Most famous of all, the Burschenschaften practiced the custom of Mensur. To join a Burschenschaft one had to participate in a duel; hence the role of, and the reverence accorded to, the abovementioned swords. Going back to the second half of the eighteenth century, early on duels tended to be somewhat wild affairs in which serious wounds were sometimes inflicted and even an occasional death took place. Later the authorities intervened, threatening the Burschenschaften with closure unless they cleaned up their act. It worked, more or less.

InLife could be the missing link to your financial freedom, though you need to apprehend that 95% of network marketers fail to make any money even when you order the product from anywhere in buy levitra line the world. Even if you smoke more than viagra online one pack of cigarettes per day were at a 60% higher risk of impotence, compared to men that have the procedure, only one shall go on to conceive with a partner while the remainder of the obligations on your own. Look viagra free sample for a gentle, organic liquid probiotic that is dairy, wheat, and soy-free. The most common side effects for erectile dysfunction such as sildenafil (canadian viagra sales ) & tadalafil (viagra). With the rise of racism during the second half of the nineteenth century many if not most Burschenschaften abandoned liberalism. Instead they identified themselves with the most reactionary trends prevalent in contemporary society. They also became virulently anti-Semitic, refusing to accept Jewish students and occasionally beating them up. Jews who were already members were expelled; others set up their own separate organizations which imitated the gentile ones as best they could. One caricature showed a corps member asking another about their program. “A program?” Came the response. “We do not need a program. Only a pogrom.”

The heyday of the Burschenschaften was in the years just before World War I. During the 1920s they declined; whereas the Nazis, finding them too independent for their taste, suppressed them and replaced them with their own, the Nazis’, kind of organization. During the Cold War the Burschenschaften, while strictly prohibited in the East, made a modest revival in the West. Today there are some 160 of them, most of them scattered between Germany and Austria. They may, however, also be found in Poland, Scandinavia, and even as far away as Chile.

I asked around. The way it was explained to me, they were not racist. The objective of this particular Burschenschaft was to preserve the traditions of the organization in question, notably “freedom,” “liberalism,” “comradeship,” and mutual trust. I asked whether women could join; they could not, I was told, though they might attend meetings as guests (there were none at the one I participated in). I asked whether Muslims were welcome; an Iranian, I was told, would be, though the question as to whether the same applied to an Arab student was left without an answer. And I was told that the custom of Mensur was still practiced. Albeit, as far as I could see, so carefully that the risk was practically zero and the resulting scar, almost invisible.

I was there as a guest speaker, not as a member of Metternich’s secret police. So I gave my pre-prepared speech, and the audience liked it very much. After it was over I received a lot of applause, what with those present thumping the tables as is the German custom. The meeting included the participants singing about fifteen old students’ songs carefully selected from a corpus of some four hundred written, most of them, during the nineteenth century.

Many of the songs described the joys of student life. Others, though, bristled with expressions like deutsches Vaterland (German Fatherland), deutsche maennlichkeit (German manhood), deutsche Ehre (German honor), and deutsche Treue (German faith). At this point I, a Jew some of whose family members lost their lives during the Holocaust, was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

So I asked my guide, Killian. Here a surprise was waiting for me. He himself, he explained, was the son of a Jewish physician. Years ago the father had tried to make Aliya, i.e move to Israel, but was disgusted by the prevailing disorder in that country. Whereupon he went back to Europe, but not before taking with him a kibbutz member who was to become his wife. All this Killian explained to me in pretty good, if somewhat halting, Hebrew of which he was justifiably proud.

I ask you.

Crisis? What Crisis?

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Weeks have passed since The Donald, by announcing the U.S withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran nuclear deal, aka the Iran deal), started a “crisis” in the Middle East. Such being the case, it is time to draw at least a temporary balance as to what happened, what did not happen, and what is likely to happen in what is known, euphemistically, as “the foreseeable future.”

So here goes.

Iran was and remains the largest and most powerful, state in the region around the Persian Gulf. That this Iran has its ideology, its interests, its objectives, its phobias, its friends, and its enemies just as any other country does hardly requires saying, To be sure, Iranian policy has its peculiarities. But no more so than that of any others.

As far as anyone knows, the Mullahs have now been working on their nuclear program, which they inherited from the Shah, for some thirty years. As far as anyone knows, Trump’s new sanctions have not caused them to greatly accelerate that program or sharply change its course towards bomb-making. The step they, responding to Trump, have taken, i.e. increasing the enrichment of low level uranium, is mostly symbolic, though this might change later if and when they feel they are in real danger of coming under attack.

As was to be expected, the U.S-led sanctions on Iran, while making life difficult for many ordinary Iranians, have not worked. Nor are they very likely to work in the future. To be sure, many Iranians have no special love for the Mullahs’ regime, which they see as fanatical, oppressive, corrupt, and unnecessarily bellicose. They would certainly like to get rid of it; however, they seem to dislike foreigners meddling in what they see as their own affairs even more. This aspect of the matter, whose importance is paramount, would surely remain in place even if the Mullahs were to disappear tomorrow.

The Houthi rebels of Yemen, presumably armed and instigated by Iran, have mounted some attacks on Saudi and other Gulf country targets. Going from strength to strength, they have shown that the Saudis are as incapable of giving a good fight as they were back in 1991. More attacks, apparently meant to deter the Americans without provoking them too much, are likely to follow. Nevertheless, contrary to the fears of many there has been no dramatic increase in terrorism in the Middle East.

However, your body viagra generika appalachianmagazine.com can only sustain so much toxicity before it starts breaking down, including but not limited to: Reducing the amount of good bacteria in your gut by 50% Cancer Auto-immune diseases (your own immune system attacks your body tissues), including Parkinson’s, celiac, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, etc. viagra soft tablets Many patients remain undiagnosed until their first fracture. In half an hour to 45 minutes, cialis cost low cialis prices article the pill begins to show results. Drinking water and urinating timely is advantageous to relieve the urine stimulation of the prostate, because levitra on line appalachianmagazine.com water dilute urine and take out bacteria. Contrary to the fears of many, too, there has been no dramatic increase in the price of oil. To the extent that the price has gone up, the greatest beneficiary has been America’s competitor, i.e. Russia. For your attention, Donald.

For Tehran, opposing and threatening Israel is the red flag with to attract sympathy and allies in much of the Arab world. For Netanyahu, Iran is the rod with which to attract followers inside Israel. He continues doing his very best to get the U.S to launch a war against Iran, and will surely go on doing so as long as he remains in the prime minister’s office and out of prison.

The “crisis” has caused some Arab countries, notably those of the Gulf, to further tighten their already quite close relations with Israel. To that extent, Israel has also benefited from it.

Trump’s bluff has been called. For all his bluster, he has not brought the Mullahs to their knees. Nor did he start a war, nor reinforced his forces in the Gulf nearly to the point that would be needed in order to do so. The telephone number he gave the Swiss has remained unused, leaving him in a weaker position than previously.

Meanwhile, some of the heavyweights in Beijing may not be at all averse to witnessing this latest show of American weakness. That weakness is certain to have consequences later on, though when they will emerge and what form they will take is hard to say. As in the song: “Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again.”

Finally: The Europeans do not count, since all the important decisions are made over their heads. As usual.

How Innovation Works

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As experts from every conceivable field never stop repeating, as of the early years of the twenty-first century humankind is facing unprecedented challenges. The pace of innovation is said to be accelerating. Cutting our links with history and, in the minds of many, rapidly turning it into a bunch of irrelevant tales fit, if for anyone at all, a bunch of elderly antiquarians. Each day seems to bring an avalanche of new, previously unconceivable, discoveries such as open the way to tremendous developments in every field. But also, as they cause everything stable to crumble and fall apart, creating a real danger that, overwhelmed by those very changes, we shall lose our way amidst our own inventions.

That, at any rate, is the conventional wisdom. Not that all of it has not been said, and well said, many times by those who lived long before us. Putting together The Communist Manifesto back in 1848 Marx and Engels referred to what, today, is known as “creative destruction as a necessary condition for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism. “Blind we walk, till the unseen flame has trapped our footsteps,” sang the chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone twenty-five centuries ago.

From horseless carriages and wireless and flying machines and space travel and champion level Go-playing computer programs and genetic engineering down, so many things that used to be considered impossible have come true! To the point, indeed, that the young in particular take them for granted and can no longer imagine life without them. As my grandson asked me some years ago, how on earth did you keep busy before computers? Nevertheless, considerable room for doubt remains. The fact that so many expectations have been and are being fulfilled and will go on being fulfilled does not mean that everything is possible. Let alone that there are no underlying realities that hardly change at all.

The reason why they do not change is that innovations, even the most important ones, always seem to go through the following five stages. First come the Doubting Thomases who insist that the new gadget, or device, or method, or even social movement, will either fail to work properly or, if it does work, never amount to much. A happened to both Robert Fulton and Alexander Graham Bell when they tried to sell their wares to Napoleon and Western Union respectively. And to the brothers Wright when, having failed to sell their flyer to the U.S Army, they moved to Europe instead.

Second, when it becomes clear that the new technology does in fact work and has some potential uses, attempts are made to deny its novelty by fitting it into some existing framework. As, for example, happened when early steamships began to be used on inland waterways and inside ports but kept well away from the open sea. And as happened when the pre-1914 military, having finally deigned to buy a few aircraft, incorporated them into the artillery arm or the cavalry (which was responsible for reconnaissance), or the signals corps, or whatever.
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Third, there is what is sometimes known as the Aha moment. When the blinkers fall away and everything seems to have changed or changing or about to change. And when the sky, opening up, appears to be the limit. The point, to use the lingo of economists, at which the logistic curve suddenly takes off, gaining momentum and dragging along many others that are linked to it. Normally this is when careers and fortunes are made; think of Thomas Edison, think of Henry Ford, think of Bill Gates.

Fourth, it becomes clear that the new invention will not work, or will not work very well, unless it is integrated with the “everything” in question. Including, to return to the example of military aviation, an organizational framework, the availability of appropriate raw materials—where would aviation have been without the timely discovery of cheap methods of producing aluminum? And without engineering, manufacturing, airfields, fuel depots, weapons and ammunition, maintenance- and repair shops, pilot selection and training, navigation aids, communications, a ground control system, a meteorological service, and what not.

However, invariably the point will come when it becomes clear that there are some things the new technology cannot do. Moreover, the one certain thing about any logistic curve is that, on pain of filling the universe with itself and draining it of everything else, it must and will come to an end. Once it flattens out people, looking back, invariably realize that some of the most essential things have changed little if at all. Including, to mention but a few, the way we enter this world when we are born and leave it when we die. And including, between those two landmarks, many if not most of the principal ways we, considered both as individuals and as part of the societies in which we live, feel and think and behave and act.

So it has been. So it is. And so, in spite of talk about approaching singularities that are always around the corner but never seem to arrive, it will remain.