Tea at Trianon: Big Everybody Is Watching

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, April 2, 2018

Big Everybody Is Watching

From American Consequences:

Orwell captures totalitarianism’s interference in every aspect of existence in the first sentence of his book: “…the clocks were striking thirteen.” Whenever “the authorities” start meddling with ancient and customary traditions, something is wrong. So it was when President Jimmy Carter tried to put America on the metric system. And so it is today with an ancient and customary tradition we used to have… that the President of the United States was someone you would welcome into your home.

1984 has a “Two Minutes Hate” where everyone has to stop what they’re doing and despise Emmanuel Goldstein, “Enemy of the People.” We voluntarily stop what we’re doing and spend much more than two minutes despising Donald Trump on MSNBC. Or, if that doesn’t suit us, we despise Nancy Pelosi for hours on Fox News. Winston Smith “set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen.” This is nothing compared to the expression of smug and idiotic blow-hard certainty which it is advisable to wear when facing the cameras on MSNBC and Fox. (Read more.)