Tea at Trianon: Navigating an Increasingly Violent World

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

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Navigating an Increasingly Violent World

From Dr. George Simon:

We live in an increasingly violent world. In fact, violence is so prevalent in our lives that we’re largely desenitized to it. Everyone wants what they want and lacks compunction about the viciousness with which they go after it. Sometimes it seems like you take your life in your hands just making a trip to the grocery store in your car.

There are so many ways to be violent. And most of our violent behavior is not physical. Sometimes, the violence is in our words: hateful, spiteful, heart-crushing words. And it can be in our actions, too, even subtle, hurtful actions that aren’t clearly physically violent. Exploiting one another, crossing major boundaries, taking advantage – all of these things are forms of violence. And while many times this violence is in the open, sometimes it’s covert. (See also: Aggression and Covert-Aggression and In Sheep’s Clothing.) But whatever the case, violence in one form or another has been the destroyer of relationships and families. And it’s become the destroyer of communities and societies, too. (Read more.)