{"id":27477,"date":"2014-08-23T08:07:37","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T13:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27477"},"modified":"2014-08-23T08:07:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T13:07:37","slug":"immutable-human-nature-will-not-be-wished-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/08\/23\/immutable-human-nature-will-not-be-wished-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Immutable human nature will not be wished away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles C. W. Cooke<\/a> on the evergreen notion that “this time, it’ll be different”:<\/p>\n

H. G. Wells\u2019s famous prediction that the First World War would be the \u201cwar to end all wars\u201d was met with skepticism by the British prime minister. \u201cThis war, like the next war,\u201d David Lloyd George quipped in the summer of 1916, \u201cis a war to end war.\u201d History, he sighed, is not shaped by wishful thinking.<\/p>\n

Two decades later, Lloyd George would be proven right. And yet, in the intervening period, it was Wells\u2019s sentiment that prevailed. The horrors of the trenches having made rationalization imperative, a popular and holistic narrative was developed. The Great War, Woodrow Wilson quixotically argued, had finally managed to \u201cmake the world safe for democracy\u201d and, in doing so, had served an invaluable purpose. Henceforth, human beings would remember the valuable lesson that had been written in so much blood, coming together in mutual understanding to, as Wells rather dramatically put it, \u201cexorcise a world-madness and end an age.\u201d And that, it was thought, would be that.<\/p>\n

In hindsight, it is easy to criticize the idealists. But, historically, their instincts were by no means anomalous. The most successful politicians today remain those who are dispositionally Whiggish, and who possess in abundance the much coveted ability to sell the future as the cure for all ills. Come election time, candidates from both sides of the aisle promise Americans that their country\u2019s \u201cbest days are ahead of her\u201d and that it is now \u201ctime to move forward.\u201d Customarily, these promises are paired with a series of less optimistic corollaries, most often with the simplistic insistence that we must never, ever \u201cgo backwards,\u201d and with the na\u00efve \u2014 sometimes spluttering \u2014 disbelief that anything bad or primitive could exhibit the temerity to occur in these our enlightened times. \u201cIt is amazing,\u201d our jejune political class will say of a current event, \u201cthat this could be happening in 2014!\u201d And the audience will nod, sagaciously.<\/p>\n

This week, responding to the news that an American journalist had been executed in Syria by the Islamic State, President Obama contended that the group \u201chas no place in the 21st century.\u201d One wonders: What can this mean? Is this a statement of intent, or is it a historical judgment? Certainly, insofar as Obama\u2019s words indicate a willingness to extirpate the outfit from the face of the Earth, they are useful. If, however, they are merely an attempt to shame the group by explaining that in 2014 the good guys no longer behave in this manner, it is abject and it is fruitless. As a matter of regrettable fact, IS does indeed have a place in the 21st century \u2014 and, like the barbarians who hypothetically had \u201cno place\u201d in the Roman Empire, it is presently utilizing that place to spread darkness and despair. Assurances that \u201cour best days are ahead of us,\u201d I\u2019d venture, are probably not going to cut it with the mujahideen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles C. W. Cooke on the evergreen notion that “this time, it’ll be different”: H. G. Wells\u2019s famous prediction that the First World War would be the \u201cwar to end all wars\u201d was met with skepticism by the British prime minister. \u201cThis war, like the next war,\u201d David Lloyd George quipped in the summer of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,28,53,246],"tags":[158,982,236,942],"class_list":["post-27477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-media","category-politics","category-ww1","tag-barackobama","tag-isis","tag-progress","tag-woodrowwilson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-79b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27478,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27477\/revisions\/27478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}