Optimism, Inc.: The Exhilaration of Being Ostracized
Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers Has Any of This Happened to You? Reader, confess the following. If you voted for Trump, or even were suspected of such, has at least one of the following things happened to you? A once close associate (or was it a grandson, uncle, cousin, or in-law?), perhaps even one of […]
A New Regressive Dark Ages
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness Once upon a time long ago, we agreed there were certain immutable laws of human nature. These laws were based on facts, reality, and data. In other words, we accepted common sense about the way the world worked according to logical and even “scientific” principles. That assumption defined us […]
A Child’s World of Animals
Part II. The Dark Grove In the 1880s when the eastern San Joaquin Valley began to be populated with vineyardists and orchard men, there was a shortage of construction-grade wood. Farmers needed lumber that would not rot as fence posts, vineyard stakes, and barn trusses. The Sierra redwood (the majestic Sequoiadendron giganteum), thank God, earlier on was […]
The Traditionalist – The Halls of Congress and Cultural Decadence
Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler // Private Papers
Will the 2020 Madness Last?
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness The COVID-19 pandemic is ending with mass vaccinations. So is the national quarantine. The riots, arson, and looting of the 2020 summer are sputtering out—leaving violent crime in their wake. The acrimony over the 2020 election fades. Trump Derangement Syndrome became abstract when Donald Trump left office and was […]
A Child’s World of Animals.
Part I. Enchanted Dangers To a boy six or seven, great-horned owls proved terrifying. You would walk through the Santa Rosa plum orchard at dawn. Then suddenly this huge, hidden monster would spring out from a tree trunk and sweep through the row, about three feet off the ground, right on by you. His six-foot […]
Feet-of-Clay Icons
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness Americans mostly have given up on familiar institutions for entertainment, guidance, or reassurance. What now do Hollywood, network news, the media in general, Silicon Valley, the NBA, NFL, MLB, or higher education all have in common? A propensity to lecture Americans on their moral inferiorities, a general ethical decline […]
Historian’s Corner: The Firebombing of Japan
Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers Part Three. The Nihilist Logic of Death Once the sick dogs of war are unleashed, legalized murder has a Satanic logic of its own. In the US case, the agenda from December 8 onward was how to end the war as quickly as possible that it did not start […]
Biden gives Putin the Nord Stream prize and gets nothing in return
An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill Much has been made of President Biden’s comment that “Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal for Europe.” Yet with the announcement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Nord Stream 2 sanctions are not in the U.S. national interest and will be waived, the Russian-financed European pipeline should glide […]
Why Does the Left Hate Israel?
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness As over 3,000 rockets are fired into Israel by Hamas, the establishment of the Democratic Party seems paralyzed over how to respond to the latest Middle East war. It is not just that they fear that the squad, Black Lives Matter, the shock troops of Antifa, and the woke […]
Eeyore’s Cabinet: The Decadent Culture
Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers I’ve been reading the Satyricon again, which I taught for a number of years in early imperial Latin literature classes for advanced Latin students. The Latin, outside of the slang and neologisms, and the fragmented text, is pretty easy. The style flows. The Cena Trimalchionis is a brilliant damnation of the combination of […]
Historian’s Corner: The Firebombing of Japan
Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers Part Two: Very Bad Versus Worse Choices? 1) The Japanese Empire, while doomed in Spring 1945, was more than capable of killing thousands of innocents every day the war dragged on. Depending on the nature of particular sources, and how data are compiled and interpreted, Japanese forces may have killed […]