The Count of Monty Christo

Normal on other issues

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@iisskaa @chribreuer 🎯

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@chribreuer GDP per capita is still significantly above that of small "normal" Europe too, i.e., not relatively small "Northern" countries like Norway or Luxembourg. But by no conventional measure is Aus # 1, or close, when most Australians assume it is and much better than the US in par.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@chribreuer As an Australian who occasionally considers writing a book about how the country is overrated, it has--compensations. Climate alone makes it easier to live in on a daily basis than Canada or most of Europe or the US. And it's the least woke of the English speaking countries now

[Christoph Breuer @chribreuer]

Interesting thread. The End of Prussian dominance and the rise of West German Catholics to power in modern Germany is underrated imo.

I once read that they called the GDR "Red Prussia" in the Netherlands.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@chribreuer But I prefer Homer and Dante to Shakespeare out of "the Western Big Three," or Big 4 with Cervantes. I am stuck though, every time I go to back it, but how high the average quality of 17th century English theatre and poetry is, and how S is clearly the best of them.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@chribreuer Who's SBF? In any case, a lot of unlikely things (or unlikely given our limited knowledge of the universe)--happen, it just wasn't likely they would. Cf. the two greatest football players of the last 50 both being from Argentina.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@m_egemone @akoz33 exposed to "the lottery of paternity." Well, it's not quite a lottery is it, but you know what he means, and even if it was a rationalisation, it reflects a certain discomfort with the messiness of family, and the messiness of life in general...

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@m_egemone @akoz33 And family seems to have been--a "problem" for him in general. E.g., he had an illegitimate child when young, never showed any interest in it, and none with his wife. She was probably too old, older than her claimed age, but T rationalised having "no" children as not being---

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@akoz33 Cf. Churchill: Malborough could not aspire in the early 18th century to what Napoleon could in the early nineteenth, "not to mention later, cheaper types." And for Tocqueville, the contrast between Napoleon I and III was central, and all in the former's favour.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@ChantCowen @UnbornMind It's a balance, but not translating key terms is often the best option. Enriches the new language, apart from anything else. Editors hate it though.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@RBrookhiser And it's not just the Japanese. Iwo Jima and Okinawa were fought because they were considered necessary to the invasion which--never happened. A lot of what happens in war is momentum and "fog," it's hard to judge contemporaries, but from the arm-chair...

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@RBrookhiser Well, the doctrine of "unconditional surrender" played a part, which is why this issue is always mis-framed, I'd say. By the time the Bomb was dropped, yes, that or invasion were the options, the former better. But did it have to get that point...

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@misha_saul Long before Covid, I said Andrews was the worst we had, on either side of politics. Which today is saying a lot.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@DainFitzgerald @whyvert A right-wing Hollywood star might, just might, do ok with Republicans.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@whyvert @DainFitzgerald Chance. You're often loyal despite what people are, not because of it. In Trump's case, celebrity was how it began. It's very, very powerful in our societies.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@whyvert "To be fair," "loyalty is a principle" for some.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@akoz33 So, "legitimism well understood" perhaps, and as he might have said.

[The Count of Monty Christo @TheCountofMon20]

@akoz33 And, more broadly, his whole career as writer and statesman was to reconcile the legitimists he had broken with to democracy and the modern world, in some sense, and, on the other hand, get the best out of the latter while avoiding the word...