“Political science has been as recklessly neglected
by Governments and electorates during my lifetime as sanitary science was in
the days of Charles the Second. In international relations diplomacy has been a
boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues, commercial and territorial
brigandage, torpors of pseudo-good nature produced by laziness and spasms of
ferocious activity produced by terror. But in these islands we muddled through….Nature
gave us a very long credit; and we abused it to the utmost. But when she struck
at last she struck with a vengeance.” —Anglo-Irish playwright and Nobel
Literature laureate George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “The Practical Business
Men,” Preface to Heartbreak House (1919)
“A boyishly lawless affair of family intrigues…”
Hmmm….I can’t think of anything like that, can you?
