Quote of the Day (Martin Wolf, on How Economic Decline Made Liberal Democracies Fragile)

“Today's liberal democracies are the most successful societies in human history, in terms of prosperity, freedom and the welfare of their peoples. But they are fragile. Resting on consent, they require legitimacy. Among the most important sources of legitimacy is widely shared prosperity. A big part of the reason for the erosion of trust in elites has accordingly been a long-term relative economic decline of significant parts of the working and middle classes, worsened by economic shocks, notably the global financial crisis.⁠”—British journalist and economics commentator Martin Wolf, “In Defence of Democratic Capitalism,” The Financial Times, Jan. 21-22, 2023

The image of Martin Wolf that accompanies this post, from the 2015 Crawford Forum, was taken June 29, 2015, by AH1P1295.

Quote of the Day (Celeste Wallander, on ‘The Biggest Threat to NATO Today’)

“NATO can structure disincentives and punishments for backsliders, but only citizens can hold elected leaders accountable. Most important, the United States must rise to meet the challenge…. Americans must face the fact that the biggest threat to NATO today may be the United States itself. Regardless of political party and policy preferences, all Americans have a patriotic interest in protecting the laws, practices and institutions of U.S. liberal democracy. This is not merely a matter of domestic politics; it is also a matter of national security. Threats to democracy at home have already undermined Washington's ability to work with allies in a dangerous, uncertain, and threatening world. As the most powerful member of NATO, the United States must take the lead through a bipartisan defense of liberal institutions and values.”— Celeste Wallander, American international relations advisor and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the U. S. Defense Department, “NATO’s Enemies Within: How Democratic Decline Could Destroy the Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2018

Since Ms. Wallander wrote this, NATO has been battered even more than what concerned her originally. The cause was the same, as indeed it has been with the tariff imbroglio: the President in charge at the time who inflicted on this country a diplomatic self-inflicted wound.

(The image of Celeste Wallander that accompanies this post was taken Feb. 22, 2022.)

Quote of the Day (Albert Camus, on Truth, Freedom, and Justice)

“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among men, a greater sincerity. We must achieve this or perish. To do so, certain conditions must be fulfilled: men must be frank (falsehood confuses things), free (communication is impossible with slaves). Finally, they must feel a certain justice around them.” —French novelist, essayist, and playwright—Nobel Literature laureate—Albert Camus (1913-1960), “Three Interviews,” in Lyrical and Critical Essays, edited by Philip Thody, translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy (1970)

The loss to the world when Albert Camus died in an automobile accident 65 years ago today is incalculable. At only 46 years old, he was still in the prime of his career.

His death came at a tricky time for the novelist: France’s divisive, debilitating attempt to crush the independence movement of the colony where Camus was born and spent his formative years, Algeria. As a pacifist, he was so anguished by the Algerian War that he said it affected him “as others feel pain in their legs.”

Like his counterpart across the English Channel, George Orwell, Camus issued a clarion call for liberal democracy when it was threatened by totalitarian regimes of both the left and the right. The successors of these two writers are issuing their own warnings about similar perils that confront our age, but so far they are going unheeded.

Maybe it’s time to re-read Camus, to understand, as he demonstrated in his postwar novel The Plague (much discussed at the outbreak of COVID-19), that withstanding pestilences, whether the medical or political kind, requires eternal vigilance lest they return, but ordinary people must maintain their resistance, no matter how great their weariness.

(For a more extended overview of how Camus balanced political activism with engaging with time “on the smallest and most personal scale,” see Maria Popova’s June 2024 post from her blog “The Marginalian.”)