The Joy of Curmudgeonry

“We must grasp the essential contrast between the whole modern world-view and that of previous thought, and use that clearly conceived contr...

“The left always feel faintly embarrassed at attempting to promote their own political agenda”, says Steven Barnett, [1] professor of commun...

“Science being, it is said, a pure service of truth for truth’s sake, is not called upon to consider whether the selfish wishes of men’s sou...

In the course of decline, a nation can pass through a time of pessimism into a time of optimism whence the gloominess of the earlier time lo...

“In Britain [between the world wars], many concluded that the wrong people . . . were giving birth at a rate that threatened to engulf socie...

“I certainly cannot explain how we got here, but I’d rather wait a thousand years to see if science can push back a few more layers of our i...

“Ants behave in an extremely collective fashion. Each has no say in what happens, and it’s no problem for them, why should it be a problem f...

The bellwether-intelligentsia are always one step ahead of the herd in the run of ideas, but are usually outpaced and trampled down in the r...

“Novelty pleases all because it is uncommon, taste is refreshed, and a brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence.” ...

For the last hundred years or so, but particularly for the last forty, many of the bourgeoisie have spent much of their time in the weird at...

If I were to claim that one man’s dowser is another man’s water-seeker, then I should do so in the expectation that many would call me a man...

“If anybody wishes to know what was the influence of Rousseau in diffusing the belief in a golden age, when men lived, like brothers, in fre...

“[S]ince lamentation about the state of the world is one of life’s unfailing pleasures, the world is a greater source of satisfaction than e...

“Shen Tao discarded knowledge, abandoned self, followed the inevitable, and was indifferent to things. Such were his principles. He said: ‘K...

“Democracy is a daring concept — a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government.” [1] It is another e...

bundling , n . A political party’s custom, hardly to be averted, of offering to an electorate a range of policies which must thereupon be ac...