Right after I got home from seeing the movie America
It was a good night for a patriot.
Hannan's premise is that so much of what we take for granted as modern society is a unique creation not of "The West" - as in Western Europe....but specifically of what is now called the Anglosphere.
This from the Introduction:
"Elected parliaments, habeas corpus, free contract, equality before the law, open markets, and an unrestricted press, the right to proselytize for any religion, jury trials: these things are not somehow the natural condition of an advanced society. They are specific products of a political ideology developed in the language in which you are reading these words. The fact that those ideas, and that language have become so widespread can make us lose sight of how exceptional they were in origin.
Let me make a sartorial analogy. H.G. Wells once observed that the English were unique among the nations of the world in having no national dress. He was wrong—and wrong in a telling way. The national dress of the English—a suit and tie—has ceased to seem English, because it is worn all over the planet. On formal occasions, men in most countries dress as Englishmen; the rest of the time, they dress, for the most part, as Americans, in jeans."
I knew I loved him right there!
As I read more, I'll report back.
/gun
No comments:
Post a Comment