A Snowdrop Revolution in our own backyard. Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), blooming in the gardens since late January, poke their heads proudly through the already receding blanket of snow that fell on Wednesday.
“Evolution [of human behavior] is a fact,” Dartmouth History Professor Ronald Edsforth spouted forth in a recent debate with Victor Davis Hanson on the subject of whether the war in Iraq or any war could ever be justified, reports Wretchard of Belmont Club, citing The Dartmouth Review:
Edsforth proposed that the human race has learned the dangers of war, especially after the blood-soaked twentieth century. "We are capable of learning as humans and changing our environment in such a way that that which we abhor is less and less likely."
Can you say clueless? Isn't that the failed Marxist project writ large? The poor fellow has swallowed Rousseau's fantasy of the noble savage whole hog. As we always say, early and often, the denial of life's dark side in our selves is the key to what's wrong with the utopianist world view. The Dartmouth Review offers relief:
Hanson, though, maintained that the human race has not changed significantly in the past several thousand years. “Human nature is set,” he said -- it was “primordial, reptilian,” adding that man is always “governed by pride and fear and envy.” He cited Thucydides, who wrote that his works would remain valid through the ages precisely because human nature is unchanging. “We have not reached the end of history.”
The left has been loathe to admit it, but voice by voice of late, from the New York Times on down (up?), in the wake of the orange, purple, cedar and other power-of-the-people revolutions -- sprouting like snowdrops pushing through the snow -- in the once barren wastelands of totalitarian rule, they're acknowledging that GW's "strong-horse" foreign policy is changing the course of history. How to end all wars? Whether it's "speak softly and carry a big stick" or "peace through strength," the enemy has to know you mean business.
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