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In addressing the shortcomings of the arguments to which the religious give voice, by which, as good proselytizers of their faith, they try with all zeal and sincerity to convince the unconverted, one often hears it said in response by the patient skeptic—to whom their fervent reasoning is posed—that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This response, of which the empirically-minded makes such devastating good use, upon whose mere utterance, the burden of proof and the onus of explanation very quickly turns, has been articulated in various ways through the course of many years.

When seen in the form as written above, it’s to the great cosmologist, Carl Sagan, that it’s generally attributed. Undoubtedly original though the astronomer was, with an epigrammatic freshness upon which no modern thinker has yet been able to improve, the birth of this line stretches to an earlier date. It can be seen, though somewhat less distinctly, in the famous statement issued by William of Ockham, the dauntless British friar against whom a world of Medieval Platonists and obdurate Academicians fiercely fought. He, as we know, argued in favor of parsimony—a notion with we, a bunch of modern profligates, are entirely unacquainted. The best claims, in his opinion, were those that assumed the least, and he preferred those arguments that indulged the fewest conjectures. Hypotheses, under the treatment of his law, were to be judged not on airy possibilities, but on the concrete facts by which real knowledge is staked to the ground.

Naturally, the refinement and evolution of his idea took place on the island of his birth. Where else, after all, but Britain would so vehement a rejection of superfluity and nonsense be found? Then as now, that industrious nation floating in the North Sea is little known for its sophistry, metaphysics, and jargon. Those, rather, are the dizzying embellishments and dark obscurities of a European continent of which, perhaps now more than ever, she wants no further part. They’re the thoughts produced by an inscrutable land, a home to the likes of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Kant, into whom we can only pretend to penetrate, from whom she’s happily distanced. British philosophy, on the other hand, reflects its people: practical, honest, approachable, brilliant, and mercifully unadorned.

A few hundred centuries into the future, Ockham’s idea was slightly modified, but, on the whole, enthusiastically embraced by the polymathic Bertrand Russell, a jack of all intellectual trades to whom no field of study (be it mathematics, logic, political philosophy, or theology) was ever deemed foreign. He developed, in an unpublished article for the oddly-named magazine, Illustrated, the idea that came to be known as “Russell’s Teapot”. The eponymous source of this strange mental image, Russell urged readers to picture a cosmic china teapot, imperceptible to the human eye, and evasive of all star-gazing instrumentation, orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. Having no ability to confirm its presence by sight, and lacking all acuity to perceive the furtive quivers  of its distant movement, none would be able to refute an assertion of its existence. It was, in a word, unfalsifiable.

Of course, he who stands upon firm ground, with neck strained toward the sky and eyes squinting at the heavens, isn’t the one upon whom so demanding a detection and so heavy a job should fall. No, the party responsible for proving the teapot’s existence, and for adding to our cosmos this most fragile satellite, and numbering among the constellations this newest porcelain star, is the same by whom the initial assertion was made. The burden of proof rests with him, and him alone. His task, therefore, is a positive one: he must demonstrate that something actually does exists. He must do so convincingly and unequivocally, without asking anything of his friend. It’s not the skeptics job, then, negatively to disprove him, but to consider the evidence presented, and make a judgment based on the facts.

Christopher Hitchens, a similarly versatile thinker and atheistic Brit, had, as we all do, an affinity for the unparalleled Russell. Hitchens, himself a sui generis thinker, was in many ways the latter’s polemical pupil and philosophical friend. Time and again, he and the fellow New-Age Atheists of whom he was the leader made frequent rhetorical use of Russell’s Teapot, which had proven itself surprisingly resilient. Neither the attacks of sublunary churchmen, nor the thunderclaps of celestial dogma, ever fully cracked its shield.

Hitchens, however, felt it necessary to modify Russell and the “Sagan Standard”—which is the name by which the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” dictum also goes. Omitting the “extraordinariness” of the claim, and thus burdening not only the teapot-believer, but the mundane nonsense-peddler further still, Hitchens stated that, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”. The assertion need not be extraordinary, only at risk of failing to gain verification. The empiricist’s position had, until Hitchens, never been expressed with such startling pith.

Whether inclined to the philosophy of empiricism or not, one can’t help but take refuge in these various useful tools—be it the Sagan Standard, or Russell’s Teapot, or the Razor of Ockham or Hitchens—when listening to the Trump legal team’s breathless, and possibly groundless claims of widespread voter fraud. Having listened to the grave pronouncements of such eminent lawyers as Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and Rudy Giuliani, and having immersed myself in the commentary with which they were received, I’m shocked by the largeness of their accusations and the extraordinariness of theirclaims.

Powell, having recently argued with unexpected legal acumen and oratorical skill in the defense of General Michael Flynn, tickled our intrigue by announcing that she’d soon release the “kraken”—an awesome image by which every conspiratorial interest was immediately piqued. Those versed in the heroic mythology of the Norse recognized this to be the deadly leviathan of the northern seas, the mythical Scandinavian octopus into whose many-legged grasp, a thousand wayward vessels fell. This tremendous beast, she explained, would prove the connection between the Venezuelan Chavista government, the American C.I.A., and the Democrat Party. Like the limbs of the Kraken, it would make for a tentacular arrangement between the three, an overwhelming jumble from which none could hope to be freed, into which none would dare to look.

Wood and Giuliani contributed similar claims. They accused the electoral process of having been subverted by international fraudulence, tenebrous machinations, and Communist-style deceit. They said, in so many words, that the entire system by which the president is chosen was rigged and, in the case of Wood, that the governor of Georgia ought to go to prison, either for his connivance in permitting these abuses to happen, or his incompetence to detect them at the start.

These are, irrespective of your political fancy, and without concern for the identity of the man for whom your vote was cast, quite extraordinary claims. Do they not demand, then, commensurately large evidence by which they might be confirmed? I should think so. Otherwise, this charge of electoral software infected with Venezuela’s DNA should be treated like Russell’s Teapot. If discernable in the light of day, and evident to the detection of all, we should be allowed to see it. And, what’s more, it’s the responsibility of those claiming its existence categorically to prove it. Thus far, and with little time remaining before the formal certification of state ballots, they’ve not.

Yet we can, in the meanwhile, walk on the edge of our preferred razor—be it that sharpened by Ockham, or that forged by Hitchens. We must incline ourselves to the alternative that assumes the least, toward the scenario to which the fewest number of improbabilities have been added. In so doing, we can dismiss, rather brusquely and without evidence, that which has been asserted to us without evidence. And, as it stands, there simply is no evidence of a Kraken lurking on the surface of the sea, a beast by whom Joe Biden’s election will be swallowed, and Trump’s second term spit forth.

The hallowed day is soon approaching—for some, with far too hasty a step, yet for many others, with insufficient speed—on which the President of the United States will be inaugurated. Whether that role is to be occupied by the embattled incumbent, that extraordinary man to whom, despite four years of constant exposure, we’ve not yet fully acclimated ourselves, or, as is the likelier case, by the near senescent contender, the intellectually diminished yet somewhat less offensive figure by whom few are inspired, and none is enthused, Inauguration Day is to tell.

On that day, immersed in the crippling chill of a late-January’s wind, outside the building around which such antiquity weighs and electricity hums, an old administration will yield to a new, and one septuagenarian will defer to his elder. In all likelihood, and in the hopeful event that each state, or at least those about whose electoral processes we’ve been given just reason to be suspicious, can defend themselves against accusations of illegitimacy, abuse, and fraud, this elder politician, approaching a new title of dignity as he does a new decade of life, will be the Democrat, Joe Biden. The slightly younger, though incomparably more vivacious of the two, Donald Trump, will recede from the stage. He’ll exit the celebrated residence in which he, like all presidents since John Adams, temporarily lived, but he’ll never completely depart from our nightmares, or remove himself from our dreams.

Of course, it should go without saying that his opponent, this longtime Senator from Delaware and recent understudy to Barack Obama, isn’t quite yet deserving of the title, “president-elect”. At least not yet, he’s not. Indeed, the news media is the sole entity by whom this honorific has been conferred, to whom, despite its repeated shortcomings and its tenuous allegiance to the facts, we’re still encouraged to devote our credulity and entrust our confidence. As seekers after truth, and enemies of cant, we’re impatient to find, perhaps even eager to create, other sources of news, reliable and honest ones, upon which this bullying, biased a Leviathan can’t press its heavy weight. With any luck, we’ll escape its crushing grasp, and spot along the horizon alternative sites at whose inviting gates the truth is always welcome, and from whose sky, obscurity is forever cast away.  

Relieved of that digression, to which, admittedly, I’ll be tempted to return, I’d like to use this piece and think about the future of our politics. The final results of last week’s election—against which, consistent with his famously stubborn character, President Trump is issuing a defiant public response and a quixotic legal fight—appear obvious, if not technically final. Pace the legacy media, Joe Biden will be the President-elect, and, not long thereafter, the forty-sixth president of these United States. The length of time he spends in that role, however, is the actuary’s best guess: I forecast he’ll exceed the tenure of William Henry Harrison, but fall short of that of William McKinley.

That’s the conceit of a single man’s prediction; only time will tell. What’s almost certain, though, is that Joe Biden will spend at least a brief while as the president of this land. Unpalatable though this may seem, this is a reality to which many Trump-supporters must inure themselves, and for which GOP should be prepared. Just the same, it’s a reality to which supporters of Biden can’t make but a premature and rather haughty claim.

It’s not too premature, however, to go ahead and imagine the type of policy that a Biden Administration might pursue. I suppose, first, that much of this depends on the results of what could be the state of Georgia’s most consequential election to date. There, in that charming state of peaches, pecans, and Stacey Abrams’ indefatigable cries of electoral foul play, a “run-off” Senate race is forthcoming. It’s a unique and frightful contest, triggered by each incumbents’ inability to secure more than fifty percent of the vote, upon which control of the upper-chamber of the Congress hinges. Should the two Democrats claim victory in this election upon which every anxious eye is fixed, Georgia—and, more importantly, the entire legislative branch in Washington D.C.—will be theirs to do as they please.

This, of course, would be a balance of power by which the freshly inaugurated Biden and his team would be immensely advantaged. With control over the Executive Branch and, on most days, it seems, over the Judicial as well, his party would have the ability (and would doubtless lack the restraint) to pursue every type of “progressive” law and to codify every “woke” decree.

Let’s assume, ceteris paribus, that the Democrats lose the race in Georgia, and the Senate is retained by the Republicans. Every indication points to this end. And while the power of House of Representatives still leans to the left, it feels as though this mighty pendulum is eager to shift. In the dizzying course of this strange electoral cycle, ten Democratic seats in the lower chamber were lost. When viewed in contrast to the “Blue wave” of which we were assured, on which we were encouraged to bet good money, this was quite the surprise. More than that, it was an untimely defeat and an uncomfortable rebuke to what was supposed to be their God-given, socialist, racialist “mandate”.

What, then, if burdened by the intransigence of the opposition party in the Senate, and chastened by an unexpectedly weakened majority in the House, will a Biden presidency achieve?

One might look first at domestic, and then at foreign concerns. As it pertains to the former, an emphasis on COVID-19 will persist. Given the cool and wintry weather with which northern states will be made to contend, an ominous “second-wave” of the virus is expected. Indeed, we see the deadly effects of this recrudescence now. Numbers of infected individuals are increasing as millions of people—in search of refuge from the assaults of the weather—begin to congregate in their poorly-ventilated office buildings and stuffy homes. In these settings of circulated air and unavoidable confinement, in which employees and residents are closely bunched, the disease is frighteningly mobile. It’s possible, though, that the greatest increase in infections will occur weeks prior to Joe Biden’s recitation of the oath. Whatever he does, then, with his newfound authority (a national “mask mandate”?) will prove more symbolic than significant.

The first real achievement for which he’ll be applauded, by which the optimism of the financial markets will be quickly restored, is sure to be another COVID-19 stimulus package. It’s not as though one isn’t already in the making. Just prior to the Presidential election, such a package was presented to the Democrat leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, by whom it was swiftly, and perhaps myopically batted down. The fact that she did so irritated many, not only those on the other side with whom she’ll always disagree, but those of her own party. As it happens, these are the same members upon whose confidence the continuation of her role as leader is dependent. Her refusal to accept a bill was a risky political gambit, one for which her supposed tactical brilliance, and her ample majority in the congress, are both likely to have suffered.

Other domestic agenda items might include an executive solution to the problem of DACA, a nomination of a new justice for the Supreme Court (unless the honorable Stephen Breyer, in an attempt to imitate the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dares fate and the predictable lifespan of man; he could attempt to push his tenure into 2024, when he’ll be an astonishing eighty-six years of age), an invigoration of the Affordable Care Act, and a return to the status quo ante with regard to Title IX. Doubtless, this list isn’t exhaustive, but it serves, at the very least, to adjust the mind to the types of changes that are imminently to come.  

When it comes to foreign policy, as is always the case, Biden will have the opportunity to work with greater latitude, and to exercise more strength. The job for which the president is given his freest hand, and is therefore most responsible, is to shape the country’s policy beyond its own borders. He’s certain to re-enter the much-esteemed, though rather inefficacious Paris Climate Accord, the non-binding, trans-national commitment from which President Trump boldly removed us. Waves of celebration will accompany the enlightened move, despite the fact that America, having gone about her business outside the aegis of the Accord, has never been so efficient, so advanced, and so clean.

Similarly, Biden is sure to commit America, once again, to the World Health Organization—a group from which we might preferably prolong our separation. Unfortunately, this entity, to which we’ve allocated millions of dollars over the course of many years, has proven itself unequal to the task of confronting an international disease about which it, and few others, had early knowledge. Thus, it would seem that two of the three words by which its name is formed are inapplicable to its current state: it’s neither worldly, nor healthy. I won’t be so bold as to question its organizational skill, but it’s far from what it once was, or aspired to be.

What’s clear is that it’s no longer an impartial body dedicated to the amelioration of health. It’s no longer the purely scientific group it once alleged itself to be, the disinterested assembly of specialists upon which politics hadn’t an ability infringe. Rather, it’s proven itself an obsequious, venal, useless organization by which one country alone is advantaged. That country, of course, is none other than China, the nefarious communist state famous for its state-sponsored abortions, its coerced sterilizations, its poorly supervised contagions, and its unconcealed genocides. Perhaps the sickest nation of them all, China is the one by whom the lofty WHO—again, an organization putatively dedicated to world health—is controlled like a puppet on a string.

He might also try to re-enter the failed Iran Nuclear Agreement, that pact between the UN’s “P5+1” and the theocratic state. It continues to be sold to us as a brilliant, yet incompletely realized diplomatic coup, a negotiation for the ages of whose dubious merits and unverified results, the Obama Administration is still trying to convince us. What might that mean for our improved relations with Israel, that beleaguered state with whom we share not only a profitable economic arrangement and intel pipeline, but a political philosophy that the rest of the region rejects? In the presence of a newly-strengthened Iran, will the various peace accords (of which the Trump Administration was the author) just as quickly vanish? Will the Iranian mullahs continue funding the same Islamo-Bolsheviks by whom their murderous ideology is carried out abroad, or will they proceed in their development of a nuclear weapon that may eventually puncture the ephemeral tranquility of Israeli skies, and perhaps those of Europe as well?

Which leads me next, naturally, to one of President Trump’s earliest, yet undoubtedly most contentious executive orders: the so-called “Muslim Ban”, his moratorium on travel from thirteen countries for which he’s never ceased being criticized. Of course, this title—of which its many detractors, both in the media and the Democrat Party, were the originators—is what we might call a dysphemism, or a phrase that casts a deliberately negative light. An example to the contrary might be seen in calling childhood arrivals to this country, “Dreamers”, instead of undocumented immigrants (a more anodyne term) or illegal aliens (a more legally accurate one).

The fundamental merits or deficiencies of the order won’t be argued here. We’ll only concern ourselves with whether or not they’re to be continued as they stand, or strengthened in the administration to come. Neither of the listed options seems likely to occur. Rather, Biden and his team will almost certainly rescind the order the first opportunity they get. In so doing, the heart of the humanitarian will leap, as the spirit of the globalist and the cosmopolitan clasp hands and begin to dance. But might we, in a fleeting moment of sobriety, consider the optics and the repercussions of such an order?

For one, if recent events in France and Austria are to illuminate our perspective, we might hesitate before encouraging the arrival of unvetted individuals traveling from these terrorist-sponsoring states. Islam, a religion historically unacquainted with the ideals of liberalism, tolerance, free expression, and peace, hasn’t recently enjoyed a favorable cycle in the news.

When the Parisian middle-school teacher, Samuel Paty, was decapitated by a radical Islamic terrorist wielding a cleaver, the Western world was shocked. Weeks later, when three more innocent French citizens were murdered in the Notre Dame Basilica in the city of Nice (gruesomely, yet again, with a knife and a few “virtual” decapitations), its shock began to succumb to anger. Days after that, in the city of Vienna, four Austrians were shot to death. Their murderer was only recently released from prison (for having attempted to join ISIS).

Uncomfortable with pointing out, much less castigating the barbarities fostered by this religion, to which each of these killers was jointly devoted, and by which they were similarly, savagely inspired, our anger relented. It submitted to indifference. If only to avoid commenting on them, we looked beyond these events toward other news. Willfully blind, it seems we’d rather die at the hands of jihadists, than offend an irreconcilable creed.

Given this context, the removal of a “Muslim” travel ban appears to be quite untimely. Also, are we not still contending with an international virus, a deadly disease to which, clearly, international travel is wholly unconducive? Irrespective of the religion professed by their state, should we encourage foreign citizens to come to our country and possibly add to the spread? Is it xenophobic or, worse, Islamophobic to contend that we ought not?

We’ll soon learn, when Joe Biden is president, and normality returns.

The list of Black men in America who’ve recently succumbed to the violence of the police is not one upon which I look with unconcern. Resonant with the beat of all hearts that feel, I find myself deeply saddened by the fact that these men were the recipients of a premature visit by death—that stranger of the future with whom, sooner or later, we’ll all be finally acquainted. The unforeseen and early loss of life is never to be considered lightly, and regardless of the circumstances by which such an end was encouraged or provoked, we must pity those who willingly abandoned their many fruitful years to come, as well as those from whom those vital decades were forcibly stripped away.

Yet in the course of our review of that list’s well-known names—among which we find those of George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and, most recently, Walter Wallace Jr.—we tend to overlook the women with whom, at one time or another, each was associated. Living in the world as we do today, one can hardly conceive of our society being so utterly remiss. Given our unblinking fixation on and quick response to any alleged injustice suffered by a woman, the devout reader, into whom the mantra of “MeToo” has been hammered and the dictate to “believe all women” drilled, might find these oversights quite strange. Indeed, he’d not be wrong to feel this way.

Let us, then, remember the men, but with an eye toward the women.

The moral nadir of George Floyd’s life seems to have coincided with the height of his criminal creativity. Over a decade ago, flanked by a deviant group of friends, Floyd orchestrated a robbery by which, when met with the height of its audacity, the reader is completely astonished. Dressed in the raiment of a water department employee, he attempted to gain entrance into a pregnant woman’s house. Somehow, his well-attired ruse failed to escape the subtlety of her detection, and when she resisted the tale spun by his words, he turned to the application of force. He prevented her from closing the door, and beckoned his fellows forth. A gun was soon brandished, and the pregnant woman’s abdomen was the target of its aim.

Outnumbered and enceinte, she was quite defenseless. She had neither weapon by which her invaders might be repulsed, nor ally by which her strength might be doubled. In so feeble and unenviable a position, she could do little more than watch as her house was searched and robbed, and pray that the life of her child be preserved.

Walter Wallace Jr., the Philadelphia man about whom the obituarist has just finished writing, did something similar just three years ago. He too decided it worthwhile forcibly to enter a vulnerable woman’s house, and intimidate her at the mouth of a gun. Yet instead of feigning his way into her home under the guise of an amiable utilities workman (a la Floyd) he opted for a less imaginative and more direct approach. Perhaps acutely short of time, or deliberately reliant on the element of surprise, he kicked down her door and put a gun to her head. He demanded her submission, or he threatened to kill.

Unlike Floyd, Wallace seems not to have been prepared to threaten the life of the unborn, only the poor woman by whom the completion of his criminal act was so inconveniently delayed. Either way, we hear little from those who might otherwise defend the sanctity of a woman’s life, and the inviolability of her worth; they’ve grown unusually quiet. Wallace’s actions against her are nowhere mentioned, much less censured, by those same people for whom a world universally convinced of the seriousness of “MeToo” is deemed the most valiant and necessary pursuit of our age.

In both the foregoing cases, that of George Floyd and then of Walter Wallace Jr., the women upon whom their violence was unleashed were unknown to them. As people to whom they were entirely unacquainted, and for whom—for that reason—they exercised little regard, they could perhaps more easily mistreat them. The same can’t be said of the woman abused by Jacob Blake, to whom, with sadness, we turn next.

Of the three men, Blake is unique in having escaped with his life his encounter with the police. Also, of the three, his case is peculiar in that it was a domestic “event” (with the mother of his children) that precipitated the arrival of those same law enforcement officers by whom he was later shot. As it turns out, their presence was sought by the woman with whom he was previously engaged, toward whom he’d lately become unspeakably abusive.

In July of this year, a month in advance of the fateful encounter with which the entire world is now familiar, Jacob Blake entered this woman’s house. He did so without having first received her permission. He then entered her bedroom and awoke her. Beside her rested one of their children, unaware of the situation, and shielded by the barrier of sleep. According to her report, as communicated to the authorities from whom she consequently sought help, Blake demanded the return of his possessions and then forced open her legs. He proceeded to penetrate her, digitally, before raising to his nose a vicious finger or two. Confident in the accuracy of his touch, and the infallibility of his olfactory sense, he announced, upon smelling his hand, that she was guilty of having had sexual relations with other men.

Having already abused her dignity, he stole her vehicle and her debit card, with which he proceeded to make multiple withdrawals of $500. Insult was heaped upon injury, and the woman was left to the ravishments of a man unencumbered by feelings of humanity or guilt.

The weeks dividing this initial encounter, and that on which he was repeatedly shot, were something of an entr’acte. Unfortunately for the woman, a second scene was planned and in the midst of getting underway. Blake returned to her home, again uninvited, on the afternoon of August 23^rd. As before, he harassed her and, with the temerity of a scoundrel, and the viciousness of a man unimpeded by virtue, attempted again to steal her car. This time, however, their three children sat in its rear and, as we later learned, a knife awaited his retrieval in the front.

The rest of the story is too well-known to warrant my retelling, but Blake, despite the newfound immobility of his physical state, is awaiting judgment on two charges: one for felony third-degree sexual assault, and a second for misdemeanor criminal trespass. Should justice prevail, he’ll escape neither.

The names of these three men, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, and Walter Wallace Jr., have become, and will remain, ineffaceable. So deeply stamped upon the American mind they’ve become, they won’t quickly wash away. And as we navigate the relations of minority races and the police and seek, between the two, lessened hostility and greater goodwill, they’re likely to be evoked time and time again. Yet we’d commit upon ourselves a great disservice, and these women’s memory a grave offense, should we forget their names. Theirs too must be remembered, in connection with those by whom they were abused.

Be it advanced or primitive, civilized or crude, there are certain criteria by which we judge the relative progress of a nation. In the pursuit of such an assessment, by which a country’s strength or weakness might be gauged, we can turn in any number of directions.

We might first look upon the eloquence of its literature, or the craftsmanship of its art. Should we find in the former a Shakespeare, a Goethe, or a Proust, we can be assured not only of its literacy, but of its refinement and taste. We’ll recognize this land not as one unvisited by an articulate muse. We’ll see it as one out of which great stories have sprung. If, in our examination of the latter, we find with chisel in hand the great Phidias or impassioned Bernini, or with paint upon palate the esteemed Goya or Rubens, we content ourselves with the knowledge that this state is not only in possession of heightened standards of art, but of pure aesthetic bliss.

We might also look elsewhere in our search for these criteria, among which so many can be named. The culture of a given state, under which, admittedly, literature and art might also fall, is one upon which we might linger some time. What are the peculiarities of its customs and the idiosyncrasies for which its inhabitants stand out? What is the general bent of its manner and the character of its people? Character, after all, is the master of fate, and thus the most important attribute to which culture can give birth. What form, upon falling to the earth, and finding its initial step, might that character take? Might it produce a population martial or philosophical, terse or verbose, hesitant or free, Spartan or Attic? Will they be gentle and kind, or captious and mean? One can’t know, but culture, ultimately, will dictate the type.

Religion, as well, might be considered here. Perhaps it too finds itself in a state of repose under the long shadow cast by culture’s towering figure, but it might be thought of as distinct. We gaze toward the heavens in our judgment of the land, and we observe the pious shepherd in our study of the bleating flock. Is it a nation to which foreign gods, despite the distance of their birth, are equally welcome, or is it deathly jealous of its own domestic faith? Is it so devout as to bar from entry a compelling and, for that reason, possibly competitive creed, or is it openly hospitable and exuding of warmth? Is it confident in the truth of its own beloved scriptures, or is it provoked to the point of bloodshed when its revelations are brought into doubt? Is it theocratic or pluralistic, evangelical or cordial? In search of these answers, one examines the state.  

All of the foregoing—religion, culture, literature and art—are aspects upon which the vitality of a state is dependent, without whose splendid contributions, it can’t hope fully to live. It may succeed, for a time, in stumbling about as a partial and awkward state, as though in the infancy of its being in the darkness of an early hour, but it’s never to be seen striding, dauntless, in the glowing maturity of its life. We’ll see neither the development of its mind, the elegance of its gait, nor the wholeness of its form, to which years contribute, and experience lends strength.

Omitted from this list, and that without which a nation can’t be deemed complete and its body erect, is its political institution. Indeed, without such a base, a country can’t hope to stand. It’ll be vulnerable to every paroxysm, and unequal to every whim. Its legs will be feeble, and its edifice will fall. After all, A state’s political institution is the foundation atop which all else is built. The way in which a country is governed—now that’s the sole criterion to which every other concern must be thought inferior.

The type of the political institution might be one of three: monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic—or, put another way, the rule of one, of the few, or of the many. That which you find most suitable to your taste, or congenial to your political fancy, is something of a personal choice. No doubt, antiquity’s great authors have provided us with their own, leaving the modern man a wealth of enticing and well-argued predilections to which, in such works as those wrought by Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Locke, and Marx, he can always repair. In one, we find republicanism and the philosophical rudiments of the American doctrine; in another, communism, and the utopian template for the Maoist and the Bolshevik’s regime. Still another grants legitimacy to the undivided power of an unelected king, while another seeks ways to justify the tyrant.

Despite their variety, all return to the rigid fact that there are but three types from which they might choose.

Conceivably, all three might be built upon the suffrage of the citizen—be it universally granted, or narrowly constrained. In the case of America, a democratic-republic as dreamed up by Locke, its application is quite liberal. The potential voter need not twenty years, twenty IQ points, nor twenty cents to his name. He need only be the age of majority and registered in the state and district in which he might happen to live. From that point, his only job is to appear on the day of the election, equipped with little more than a received bias or an airy whim, and cast his vote for the candidate by whom his interest has been tickled, or, better yet, his reason swayed.

This process assumes, however, that the election itself will work. We expect competence from those by whom it’s orchestrated, and honesty and efficiency from its start until its end. We consider it no great imposition to expect its results within course of the following day—certainly not four, five, or—god forbid—six thereafter. The announcement of the people’s will mustn’t be delayed, lest they assume dirty tricks, sordid chicanery, or an attempt at the disenfranchisement of the many, for the benefit of the few, to be at hand.  

Despite the attraction of all those other delightful things—art, literature, philosophy, culture, religion, etc.—over which, in our judgment of the relative progress of a nation, we’re enticed to stop and gaze, a country’s ability to carry out an election, though less exciting, might be the first at which we look. The most primitive of nations must, if it seeks a higher stratum to which it might ascend, successfully complete this very basic task. It must demonstrate proficiency in its collection of the people’s votes, as well as accuracy and swiftness in their uninterrupted counting. It must have certitude in the declaration of its results, and faith in the peacefulness of the citizens to whom they’ll be communicated, posthaste.  

Based on this criterion, that of carrying out an election adroitly and with ease, America can’t be judged very highly. Indeed, we might be forced to demote her back to the status of a low and barbaric state. And though she flaunts as her most venerable children the likes of Franklin, Emerson, Whitman, and Twain, and has no shortage in her brood of accomplished artists and eminent clerics, if she can’t handle a simple national election, she isn’t deserving to be listed among the world’s most advanced states. We strip from her this title, until it’s truly earned.

Even with the advantage of a name as benign and welcoming as Desiderius Erasmus (which means, when stripped of its Latin clothing and the floral lettering in which was draped, “desired beloved”), the great humanist, satirist, and Christian scholar of the fifteenth century was the subject of much enmity and scorn. To him, very little love was extended, despite the gentle enticement of his charming name. He was actively opposed by many, if only ever convincingly challenged by few. Those agitated by his writings were without number, yet there was a rather smaller lot daring enough, or clever enough, to refute the subtlety of his wit.   

This smaller lot was composed of Europe’s finest scholars. It included the continent’s deepest thinkers, most fervid philosophers, most antique Aristotelians, and most irritable churchmen, upon whom Erasmus’s lovable name failed to exert its intended softening effect. I suppose this was a consequence of his own doing, a fate for which a man so esteemed for his letters and unfettered by his thought must be prepared. No name, no matter how endearing and gentle, can protect a contrarian from the blunt reality of this fact.

A brilliant but occasionally incautious spirit, a dazzling but sometimes intractable flame, Erasmus provoked the ire of both colleague and enemy alike. He pushed the former to a state of unease, and encouraged the latter’s censure. He put his allies in a position to defend his heresies, jokes, and his delightfully sparkling banter. For them, it was a small price to pay for the promise of being able to read his inimitable writing, and for the ability to find courage in the dauntless expression of his thought. As for his enemies, he exposed himself, time and again, to all their biting accusations and warring words. From the assaults of the schoolmen, to the blows of the papists, to the astonishing fury of the fledgling Lutherans who were, at this stage, just beginning to take form, Erasmus was confronted by every cruel opinion on every side.

A countryman of his, the Dutch theologian Maarten Van Dorp, bestrode both camps. He was, for most his adult life, both critic and friend to our beloved Erasmus, a figure from whom a healthy and forceful insight was never wanting. Yet after the publication of Erasmus’s most famous and enduring work, The Praise of Folly, Van Dorp had this to say to his endangered friend: “You should know that your Moria has excited a great disturbance even among those who were formerly your most devoted admirers”. Implicitly included among those “devoted admirers” was Van Dorp himself. This, from a devout Catholic theologian—whose faith in God clearly superseded any allegiance to a friend—was putting the case rather mildly.

Of course, Van Dorp hadn’t an inkling that Erasmus was capable of disturbing the settled order further still, as he did, years later, with the publication of his anti-papal sketch, Iulius exclusus. In it, Erasmus imagines a conversation held at the threshold of the Pearly gates, that grand entrance to heaven through which the warrior-pope himself (the recently-deceased Julius II) hoped to pass. There, he encounters a surprisingly obstinate St. Peter, the man by whom his bishopric was once, and best, occupied. 

“Then you won’t open the gates?”, an exasperated Julius II asks. “Sooner to anyone else than to such as you”, was Peter’s unpliable response. Julius, resorting to his preferred métier, shot back, “If you don’t give in, I will take your place by storm”. One might remove the Pope from the battlefield, but not the warrior from the Pope. Thus began a second battle for right to exist in heaven, a celestial struggle about which a near contemporary, John Milton, might’ve wrote.

Although never shy in the face of confrontation, and rarely reticent to engage in debate, Erasmus felt himself wrongly accused. After absorbing the blows of criticism issued in response to his Praise of Folly, he felt himself momentarily stunned. No longer was he arguing ideas, merely, but characters—namely his own. It wasn’t Van Dorp’s harsh literary criticism by which he was bothered, as that was a part of life to which he’d grown thickened skin, but his misrepresentation of the thoughts he’d expressed in his work. He thought that his Praise of Folly was deliberately misread, and its author, for that reason, unjustly abused.

To him, this was an intolerable offense. It was completely unbecoming to the standards of his home, a supposedly liberal Europe, and utterly inconsistent with the goals of that proudly philosophical land. It was an abdication of honesty, fairness, understanding, and tact. It was the replacement of an open acceptance and consideration of diverse views, for a closed partisanship and the meanness of feeling. It was the last refuge of a lazy critic, someone unwilling to engage frankly with new ideas, but perfectly eager to indulge his old passions. It’s for this reason that Erasmus responded to Van Dorp with a masterful and eloquent letter, the type of epistle that nearly succeeds in overshadowing the main text, The Praise of Folly, to which, necessarily, it was later appended.

“It’s not surprising”, said Erasmus, “if a subject for misrepresentation can be found if all one looks for is something to misrepresent; I only ask for someone to understand what I wrote, someone fair-minded and honest who brings a true concern to comprehend, not a fixed intention to misrepresent”.

Nearly five-hundred years later, we echo Erasmus’s heartfelt plea. In the course of our public debate, and during the exchange of our private conversation, we ask of our interlocutor but one simple thing: a true concern to comprehend, not a fixed intention to misrepresent. Theoretically, this ought not to be a high bar to clear. What we want, more than anything else, is intellectual sympathy and an earnest hand, not a pre-mediated goal to manipulate and to spin. These days, so humble a request seems to have grown too large. No longer are there shoulders atop which it can sit. Once a small effort, it’s become an imposition that none wants to bear. It’s for this reason, above any other, that our discourse has been vitiated and our society weakened.

Examples of this strange phenomenon abound. I’ll neither bore nor upset you with their enumeration, but I’ll risk your patience by making reference to one. It happened a few weeks ago, during the Senate’s confirmation hearing for Amy Coney Barrett. Innocent of any malicious intent, she responded to a question with the use of the word, “sexual preference”. Unaware that this simple word, “preference”, had but only recently been deemed verboten, she used it without any discernable intention to provoke. She used it as countless writers had before, and as many will after.

No matter. Those of the opposing political party, by whom she was quickly accosted, decided against exercising restraint. They thought better than to deign to decency, or to comport themselves with integrity, by showing a true concern to comprehend. The only thing for which they were looking was line to misrepresent. They found it, and they exploited it. They opted to besmirch her virtue and to misrepresent what she’d intended to convey.

The example given by Amy Coney Barrett, and her ill-fated use of the word “preference”, is but one among many. It’s demonstrative, however, of the larger problem with which we’re now beset: we lack charity for one another. We’ve neither intellectual goodwill for our neighbor, nor basic respect for the opponent with whom we’re engaged. To give a charitable reading of their position, with which, it might be assumed, we strongly disagree, is an act unknown to our era. One wouldn’t even know how to go about it, if given the task. All we do is approach one another with a fixed intention to belittle, abuse, and misrepresent. That’s unfortunate, because a pinch of charity, garnished by a true concern to comprehend, is what we need to add flavor to our empty discourse, and fellow-feeling to our world.   

Sadly, in his age, Erasmus’s entreaty to Van Dorp was ignored; the high churchman and his allies continued to read him uncharitably until his death. We seem to have learned nothing from their mistake. Let Erasmus, the beloved, be our guide to the future, and may he help us to reject our acquired tendency to misrepresent. Should we follow him, our conversation will celebrate, and our liberty will cheer.