American voters (those who, in the electorate, actually vote) are split into two halves, each of which hates the other and wants to impose its preferences and values on others (assuming that each half is homogeneous). A Twitter follower of mine suggested that breaking up  the country into smaller pieces may be a solution. It would still not be possible to gerrymander the country into homogeneous parts except with a very large number of pieces. I replied (in not perfect English) with another solution: The other solution is to shrink the federal government to the point where it doesn’t matter much who is elected–except that voters keep the option of kicking out any elected ruler who turns [out] to be a liar and fraudster (or a dangerous ignorant). This is the (classical) liberal solution, which a three-century-old tradition has been after, from John Locke to Adam Smith, from David Hume to James Buchanan–not to forget Jean-Baptiste Say and many others. At the extreme margin of this tradition, we even find some anarchists–witness Anthony de Jasay’s “capitalist state” or Robert Nozick’s “minimal state.” In some sense, the liberal tradition would split America into 330,000,000 pieces each made of one free individual (including children, who are sovereign-to-be persons). Live and let live. A solution somewhere on this liberal continuum is not easy to reach, as the past three centuries demonstrate. But the alternative equilibrium, tyranny, is not exactly endearing. My Twitter correspondent seemed to agree. He finally tweeted: We learn to leave each other alone.”

In November 1984, President Reagan said it was “Morning in America”. Good times were back again and the unemployment rate had fallen to 7.2%. He won 49/50 states (including Massachusetts) on the back of a booming economy. Today, the unemployment rate is 6.9%. In the Great Recession, it took more than 4 years for unemployment to fall from a peak of 10% to 6.9%. This time it took 6 months (from over 14%). Lars Christensen might still be correct in his spring prediction that the unemployment rate would fall to 6% by November (these figures were for October.) At the time Lars made the prediction, most experts were highly skeptical. People will say, “It’s much worse than the unemployment figures show”. Yes, but it’s much worse precisely because it’s a supply shock, not a demand shock. Supply shocks are really weird.  And fiscal stimulus is not going to fix this problem (although it can provided needed relief to jobless workers.)  It’s won’t give a job to a parent staying home to take care of kids because schools are closed, and thus isn’t even counted as unemployed. (0 COMMENTS)

This fall, LIFE magazine has published a special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of the movie M*A*S*H. Despite the hook, the issue focuses on the ensuing TV series, which ran from 1972 to 1983. Though the show has often been characterized as being politically left-wing, it actually is heavily classically liberal, celebrating the individual, civil liberties, and the market, and harshly criticizing anti-individualism, government compulsion, and government decision-making. In a series of essays, I examine the classical liberalism of M*A*S*H. This is Part 3. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.   Though Hornberger’s book avoids judgment on war, both the film and TV series are unapologetically anti-war. The series regularly portrays war’s miseries, tugging at the heartstrings but not breaking them, respecting viewers instead of putting them off. The greatest horror of war, death, was central to one of the series’ first ratings successes, the episode “Sometimes You Hear the Bullet” (s. 1). Hawkeye is visited by childhood friend Tommy Gillis, who has volunteered for service in order to write a book on his experiences. Later in the episode, a wounded Gillis is brought to the 4077, where he dies on Hawkeye’s operating table. Afterward, a tearful Hawkeye is consoled by the unit’s bumbling but kind-hearted first commander, Lt. Col. Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson): HAWKEYE I’ve watched guys die almost every day. Why didn’t I ever cry for them? HENRY Because you’re a doctor. HAWKEYE What the hell does that mean? HENRY I don’t know. If I had the answer, I’d be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? All I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is: young men die. And rule number two is: doctors can’t change rule number one.   The series’ pivotal episode, “Abyssinia, Henry” (s. 3), concluded with news that Blake, on his way home after an honorable discharge, was killed when his plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. The story shocked viewers, prompting an avalanche of angry letters to the network. But as show co-runner Gene Reynolds explained, “We didn’t want Henry Blake going back to Bloomington, IL and going back to the country club and the brown and white shoes, because a lot of guys didn’t get back to Bloomington.”   Death-centered episodes are among the series’ best. In “Old Soldiers” (s. 8), the 4077’s subsequent commander, the venerable Colonel Potter, reminisces tenderly about his now-deceased comrades from World War I. “Follies of the Living — Concerns of the Dead” (s. 10) depicts a deceased soldier’s soul lingering at the 4077, observing the big and small tribulations of the staff. In “Give and Take” (s. 11), an American G.I. and a North Korean soldier whom the G.I. wounded are both treated at the 4077 and become friendly, only for the North Korean to succumb to his wounds. “Who Knew?” (s. 11) shows Hawkeye, sobered by the tragic death of a unit nurse, finding the courage to express his love for his unit colleagues. And in “Death Takes a Holiday” (s. 9), Hawkeye, fellow surgeon B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), and head nurse Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) try to extend the life of a brain-dead soldier brought in on Christmas Day, hoping to not ruin future Christmases for his children. When the G.I. dies before the day is out, Margaret reflects: “Never fails to astonish me: you’re alive, you’re dead. No drums. No flashing lights. No fanfare. You’re just dead.” And in “The Life You Save” (s. 9), a philosophical surgeon Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers) compares his profession’s limited abilities to those of the 4077’s company mechanic, Sgt. Luther Rizzo (G.W. Bailey): Don’t you understand the power you have here? You can take a Jeep apart and reduce it to an inert pile of junk. And then, whenever you want to, at whim, you can fit it together again, and it will roar back to life. If only we could do that with human beings. They — they wouldn’t die. Also among the series’ best episodes are several portraying the war’s devastating effects on the Korean people, few of whom cared—or even knew—about the ideologies and geopolitics of the Cold War. In “In Love and War” (s. 6), Hawkeye falls for a cultured, upper-class Korean woman who sells her possessions and uses her wealth to care for villagers dislocated by the war. The relationship ends when the woman decides to take the people in her care further south, away from the war zone. In “B.J. Papa San” (s. 7), B.J. devotes himself to a Korean family impoverished by the war. Just as he is about to reunite them with a long-missing son, he discovers they have disappeared, also fleeing south. And in “The Interview” (s. 4), “Radar” O’Reilly (Gary Burghoff), Klinger’s predecessor as company clerk, is asked by war correspondent Clete Roberts about the plight of Korean peasants: ROBERTS Do you get to meet the South Koreans? Do you know them? RADAR Yeah, they’re nice people. I worry about ’em though. We got a girl here that was, you know, pregnant. She doesn’t have any money or anything. I don’t know how these kids live. I mean, some of ‘em don’t. That’s the God’s honest truth. Some of ‘em don’t even live over here. ROBERTS Do you help them? RADAR We do the best we can, but we haven’t got— I mean, we got just— Sometimes we got just enough for ourself. Penicillin and stuff like that. I mean, I really wish somebody would tell these people back home this. When you have to look these kids in the face, that’s where it’s really at. I mean, that’s what the ball game really is. Is looking these kids in the face here. Several episodes focus on war-orphaned children. In “The Kids” (s. 4) and “Old Soldiers,” orphans visit the 4077 for checkups, touching hearts and boosting morale. “Yessir, That’s Our Baby” (s. 8) has Hawkeye, B.J., and Charles finding an abandoned Amerasian baby and battling the xenophobia of Korean society and the nativism of America to secure the girl’s future. And in “Death Takes a Holiday,” an initially incensed Charles learns just how desperate the lives of the orphans are after he confronts orphanage master Choi Sung Ho (Keye Luke) for selling the gourmet chocolates that Winchester had left the children as a gift, in accordance with a Winchester family tradition: CHARLES Go on. Deny it. Deny it, if you can. You took the Christmas candy I gave you, and you sold it on the black market. Have you no shame? CHOI May I explain? CHARLES No! What you may do is retrieve that candy immediately and have it in the children’s stockings by morning. Otherwise, they’re gonna find you hanging by the chimney without care! CHOI Major, I cannot. The money is gone. CHARLES You parasite! CHOI Please. Your generous gift and insistence that it remain anonymous touched me deeply. The candy would’ve brought great joy to the children for a few moments. But on the black market, it was worth enough rice and cabbage to feed them for a month. CHARLES Rice and cabbage? CHOI I know. I have failed to carry out your family tradition, and I am very sorry. CHARLES On the contrary, it is I who should be sorry. It is sadly inappropriate to give dessert to a child who’s had no meal.   Just as moving are episodes in which members of the 4077 deal with their own terror in war. In “The Interview,” Hawkeye describes how sometimes, when he’s lying on his cot at night, he finds it shaking — not because of falling artillery, but because his heart is racing. “Heal Thyself” (s. 8) tells of visiting surgeon Steve Newsome (Edward Hermann) who had performed valiantly under fire on the Pusan Perimeter during the desperate early months of the war, succumbing to post-traumatic stress and fleeing the 4077’s operating room. In “Dreams” (s. 8), members of the principal cast suffer nightmares of how the war has changed their lives. The same device is used in “Hawk’s Nightmare” (s. 5): Hawkeye experiences sleepwalking and nightmares of childhood friends suffering horrific deaths. Exhausted and worried about his sanity, he turns to recurring character Sidney Freedman (Allan Arbus), a psychiatrist, for help: HAWKEYE I keep having these dreams about these kids I grew up with. And the dreams start out OK. The kids are fine. And then they end in disaster. SIDNEY Like those kids who roll past you on that bloody assembly line. You dream to escape, but the war invades your dream, and you wake up screaming. The dream is peaceful. Reality is the nightmare. HAWKEYE Am I crazy, Sidney? SIDNEY [Chuckling] No. A bit confused, a little fershimmeled is all. Actually, Hawkeye, you’re probably the sanest person I’ve ever known. The fact is, if you were crazy, you’d sleep like a baby. HAWKEYE So when do my nightmares end? SIDNEY When this big one ends, most of the others should go away. But there’s a lot of suffering going on here, Hawkeye, and you can’t avoid it. You can’t even dream it away. (0 COMMENTS)

Who is that masked man?   Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. Illinois residents dodged a bullet on Tuesday when voters refused to change the Illinois constitution to allow state income tax rates to vary by income. Currently the constitution requires a flat income tax rate and the current rate is 4.95 percent. That means that if the government wants to raise income tax rates, it must do so for all income classes. That puts a brake on the legislature. About 55% of Illinois voters voted against the change. That’s a more overwhelming victory than it looks because the change required a 60% vote to pass (or a simple majority of all of those voting in the election.) Governor Pritzker’s (pictured above) and the Democratic legislature’s plan, had the measure passed, was to cut the rate very slightly (by at most 0.2 percentage points) for joint filers with income below $250,000 and single filers with income below $100,000 and to raise it for everyone with income higher than that. It would have reached a peak of 7.99% on income over $1,000,000 for joint filers and on income over $750,000 for single filers. That likely would have caused an even greater exodus of high-income people from Illinois than the current rate of exodus. Similar attempts to impose a graduated rate structure in Massachusetts have also failed. The flat income tax rate there is 5.0%. Once the flat tax barrier is breached, marginal tax rates at all real income levels tend to rise over time. I wouldn’t be surprised if a fair a number of voters in Illinois understood that. Interestingly, just in my adult lifetime a number of states have adopted an income tax and the rate started low but went high because it was not constrained by such a constitutional provision. New Jersey, for example, adopted an income tax in 1976, with two rates: 2.0% for income below $20,000 and 2.5% for income above $20,000. By 2018, the marginal tax rate on singles with income between $35,000 and $40,000 was 3.5% and on married couples filing joint with income $50,000 and $70,000 was 2.45%. $20,000 in 1976 dollars translated to $88,000 in 2018. So almost everyone was paying a higher rate in 2018 than in 1976. And the top two rates were 8.97% and 10.75%. Similarly, Connecticut adopted an income tax in 1991, with a flat tax rate of 4.5%. Now the lowest rate is 3% and applies only to income below $10,000 for single payers and below $20,000 for married payers filing jointly. Everyone else pays rates that are higher than the original $4.5%. The rates range from 5% to 6.99%.     (0 COMMENTS)

Deirdre McCloskey and I recently published a book on The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State for AIER and the Adam Smith Institute (if you buy it, please review it on Amazon). On the AIER website, we have a short piece summarizing one of the book’s arguments. A few friends asked us the reason why we spent so much time dealing with Mariana Mazzucato and other authors who are retrying to rejuvenate the fallacious ideas of “industrial policy”. Here’s our answer: In a 1974 interview with Reason magazine, Milton Friedman noted that, “It’s fortunate that the capitalist society is more productive, because if it were not it would never be tolerated. The bias against it is so great that, as it is, it’s got to have a five-to-one advantage in order to survive.” (We would say more like thirty-to-one, the gain since the 18th century from the coming of liberalism.) It is why Mazzucato’s argument is so persuasive to so many. People in a primitive way distrust the price system, and distrust the impersonality of exchange among strangers. Better a sweet family of, say, 330 million people guided by a visible hand of government as a pater familias, advised in its coercions by Professor Mazzucato. If you can persuade people that the market economy does not innovate—no five or thirty to one—they will be happy to renounce it, as people have frequently since socialism was first imagined. As a little evidence of the traction, these ideas are gaining. Consider this paragraph: It is often said that every crisis is an opportunity for change and transformation. What we are experiencing is now the third crisis in the space of the last 15 years and this time Italy, Europe and the West have the opportunity to make a real breakthrough that, on the contrary, has been missing after previous episodes of crisis. Europe has been able to take up this challenge in particular through the Next Generation EU program, through various other initiatives, to which Italy has made a decisive contribution and for which a new pact between public and private, as well as a new strategy for the organization of public presence in the economy, is needed… This is the Italian prime minister talking to Parliament on November 2nd. Prime Minister Conte is advised by Mariana Mazzucato, who expressed the same views a number of times (see, for example, this blogpost of mine). Consider also Klaus Schwab’s “great reset” (I’ll write more on it in a later post). This rhetoric is very appealing for politicians and is a form of storytelling they envoy, as it boosts their role and importance. For this reason, we tried to contribute to dispel the “myth of the industrial state”. (0 COMMENTS)

One potent argument for free markets is that they make individual liberty and autonomy possible. To use an example from Milton Friedman’s 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, it is unlikely that both the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Worker would have equal access to newsprint if paper were allocated by government instead of markets. Same for other means of communication. But is it true that free markets always work in the impersonal, non-discriminatory way implied by this argument? One problem is the following. If society is populated by meddlers—busybodies who are intent on interfering with other people’s preferences and choices—even free markets may fail to respond to some individual preferences. Businesses could be led, by their own self-interest, to obey the meddlers’ mob for fear of being commercially “canceled” (see my Econlog post “The Political Firm”). We get a taste of this possibility not only with the social networks but also with Zoom’s conferencing service, as documented by the Wall Street Journal (“Zoom Video Tackles Tricky Role of Policing Its Service,” November 3, 2020): Zoom said users may not use its service to break the law, promote violence, display nudity or commit other infractions. … In cases where Zoom has taken action and blocked a public event, the company has said it acted once it became aware of a virtual gathering that would transgress its rule or local laws. … Zoom in September blocked the use of its service for a webinar at San Francisco State University. The meeting was due to feature Leila Khaled, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization. … Zoom also blocked a series of follow-up Zoom webinars in October organized, in part, by a pro-Palestinian group in conjunction with staff at several U.S. and overseas universities to address what they said was censorship by the company. … The Council on Foreign Relations in September held a virtual meeting with Iran’s foreign minister. The minister was sanctioned by the U.S. last year, so the meeting would have violated Zoom’s rules. It allowed the meeting to take place after the think tank showed it had approval from the U.S. government for a prior meeting with the minister. This case suggests many reflections. This is another example showing how a government’s “international sanctions” are in fact bans against its own subjects (see my posts “New Sanctions Against Americans” and “American Sanctions: Why Foreigners Obey”). Note that American spies may not be happy, for what is a better way to learn about threats to “national security” than to let the authors of the threats discuss them openly? To justify its discrimination against some customers, Zoom invokes “local laws,” as it does in China. But it is not only laws that count; the meddlers’ mob is visible behind “nudity,” “other infractions,” or wokism. A century or two ago, if not more recently, Zoom’s services might not have been made available for meetings of individuals among the despised minorities of the times. Which brings us back to our original question: Can free markets help solve the social-meddling problem? The question is particularly pregnant since we cannot undermine the property rights of private owners of medias or other companies without dire future consequences. Against the claim that free markets cannot prevent meddling by opinion mobs, a counter-argument is that as long as market entry is not forbidden by law, entrepreneurs with minority tastes or simply armed with naked self-interest will come to the rescue of socially oppressed people. At the limit, even if the state enforces the meddling mob’s tastes, smuggling and black markets (including their virtual forms) will offer needed alternatives. As Étienne de la Boétie would say, private vices are public virtues, the limit being in behaviors that are unanimously (or perhaps nearly unanimously) rejected such as murder and theft. It is true that when private entrepreneurs cater to minority tastes and values, the beneficiaries may have to pay a supplement for that. Alternatives to Zoom may not, for a while, be as cost-effective. People discriminated against under McCarthyism might have found themselves in lower-paying jobs (another Friedman example) than they would otherwise have. Another way to see this is that if a large number of people show a “taste for meddling” (analogous to Gary Becker‘s “taste for discrimination“), that is, if we live in a society of meddlers, free markets will not completely eliminate the handicap of individuals who don’t share the preferences of the meddling majority. Entrepreneurs must choose between the cost for them of shunning the untouchables and the cost of “canceling” by the meddlers. However, for the social eccentrics or pariahs–whoever they are as discriminatory fashions come and go–the cost of satisfying their preferences is still higher if, instead of social pressures, they have to deal with government bans and punishments. Markets are not perfect but political processes are even more imperfect. Overcoming private discrimination is not easy but fighting official discrimination (called “apartheid” in race relations) is more difficult. It is surprising how many people think that the government will protect minorities against majority prejudice while, during nearly all of mankind’s history, political authorities have amplified mob prejudice instead. Economic theory suggests that a society of meddlers, like ours looks like, cannot be as economically efficient as a society of free-minded individuals and free enterprise. The reason is that economic efficiency is defined in terms of the satisfaction of individual preferences. (0 COMMENTS)

Pollsters can try to adjust their sample for gender, race, political party, education, and a dozen other demographic categories. But there’s one category for which it would seem inherently impossible to adjust—differences in willingness to talk to pollsters that cuts across the other demographics. Many Trump voters simply don’t want to respond to pollsters.  And you don’t discover the political skew of the non-responders until the election itself. We’ve already seen that there’s a huge partisan difference in willingness to use mail-in ballots; why should we be surprised that there’s a modest difference in willingness to talk to pollsters? Perhaps this anti-pollster attitude is more common in places like Wisconsin, with lots of farmers and smaller industrial towns, as compared to Arizona, which fewer farmers and small industrial towns. At least that seems to have been the case in both 2016 and 2020. On a separate issue, I’ve frequently argued that working class whites that are struggling to get by don’t like being told by Ivy League professors that they benefit from “white privilege”. I don’t even think Hispanics like the concept. (Note to commenters: This point is completely separate from the question of whether working class whites do in fact benefit from white privilege.) All year long I’ve had a nagging feeling that the “woke” movement could hand the election to Trump. Perhaps it did not, but I suspect it came close to doing so. Perhaps a Trump victory was prevented by something as random as a big October surge in Covid deaths in Wisconsin. Too soon to say! (0 COMMENTS)

We don’t yet know the final outcome of last night’s election, but there are hints that we may be facing a divided government. The stock market is up strongly, perhaps anticipating that if Biden wins he will not be able to enact a “big government agenda”. We do know the outcome of many other referenda, and there seem to be lots of wins for libertarian-leaning voters. John Cochrane has a post expressing satisfaction with the outcomes of a number of propositions in California, where voters defeated rent control and affirmative action, and approved a measure exempting ride-sharing employees from burdensome regulations. Uber and Lyft drivers will be able to continue operating as independent contractors. Elsewhere, pot was legalized in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and even in highly conservative South Dakota. The national trend seems unstoppable.  What’s holding up New York? Possession of all drugs was decriminalized in Oregon, and psychedelic mushrooms were decriminalized in Washington DC. Illinois voters seem to have rejected a progressive income tax. More speculatively, there is some indication that the “socialist” label (fair or not) has little appeal to many minority voters. To be sure, there were a few losses for libertarians, such as Florida raising its minimum wage. But overall, a very good night for libertarians. Please add races I missed in the comment section. (2 COMMENTS)

Since the 1980s, “when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the faces of the Conservative Movement, [it was] a movement that was anti-Communist, that emphasized the rule of law, of free markets, and democracy. What changed?” This question is at the heart of this episode, in which EconTalk host Russ Roberts welcomes author Anne Applebaum to talk about her newest book, The Twilight of Democracy. Since that time, both the United States and the United Kingdom have seen a split between a Burkean center-right and a more radical right. Applebaum recalls a New Year’s Eve party in 1999, noting how many of its jovial guests would no longer even speak to one another as illustrative of this split. Politics, says Applebaum, has become increasingly, and perhaps dangerously, personal.     1- What reasons does Applebaum cite for the disappearance of community and civic organizations and institutions in recent decades? What role has the Internet played in this trend? Do you think the advent of the digital age’s new technologies is net positive or negative?   2- How does Applebaum describe the “authoritarian personality?” To what extent do you find this plausible, and why? How might such a description describe recent events, from Portland, Oregon to Belarus?   3- How does Applebaum distinguish between nationalism and populism? Which do you think poses the greater danger? What does she mean when she says we need a more sophisticated way of understanding what divides people?   4- Applebaum says of the Internet, “We know what an authoritarian internet looks like. It’s fully controlled. But, we haven’t really had the conversation about what we want our internet to look like, and how it can have rules that foster free speech without fostering extremism.” What might such an Internet actually look like? To what extent would it be effective in stifling the allure of authoritarianism?   5- Roberts claims he is more worried about the authoritarian Left, while Applebaum is more worried  about the authoritarian Right. With whom do you agree, and why? And, as Roberts asks his guest at the end of the conversation, where should we go from here? Should we be more optimistic or pessimistic?   (0 COMMENTS)

Confronted with shockingly violent attacks to the free expression of opinions, as the massacre at Charlie Hebdo or the beheading of Professor Paty in France, anybody with a drop of liberalism in her blood will rally to defend the freedom of speech and the press. Everybody ought to be able to say things others do not necessarily agree with, that are deemed to be obscene by some, or that the majority may consider distasteful. Of course, others may decide not to buy your paper, not to dine at your table (where the dinner’s price is listening to your idiocy), to unfollow you on Twitter. My right not to listen to you is fundamentally different from making it impossible for others to listen to you if they saw it fit. In her learned and thoughtful blog post at Centre Walras Pareto, Biancamaria Fontana does not question this tenet of liberal thinking. However, she poses a relevant question: what’s the effect of modern media on the quality of the political debate? Is broadening the audiences always good for modern public opinion?   The French Revolution, Fontana reminds us, lifted the Ancien Regime’s preventive censorship. Hooray! But consider what the greatest liberal intellectual of the time (my view), Germaine de Stael, thought.Consider social media: their development “carried the promise of an easier, more immediate and transparent way to inform citizens, encouraging their participation in discussions and consultations.” Yet they are commonly seen as key for the making of contemporary populism. Fontana cites the Five Stars Movement in Italy but I am sure other examples may come to mind. Demagogues are great at twisting the media. Consider Benito Mussolini, who was, after all, a journalist, and he understood one thing or two about how the masses could be mesmerized through the at the time unprecedented flow of information and opinions. In 1800, at the beginning of the Consulate, Germaine de Staël published a work entitled: De la littérature, considérée dans ses relations avec les institutions sociales. The book was a pioneering comparative history of European literature, seen in the light of the different national traditions. In the second part, dedicated to the present and future prospects of the Enlightenment, the chapter “On eloquence” offered a retrospective assessment of political discourse during the Revolution: an object that the author had been able to observe very closely. Like many intellectuals, Staël had believed initially that the freedom of the press would favour the circulation of information, bringing political issues closer to the general public. The reality had proved very different. Staël stressed in particular two dismal effects of the new “liberated” press. The first one was the lowering of the level of political rhetoric, through the endless repetition of empty formulas, meaningless catch-phrases and party slogans: “The time has come to reveal to you the whole truth…the People has risen…the Nation was plunged in a deadly slumber… etc.”. The second was the escalation of violence in language: faced with a public used to the most outrageous claims, speakers competed in adopting increasingly ferocious formulas to capture their attention. The result in the end had no political or ideological significance whatever, but carried a dangerous potential of hatred and aggression. “Words (la parole) – Staël wrote – retain the power of a lethal weapon while having no residual intellectual strength.” Fontana, and Staël, know well that “the media (“eloquence”) can only repeat, echo, amplify those beliefs and passions, virtues and vices, that are already present within society”. They would also agree that censorship is no answer to this problem. But isn’t it something to ponder that magnifying the audience of political media tends to lower the bar? Can we say that is only a kind of snobbery? Or, on the other hand, the trivialization of political matters, the reduction of political issues to slogans, the polarization of the debate has something to do with the fall of barriers and filters in the public debate? Consider what is happening today with Covid: are social media helping in sharing useful information and getting interesting and well-argued views into the debate, or are they fostering hysteria, to the advantage of those who will cynically build on it? Fontana’s piece is fascinating and raises some uncomfortable questions. It is also an invitation to read Staël (I wish more of her writings would be available in English, besides the meritorious translation of the Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolution published by the Liberty Fund) – what a remarkable woman and thinker. When it comes to possible answers, I have none and hope to stumble upon some persuasive (and reassuring) ones (0 COMMENTS)