There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

If after five years, four hundred million dollars, countless hours spent meticulously recreating costumes, volumes of research, and so forth, it would be really something if midway through episode seven of season four of The Crown, aliens showed up at Buckingham Palace.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates says that guardians must be given a simple diet so they do not think too much about their health. Physical exercise is sufficient care for the body.

But the more fastidious a man is about his diet, the more likely he is to pay “excessive attention to his body,” and there is “no [greater] impediment” to a man being able to carry out his duty than his constant concern for his health.

2400 years ago, Plato understood us.

Progressives need politics to be fascinating, spectacular, and sublime. Such needs make progressive politics wildly unstable.

Conservatives are content to have stable and boring politics, though, because religion and art serve their desire for the sublime.

Besides, religion is far better than politics at fulfilling the human need for the sublime. “Spectacular politics” ultimately involves nothing more than worshipping perversity and forcing people to do what you want, neither of which is satisfying for all that long.