About the Constitution.......................

     The makers of the Constitution earned in a manner the full praise that has ever since been bestowed on them.  But they did not, as it has often been suggested they did, create a sort of archetype and pattern for all governments that may hereafter partake of a federal character.  Nor has the curious machine which they devised—the balanced opposition between two legislative chambers, between the whole Legislature and the independent executive power of the President, between the governing power of the moment and the permanent expression of the people's will embodied in certain almost unalterable laws—worked conspicuously better than other political constitutions.  The American Constitution owes its particularities partly to the form which the State governments had naturally taken, and partly to sheer misunderstanding of the British Constitution, but much more to the want at the time of any strong sense of national unity and to the existence of a good deal of dislike to all governments whatsoever.  The sufficient merit of its founders was of patient and skillful diplomatists, who, undeterred by difficulties, found out the most satisfactory settlement that had a chance of being accepted by the States.

-Lord Charnwood,  Abraham Lincoln:  A Complete Biography

A canary in the coal mine...............?

"We now worship at the altar of innovation and youth, versus character or kindness."

-Scott Galloway,  The Algebra of Happiness:  Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

the actual thing..........................

Our society is very result-oriented, that’s why we are so competitive. That’s why we are always stressed, because we are always looking at something in the distance. If you are always looking at the top of the mountain you are climbing, you cannot be aware of the grass and flowers growing at your feet. We are always looking ahead, aren’t we? And then the actual thing, the actual living, passes us by. We are locked inside our brains, cut off from the present moment, always centered on something beyond our reach. We are imagining this mirage of happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment which will magically appear once this and this and this happens. But what’s happening right now is “it” and it’s the only “it” we have. The rest is just fabrication.

-Tenzin Palmo, Reflections On A Mountain Lake: Teachings On Practical Buddhism

via

Fifty years ago.............................

The Allman Brothers Band...............................Trouble No More

Fifty years ago............................

The Allman Brothers Band..............It's Not My Cross To Bear

Fifty years ago..............................

The Allman Brothers Band...................Don't Want You No More

Tell your kids.................................

"Emotional control is far more important than your SAT score."

-Ben Carlson

Like blogging...................

So, yes, work your ass off and get some semblance of economic stability.  But take notes on the things that give you joy and satisfaction, and start investing in those things.  Pay attention to things that bring you joy that don't involve mind-altering substances or a lot of money.

-Scott Galloway,  The Algebra of Happiness:  Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

God bless..................................

...................................................................................mediocrity?

"We do indeed live in a golden age of mediocrity, as is evident from the people we choose as celebrities."

Some of us history majors remember the day when Richard Nixon nominated G. Harold Carswell for a seat on the Supreme Court.  Some pesky senator suggested that Carswell was "mediocre."  The great Kansan senator, Roman Hruska, replied:  "Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos."   A wonderful moment in American history.

via

The healing power............................

.............................................................................of writing.

Fifty years ago...................

The Allman Brothers Band................................................Dreams

More tunes............................

……………..................…….for the "Fifty Years Ago" posts.

Life its ownself......................................

     In fact, you'd need to squint pretty hard to view my life as a framework for happiness.  I grew up an unremarkable kid in California in the seventies, skinny and awkward.  I got mediocre grades, and didn't test well either.  I applied to UCLA and was rejected, which didn't seem like a big deal—my father assured me that "Someone with my street smarts doesn't need college."  I had no street smarts, just a father with a new family who didn't want to pay for college.  He did, however, secure me a job installing shelving.  The job paid $15 to $18 an hour, which seemed like a lot of money.  I could buy a nice car, my only real goal at the time.
     During twelfth grade, we'd walk into Westwood Village and get ice cream.  My friends would shoplift.  I'd head home when my friends started shoving Peter Frampton shirts into their pants—not because I was more ethical than them, but because my single mother couldn't handle a call from the LAPD to come get me.  Walking back from Westwood Village  I crossed Hilgard Avenue, where UCLA sororities lined the street.  It was homecoming week, and there were thousands of young women standing in front of their houses singing songs and generally looking like a cross between a Norman Rockwell painting and a late-night Cinemax movie.
      At that moment, I decided I needed to go to college and went home to write another letter to UCLA admissions.  I told them the truth:  "I am a native son of California, raised by an immigrant single mother who is a secretary, and if you don't let me in, I'm going to be installing shelving for the rest of my life."  They admitted me nine days before classes started.  My mom told me that, as the first person to attend college on either side of the family, I could now "do anything."

Scott Galloway,  The Algebra of Happiness:  Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

Jet Boy..................................

.....................................................................brings the blues.

Life its ownself...........................

..................................may be found on the back roads.

Fifty years ago...............................

Creedence Clearwater Revival.................................Fortunate Son

Isn't it............................

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience?  Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking:  if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive.  And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky—as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

-Mary Oliver, Landscape, from here

Not sure it has happened yet....................

     Not too many people can point to a specific day when they sat down with a book and got up cured of the stupidities of youth.  I can.  I was 19.  The book was Four Essays on Liberty.  The author was Isaiah Berlin.  He died last week at 88.

-Charles Krauthammer, from his 1997 essay Thank You, Isaiah Berlin, as found in this latest collection of Krauthammer's writings.

Be.................................

...............................................someone who likes you.

Gone, but not forgotten.........................

Tim Conway transitions on.

Here is a sample of his work (with Harvey Korman)



photo via

Therapy............................

.................................................................of music - Part 2

Worried about a happy ending............

Fifty years of relative peace and prosperity in the West; and still my apprehension that the reckoning will come. For the starch required to defend a civilization — the clarity of mind and earnestness of purpose — has been washed away.

-From this David Warren post

Thinking about Warren's "starch", I am reminded for some reason of this Thomas Jefferson quote: "Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!".  

Ron Chernow (quoted here) wrote about America's strange national amnesia concerning its history.   By not knowing the many ugly parts of our history, we miss out on all overcoming, the change and growth of consciousness.  I'm betting there is a lot more starch.

When a frog............................

.........................and a lightning bug meet up close and personal.

Althouse...............................

...........................................................................grades insults.

A wise man suggests.....................

.........................the wise use of money can lead to happiness.

Engage......................................

…………………………………....or, how to exercise the mind.

Fifty years ago.........................

Glen Campbell.............................................................Galveston

Actually, the wonder is that it wasn't tried before....

...............................Is Donald Trump channeling Saul Alinsky?

Mental models, or.........................

..........................................learning how to make better decisions.
 Courtesy of Farnam Street.

If you had told me.........................

..................in 2009 that the single-family housing construction business would not recover for more than ten years, I a) wouldn't have believed you, or b) acted differently if I had believed you.

source (and enlargeable image) here

Have I told you lately that we have lovely wooded building sites available at very reasonable prices?

Please..........................

We still might want to pay attention to what deplatforming signifies about the inclinations of the zealots of the new religion.

-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from here

Talk about hard work...................

"We need the discipline to think hard about the implications of our actions."

-Seth Godin, as extracted from this blog post

Fifty years ago..............................

Andy Kim.............................................................Baby I Love You

Music......................................

........................................................................as therapy.

To necessarily infer.......................

“From my own being, and from the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God.” 


-George Berkeley

image (enlargeable) via

On reality..................................

It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question “What is reality?”, to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.

-Philip K. Dick

Rightfully...............................

.....................................................recognizing Richard Feynman.

"The man happy in his work is not the narrow specialist, nor the well-rounded man, but the man who is doing what he loves to do.  You must fall in love with some activity."

-Richard Feynman

Fifty years ago..............................

The Turtles................................................You Showed Me

Fifty years ago....................................

The Friends of Distincton...........................Grazing In The Grass

I've noticed the cool guys.............................

..............................................................always sit in the back.

From her lips to God's ears......................

      Your brain's health may be the most powerful indicator of how long you will live.  It is crucial to whether that life will be rich and satisfying from youth into old age, or something substantially less rewarding, and for less time.
      A car driven wisely, fueled with high-quality gasoline, given regular oil changes, and repaired with new parts as old ones wear out is likely to last longer than one that's abused or neglected.  Likewise, the easiest way to have a healthy brain in middle age and beyond is to start with one as a youth and to follow good physical and mental habits.  Exercise it.  Feed it.  Challenge it.  Then enjoy the rewards.
      But what of the person who comes late to the repairs, like the owner of a car that rusts for years on blocks or runs too long on dirty oil?   The car owner can always swap out the engine.  You, on the other hand, have only one brain, basically composed of the same neurons you were born with, plus a few added to some narrowly specific areas.  Once they've begun to deteriorate, can they be saved—or even made stronger?
      Brain researcher Marian Diamond is certain they can.

-Michael S. Sweeney,  Your Best Brain Ever:  A Complete Guide & Workout

Fifty years ago.......................

Jackie DeShannon.......................Put A Little Love In Your Heart

Don't hear this very often.............

.........................................................on the local radio stations.

Fifty years ago..............................

Young-Holt Unlimited...........................................Soulful Strut

Perspective...........................

The Master was in a mellow mood and the disciples were inquisitive.  Did he ever feel depressed? they asked.

He did.

Wasn't it also true that he was in a continual state of happiness? they persisted.

It was.

What was the secret? they wanted to know.

Said the Master,  "This:  Everything is as good or as bad as one's opinion makes it."

-Anthony de Mello,  One Minute Wisdom

A well worn pathway to..................

....………………………………………….to Liszt and so much more.

Something to look forward to.....................

     Biological engineering starts with the insight that we are far from realizing the full potential of organic bodies.  For 4 billion years natural selection has been tweaking and tinkering with these bodies, so that we have gone from amoeba to reptiles to mammals to Sapiens.  Yet there is no reason to think that Sapiens is the last station.  Relatively small changes in genes, hormones and neurons were enough to transform Homo erectus -  who could produce nothing more impressive than flint knives - into Homo sapiens, who produce spaceships and computers.  Who knows what might be the outcome of a few more changes to our DNA, hormonal systems or brain structure.  Bioengineering is not going to wait patiently for natural selection to work its magic.  Instead, bioengineers will take the old Sapiens body, and intentionally rewrite its genetic code, rewire its brain circuits, alter its biochemical balance, and even grow entirely new limbs.  They will thereby create new godlings who might be as different from us Sapiens as we are different from Homo erectus.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  Homo Deus:  A Brief History of Tomorrow

On making the cut...........................

........................................................a very important hiring tip.

via

Adam..................................

......................................................hits a home run.

Fifty years ago..............................

B. J. Thomas...............................................Hooked On A Feeling

Re-framing the pursuit of happiness.........

     The biological pursuit of happiness is also the number one cause of crime in the world. . . .

It is far from certain that humankind should invest so much effort into the biological pursuit of happiness.  Some would argue that happiness simply isn't important enough, and that it is misguided to regard individual satisfaction as the highest aim of human society.  Others may agree that happiness is indeed the supreme good, yet would take issue with the biological definition of happiness as the experience of pleasant sensation.
     Some 2,300 years ago Epicurus warned his disciples that immoderate pursuit of pleasure is likely to make them miserable rather than happy.  A couple of centuries earlier Buddha had made an even more radical claim, teaching that the pursuit of pleasant sensations is in fact the very root of suffering.  Such sensations are just ephemeral and meaningless vibrations.  Even when we experience them we don't react to them with contentment; rather, we just crave more.  Hence no matter how many blissful or exciting sensations I may experience, they will never satisfy me.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  Homo Deus:  A Brief History of Tomorrow

Asking the important questions..............

Civic duty...........................

Almost did not vote in the primary election today.  Only one contested race.  But, duty called.  Ohio (at least Licking County) has new voting machines.  They are high tech but seem very cool, and they create a piece of paper, which I like.  Still, not sure it is an improvement over the old punch card system.  Regardless, duty performed.

Talking about the one unbreakable law...

……..The Law of Unintended Consequences.   Be careful what you wish for.  Interesting reading.  Follow the links.


Two talents of  great economists are to recognize that averages hide big differences among people, and to imagine all the avenues of substitution and unintended effects of a regulation.
-John Cochrane


But good intentions are no substitute for good policy.
-Jonathan Meer

Fifty years ago..............................

The Brooklyn Bridge............................Worst That Could Happen

Painting with too broad a brush............

................................or as they used to say in the old 12-step group,  be careful of "shoulding all over yourself":

     Our society had become a conspiracy against joy,  It has put too much emphasis on the individuating part of our consciousness—individual reason—and too little emphasis on the bonding parts of our consciousness, the heart and soul.   We've seen a shocking rise of mental illness, suicide, and distrust.  We have become too cognitive when we should be more emotional;  too utilitarian when we should be using a moral lens;  too individualistic when we should be more communal.

-David Brooks, from the Introduction to The Second Mountain:  The Quest for a Moral Life

"It's not the errors that I do see that bother me.....

......................................................It's the errors that I don't see.

With 2.5 billion GB of information being created each day, we have to continually ask ourselves, “What information can I trust?” 

via

The thing................................

What do you want out of life?  You might answer this question by saying that you want a caring spouse, a good job, and a nice house, but these are really just some of the things you want in life.  In asking what you want out of life, I am asking the question in its broadest sense.  I am asking not for the goals you form as you go about your daily activities but for your grand goal in living.  In other words, of the things in life you might pursue, which is the thing you believe to be the most valuable?

-William B. Irving,  A Guide To The Good Life (the ancient art of stoic joy)

Advantage..........................

The achievement of the self-taught man remains wonderful, but, if he surmounts his difficulties at all, some of his limitations may turn to sheer advantage.  There is some advantage merely in being driven to make the most of his few books; great advantage in having one's choice restricted by circumstances to good books; a great advantage too in the consciousness of untrained faculty which leaves a man capable in mature life of deliberately undertaking mental discipline.

-Lord Charnwood,   Abraham Lincoln:  A Complete Biography

Fifty years ago...............................

Smith..................................................................Baby It's You

Now for the hard part..........................

"Success is completely unavoidable if we express the right set of attitudes."

-David R. Hawkins,  Success Is For You

Inside out..........................

"Why is everyone here so happy except me?"

"Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere," said the Master.

"Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?"

"Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside."

-Anthony de Mello,  One Minute Wisdom

Learning lessons.................

     I paid my tuition to the market and experienced some losses, but it was worth it because I came to the realization that I didn't have to become an extraordinary investor to be successful.  And by trying to become an extraordinary investor it only made things worse.  The harder you try to become the world's best investor, the easier it is to become on of the worst. . . .
     The interesting thing about very intelligent and successful people is that they're usually the ones who have figured out the making things simple is the correct path to success.

-Ben Carlson,  A Wealth of Common Sense

Fifty years ago................................

The Guess Who.......................................................These Eyes

While flying into Heathrow.....................

A few years back I was attending the World Humanities Conference, which had Members of Parliament, and Ruth Carter Stapleton, and all kinds of impressive people.  I was on the program, and I was to be met by dignitaries.

Except that I didn't get through customs.

I wasn't carrying anything, but I was on a list that said that I was "not conducive to the well-being of the United Kingdom," mainly because of my affiliation with Timothy Leary.  So I was detained, and then I was thrown out of the country.

Now, I had planned to arrive and be welcomed and be taken to a hotel, and instead I found myself sitting in this green room with guys guarding the doors.  I was sitting there with Pakistanis, and South Africans, and all these people who were also not conducive to the well-being of the United Kingdom.  We were a great group and we had a wonderful day.  It took me a few minutes to go from "What?" to "Wow! This is a much more interesting day than I expected to spend."

It's always a question of how long it takes you to let go.

-Ram Dass, Changing Lenses:  Essential Teaching Stories from Ram Dass

Checking in with..............................

............................................................................Ram Dass:

“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.” 

“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”

“It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.” 

“Information is just bits of data. Knowledge is putting them together. Wisdom is transcending them.”

“Cosmic humor, especially about your own predicament, is an important part of your journey.” 

“The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.” 

“I think the message is that you don’t need to go to anywhere else to find what you are seeking.”

It's really not all that...........................

...........................................................................complicated.

Yesterday.........................

Fifty years ago................................

Bobby Sherman......................................................Little Woman

Oh happy day...........................

Son Connor graduated today from The Ohio University with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy.  This is known as a good thing.

Recommended.....................

thanks Kurt

The censorial power.........................

     His other monument, coequal if not greater, is American politics, the behavior that makes constitutionalism work:  the ways and means of acquiring, conferring, and rebuking power, the party organizations and partisan media that are the vehicles of interest, ambition, and thought.  He was at the birth of the American political system, and he understood it better than almost all his great peers.  Like the Constitution, politics has changed since he died, but not in ways that would make it unrecognizable to him, or that make him foreign to us.  It is all around us, in election years, and every day between elections as well.
      Politics can be low, sometimes sordid.  Much of that has to be endured, because that is the way men are.  "If men were angels," as Madison wrote, "no government would be necessary."  But some of the shortcomings of politics may be capable of improvement.  So say why and do better.  As Madison also wrote, "The censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people."  

-Richard Brookhiser,  James Madison

Constitutionalism.....................

     Madison took care of his reputation in other ways (think of his convention notes), but his real monument is not them, or any other item or thing—not even originals of the Constitution or Bill of Rights, or first editions of The Federalist.  The English architect Sir Christopher Wren was buried in one of his creations, St Paul's Cathedral, where he has a famous epitaph:  if you seek his monument, look about you.  Madison's circumambient  monument is American constitutionalism—the laws of doing and not doing, and all the debate and revisions they have generated (debating and revising are among the laws;  some of the most important ongoing debates—over the power of the federal government, and of the courts; over free speech and freedom of religion—go back to Madison's lifetime).  Many other people helped build constitutionalism, including enemies of his, and he would be the last person to deny his collaborators.  But he played a major role.

-Richard Brookhiser,  James Madison

if you seek his monument, look about you......

................................................................Sir Christopher Wren:

St Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz

St Paul's Cathedral, the aftermath of the Blitz

St Paul's Cathedral, London

Fifty years ago..........................

R. B. Greaves...............................................Take A Letter Maria

Fifty years ago...............................

Stevie Wonder.................................................My Cherie Amour

On the importance of change......

"'Forever' may turn out to be much shorter than you think."


-Tony Isola, as lifted from this blog post

Happiest of anniversary wishes..................

…………………….to the Mighty E.  Long may you blog!

Fifty years ago..................................

At the newsstand.................Life Magazine features Judy Collins

Judy Collins......................................................Someday Soon

Fifty years ago..............................

Judy Collins...........................................................Someday Soon

On politicians and responsibility...............

These cults of personality are dangerous and they elevate politicians to an undeserved status. The more we place politicians on pedestals and believe that they can personally make our lives better, the more we relinquish our own sense of personal responsibility. And to be perfectly clear, that is the only way we can hope to better our own lives, or anyone else’s for that matter.

-as culled from this Intellectual TakeOut blog post

via

Fifty years ago...............................

Classics IV.......................................................................Traces
(music starts about the 1 minute mark)

Is this a great country..........................

..............................................................................or what?

On capitalism.......................

"capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably also means production for the masses … It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls."

-Joseph Schumpeter, as quoted in 1919, and as cut-and-pasted from this blog post on how much cheaper (in the relative terms of how much labor do you perform in exchange for what you want) a basket of food is today as compared with 1919.

via Newmark's Door

On mentoring............................

Go lead, teach, coach, and model the behaviors and actions that your customers, clients, and community desire. Make this week about working hard to become better than you were last week.

-Sean Carpenter, from here

It is all a matter of ........................

....................................................................perspective.

If only this were true...................

". . . the first rule is simple: it should be as simple to fix an error as it is to make one."

-Seth Godin, from here

Never forget Part B......................

Part B is the so-often-neglected bit: ideas into action.

-Nicholas Bate

Fifty years ago...........................

Creedence Clearwater Revival........................Bad Moon Rising

Beauty...............................

Standing the test of time..................

"Governmental prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should try to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than themselves."

-Albert Gallatin, as quoted by Richard Brookhiser in James Madison

When the "public good was paramount"....

     Hamilton and Burr had been rivals in New York politics since the early 1790s.  During the endgame of the presidential election of 1800, when Federalists hoped to use the tie vote in the Electoral College to make Burr president, Hamilton had urged them to accept Jefferson.  "Of there be a man in the world I ought to hate," he wrote Gouverneur Morris, "it would be Jefferson.  With Burr I have always been personally well.  But the public good must be paramount."  Why was Hamilton so hostile toward Burr?  For a reason that might have interested Madison, if he had known of it.  Jefferson had bad principles, from Hamilton's point of view, but Burr had none.  "Is it a recommendation to have no theory?" Hamilton asked another Federalist.  Without theory, Burr, he believed, must be ruled entirely by ambition.

-Richard Brookhiser,  James Madison

The world...............................

"The world is not a debating society;  it was not wise to be provocative without a plan."

-Richard Brookhiser

Thinking this quote has stood the test of time....

"In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason.  Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."

-James Madison

Diplomats...........................

Though Jay was now serving as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, most of his career had been spent in diplomacy.  He was polite and patient, willing to take half a loaf if that was all he could get and to eat toads along the way.  Madison, whose notions of diplomacy ran to stating unanswerable propositions, disliked him and expected little from his mission.

-Richard Brookhiser,  James Madison

Fifty years ago.......................................

The Zombies...................................................Time of the Season

On reason and learning...............

     "The learned man who has not judgment is like an unarmed soldier proceeding into battle. . . . Reason without learning is like the untilled soil, or like the human body that lacks nourishment."

-Kahlil Gibran, from The Voice Of The Master

Let it go.............................

"Frustration itself is therefore a sign of trying to control that which is not really controllable."

-David R. Hawkins

Be careful what you wish for..............

A group of political activists were attempting to show the Master how their ideology would change the world.

The Master listened carefully.

The following day he said, "An ideology is as good or bad as the people who make use of it.  If a  million wolves were to organize for justice, would they cease to be a million wolves?"

-Anthony de Mello,  One Minute Wisdom

Unintended consequences........................

On October 6, 1939, Malcolm MacDonald, Britain's Secretary of State for the Colonies, called a special meeting on "Future Policy in Africa."  The meeting included a veteran colonial official named Lord Hailey and many other notable British Africanists.
     Why would Africa be high on the list of priorities only a month after Britain declared war on Germany?  Many of the official class feared that Britain's survival, not to mention the survival of the empire, depended on the allegiance of non-European peoples.  The British were going to need troops and raw materials from the empire to fight the war.  And it was hard to keep the allegiance of colonial subjects when the empire was built around a racial hierarchy that reflected still-prevalent feelings of racial superiority by the British, feelings not lost on the victims of such racism.   As one colonial official put it, "Colonial subjects might be tempted to say that they do not have much freedom to defend."  Other officials and observers feared a worldwide revolt by nonwhites against white rule, perhaps lead by the rising power, Japan, and destroying the empire.  The British realized during the new war that racism was becoming a serious political liability.  The failure to endorse Japan's racial equality proposal at the Versailles peace talks after the previous war was not a huge embarrassment.
     Lord Hailey would attempt to remove this liability during World War II by reinventing yet again the idea of technocratic development as a justification for colonial rule.  The empire's legitimacy was going to be based on its technical ability to achieve rapid development, not on the racial superiority of the British.  The empire could present itself as a benevolent autocrat for the colonial people.  The British even banned racist statements by colonial officials to conform to the new narrative, although the victims of racism knew that such a ban did not immediately change racist attitudes.
      Ironically, Lord Hailey's justification for colonialism and his cover-up of racism would later appeal to the anticolonial victims of racism, the new African political leaders who would emerge after the sooner-than-expected collapse of the British African empire in the 1950s and early 1960s.  The new African leaders found state-led technocratic development to be a justification for their own aspirations to unchecked power.  The new African leaders would inherit the role of benevolent autocrat from the defunct empire.

-William Easterly,  The Tyranny of Experts:  Economists, Dictators, and The Forgotten Rights Of The Poor