Footnotes
(especially footnote #10)
1.
Isaiah
Berlin; “The Sense of Reality”; Farrar, Strauss and Giroux; New York, N.Y.; 1996; p. 121. A
really excellent book, dealing with practicalities and morals.
2.
Ibid.,
p. 254.
3. To
restate the authors’ dynamic concept of democracies another way, in traditional
societies roles are fixed. In medieval Europe, India and China, the typical
order of society was simple: the rulers (who also possessed the maximum amount
of virtue), the soldiers who protected the rulers and the workers who simply
worked. Modern societies, in contrast, are process oriented, with just
outcomes dependent upon correct procedure. Protected by individual rights and
by the recognition of common facts, people in such market societies are
expected not to abandon their judgments.
4. Book
of Job 41:25-27 and 33
5.
Daron
Acemoglu and James Robinson; “The Narrow Corridor”; Penguin Press; New York,
N.Y.; 2019; p. 8.
6.
Ibid.,
p. 61.
7.
Ibid.,
p. 281.
8.
Ibid.,
p. 281
9.
Ibid.,
p. 281
10. Ibid., p. 160.
Historian
Dan Jones describes in detail what happened when the Roman legions were
withdrawn in A.D. 407 to defend the Gaul and the Rhine frontiers from
incursions. “Britain (was) the last of the major Roman provinces to have been
conquered and the first to be lost….From the early fifth century Britain was
steadily settled by war bands and migrant groups from the North Sea fringe.
There was no single, coordinated military invasions such as the Romans had
landed in the time of Claudius or that the Normans would stage in 1066; the
invasions were piecemeal and staggered over many years. Some of the names later
applied to the peoples who arrived (and conflicted with the native Britons)
included the Saxons, Angles, Jutes (and later the Vikings). But ethnic
terminology would have mattered much less to fifth-century Britons than observed
reality. Roman functionaries and soldiers had disappeared across the sea in one
direction, while Germanic settlers bringing new languages, cultures, and
beliefs arrived from another. (Jones, 2021, p.p. 53-54)” It was a very
turbulent time. In general, history tells us what people had to deal with, and
what can be gained and lost.
The
British Museum exhibits chronicle these events. The first is the contents of a treasure
chest from Roman Britain. The second
is the burial helmet of an Anglo-Saxon king. The third is a prow of a fearsome
dragon-headed Viking ship.
11. Ibid., p. 170.
12. Ibid., p. 171.
13. Ibid., p. 174.
14. Ibid., p. 175
15. James Madison; “The Federalist
Papers 51”; Bantam Books (ed.); New York, N.Y.; 2003; p. 319.
16. Hans Kohn; “The Idea of
Nationalism”; The Macmillan Company; New York, N.Y; 1960; p. 561.
17. Acemoglu and Robinson, p. 288.
18. Ibid., p.p. 282-284.
19. Ibid., p. 401.
19a. Ibid., p.p. 425-426.
20. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource
Center: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
21.
CNN, 10/31/20.
22.
Rana Foroohar, “Homecoming”; Crown; New York, N.Y.;
2022; p. 151.
23.
Ibid., p. 196.
24.
Ibid., p. 198.
