"'Barbarian conquests never last,' [Flandry] said. 'Barbarians have to become civilized first, before they are fit to run a civilization.
"'And Scothania had not gone through that stage. I knew almost from the beginning that it had gone straight from barbarism to decadence.'" (p. 273)
"'...America has progressed from infancy to senility without having passed through a period of maturity.'"
-Ian Fleming, "The Hildebrand Rarity" IN Fleming, For Your Eyes Only (London, 1964), pp. 150-191 AT p. 179.
Oscar Wilde or someone else (see here) said that America went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. Flandry says this of Scothania whereas James Bond says that America went from infancy to senility without maturity in between. Ian Fleming misquoted his own works so he was probably just misremembering the Wildean aphorism. I wonder what Chunderban Desai would have said of either Schotania or America.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think Desai would have agreed with Flandry's view of Scotha but not with what Fleming said of the US. Not that we don't have plenty of problems and self inflicted wounds of our own! Such as lunatic nonsense like "critical race theory," fanatical advocates of unworkable twaddle like socialism, and blundering and incompetent leaders like "Josip" and his puppet masters.
I suspect Desai would analyze America's woes thru the theories of John K. Hord, as summarized by Anderson. E.g., Anderson believed the ratification of the XVII Amendment to the US Constitution was a very bad mistake, and opened the door to yet more mistakes. And the US may be running out of the time needed for rectifying these blunders before something crucial irretrievably breaks.
Ad astra! Sean
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