Author: Desp(e)rat(e) measures

7-5-18

Dear Partners in thought,

I wanted to come back to Yale’s Timothy Snyder who had written “On Tyranny”, again like Ed Luce and his famed “Retreat of Liberalism” in the aftermath of Trump’s election, in the face of the multiple rise of populism across the West. Snyder is the author of “The Road to Unfreedom” which he had written just before “On Tyranny” and that I already shared with you and has specialised on European history with a focus on central & eastern Europe, particularly known for its “Bloodlands” that won prizes worldwide. Snyder today, in his late 40s, is probably the leading rising historian at Yale.

I know it is the third book I tell you about coming from Yale. I want to stress that it is just because they tend to produce great books these days. Just to be clear, I like Yale and its prestigious history, Skull and Bones, the CIA’s cradle, Bill & Hillary’s nest, its beautiful colleges and campus, Papa John’s Pizza and my daughter’s alma mater but I remain a Harvard man as the young Frenchman who went there at 21 as an ESL student searching for a new life, drawn by a world with no limits, spending too much time at Yenching and going on to study history, economics and business (since 1981) even if never enrolling in any of the usual degrees in spite of once a very artful bid by the late and great Stanley Hoffman. I am actually looking forward to telling you about books coming from that other Cambridge on the Charles. And I am writing this so you all know where the historical roots of my fight and drive are located.

“On Tyranny”, which has a Clauzewitzian air, as John Lewis Gaddis, remarked too when he did his “On Grand Strategy”, that you know, is not a book in the strictest sens as it is more an essay of about 100 pages or, as a well-known thinker told me two weeks ago, a series of aphorisms that all of us should agree with. It is an enjoyable reading and is indeed short which also has its merits in today’s world. I actually think that, while everybody should read it, it is the perfect summer reading gift for your kids and/or grandkids from the time-, social media-, iPhone- and screen-constrained generations who may need some guidance on what actually matters. “On Tyranny” is a body of key precepts grounded in the history of the 20th century and addressing mostly but not only an American audience that are needed to maintain what we know as democracy and we should ensure does not lead to any perverted outcome resulting from the oft glorified will of the people, the latter who could so easily be led astray or lose their compass. Snyder offers 20 tips, guidances, tenets that we, as citizens should observe to ensure that (even if it does not say it as such) avoid the repeat of some of the key electoral outcomes we have seen, notably but not only in the U.S., since 2016. However more broadly the raison d’être of this set of aphorisms is so we avoid falling into what Madeleine Albright simply and rightly calls Fascism (a book I will come back to later and resonates to the Prague resident and lover of the Bohemian jewel I am.)
The 20 “lessons” (to take Snyder’s terminology) are:

1. Do not obey in advance (Most power of authoritarianism is freely given)

2. Defend institutions (as they are the guarantors of decency; select and defend one)

3. Beware the one party state (so support the multi-party system)

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world (Symbols do matter, notice the “swastikas”…)

5. Remember professional ethics (When political leaders set negative examples, professional commitments to just practice matter)

6. Be wary of paramilitaries (that intermingle with the official police and military)

7. Be reflective if you must be armed (If you carry a weapon in public service, be ready to say no to irregular things)

8. Stand out (Someone has to)

9. Be kind to our language (Think up your own way of speaking; make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet)

10. Believe in truth (To abandon facts is to abandon freedom)

11. Investigate (Figure things out for yourself)

12. Make eye contact and small talk (Stay in touch with your surroundings, know the psychological landscape of your daily life)

13. Practice corporeal politics (Get outside; make new friends and march with them)

14. Establish a private life (Use internet and emailing but have personal exchanges in person)

15. Contribute to good causes (Pick a charity or two and set up Autopay)

16. Learn from peers in other countries (Keep up friendship abroad and make new friends)

17. Listen for dangerous words (Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary; be alert to “extremism”, “emergency”…)

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives (Modern tyranny is terror management with its resulting justified end of basic freedoms)

19. Be a patriot (Set a good example for generations to come)

20. Be as courageous as you can (If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny)

Some points hark back to the rise of Nazism while others, that we can relate perhaps more easily, are more preventive in nature and easily applicable in our daily life. I always like the eye contact (be careful though!) and small talk and of course my 21st tenet…read books and discuss them. Each point is beautifully argued with live cases very often taken during the rise of authoritarianism in the 1930s in Europe.
It is a great set of recipes and we can all be our own chefs, putting the emphasis where we feel best. The meal will always be delicious.
And when (and as) we live in times that are upside down, please remember Nassim Taleb:“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do”.

Warmest regards,
Serge

Serge Desprat, May 2018, (Prague)

2-5-18

Dear Partners in thought,

I first wanted to tell you that, contrary to well-founded opinion, I can in fact master things like Group Emails hence the group and name I chose to represent members of a special club of minds who are dear to me. I do this following the indirect suggestion from one of my role models, with whom I did not spent enough Friday OpsComs with years ago and who will recognise himself, that I should consider group emails, something I was not too keen on, preferring the direct and considerate touch. However following Diderot’s “spirit of the staircase” (where time helps ideas make their way, presumably when you climb up one, though it was more about after-wit in relation to what Necker had told him at a dinner party) and the (then) Bonapartist leader of my youth, Jacques Chirac,’s precept that “only fools do not change their minds” (well, he knew something about that as we later saw) that I decided to set up a group email address for what remains a tiny cluster of individuals who do matter to me. In doing so, I have tried to increase despatch efficiency while protecting the confidentiality of relationships though rest assured that I address you very personally.

I wanted to let you know about “On Grand Strategy” that is the latest book from Yale’s John Lewis Gaddis who co-led that eponymous Yale seminar for 20 years with Paul Kennedy (“The Rise and Fall of Nations” – yes time does fly) and Charles Hill. He is the author of the famed “Cold War”, a definite book on our recent era that marked those of us who worked in the trenches of its aftermath and it is said was on the nightstand of an American President who perhaps did not read it enough when he went into Iraq to reshape the Middle East and “export” democracy. This is a great book, even if strongly academic in nature. It is about “Grand Strategy” in the same vein as “On War” was from someone he coincidently much covers in the book. In fact it is about “hedgehogs and foxes”, an approach that follows the one from Sir Isaiah Berlin, the breaker of barriers at All Souls, who defined leaders of states as such, hedgehogs knowing one big thing and foxes knowing many (implicitly smaller ones). This covers the link and often the divide between “ends and means” and why some leaders who know the ends they wish and have the will and energy to reach them at times forget or do not want to hear about the means they would need to do so, so driven they are by their grand designs. JLG argues that the true great leaders can reconcile both approaches and like, Lincoln, be both hedgehogs and foxes, knowing where they go but being nimble and flexible enough to reach their objectives in the most practical manner (Lincoln being the greatest grand strategist as not blocked by concepts – or he says, education – but achieving his goal through many means at times objectionable but practical as one can see how he passed the 13th Amendment in Spielberg’s Lincoln). He takes us to ancient times, drawing parallels between Xerxes, Octavian, Augustine, Machiavelli, Elizabeth, Napoleon, Wilson, FDR and many others, bringing in Herodotus, Thucydides, Clausewitz (his favourite), Tolstoi (and his War and Peace that JLG finds notable in the study of grand strategy) and even Sun Tzu(s). He peppers his book with interesting examples found in history when great men of their times lost their ways and why, notably when Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, when Philip II sent his fleet on such a clear but ill prepared mission, when Napoleon crossed the Niemen and having reached Moscow was like the dog that does not know what to do once he catches up with the car it was running after (JLG’s paraphrased words, which of course, as a true Napoléonien, I object to, faithful to the myths that make nations). It is a great book as it brings you back to times and men that we know but have at times forgotten and goes into many lessons in what is and is not sound leadership, often in the context of wars when decisions have very definite outcomes. One would wish that “On Grand Strategy'” be required reading especially in this nice mansion located on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Warmest regards, 

Serge

Serge Desprat, May 2018 (Prague)