Stereotypes are, in fact, merely one aspect of the mind’s ability to make generalizations, without which science and mathematics, not to mention much… - John Derbyshire

I keep trying to resist the thought, but the thought keeps pushing its way back in: The Western world has sunk into madness. There are no solutions to anything. The talk of our politicians is the babbling of fools, but we keep electing them anyway. We are collectively insane.

We are a rugged species, up for anything the universe can throw at us; and as the great gloominaries knew, we will be immeasurably better prepared for nasty surprises if we approach the universe realistically - pessimistically - than if we continue to peer out at our surroundings through a distorting, rose-colored prism of wish-fulfillment fantasy.

The arc of US development this past hundred years once again teaches us history's hardest lesson: A nation can survive anything except success. Mid-20th-century America's stupendous success engendered the softness, idleness, and lack of seriousness that was perceptible to me in 1975 — though the nation I came from was only a decade or so behind.