One of the books I got recently is James Gilligan’s Why Some Politicians are more Dangerous than Others. He’s a psychiatrist and was trying to work out why there are periodic spikes and dips in lethal violence in The United States. He was able to use data to demonstrate that there’s a direct correlation between Republican presidents and rises in lethal violence and falls during the tenures of Democratic presidents. He tells us on page 3 that “When [he] subjected these yearly changes to statistical analysis, [he] found that in all three cases – for suicide, for homicide, and for total lethal violence (meaning suicide and homicide rates combined) – the association between political party and lethal violence rates was statistically significant.” What’s more, the data shows that murders and suicides rise and fall together which is remarkable because, as Gilligan rightly says, we don’t see suicides (the people that is) as being very similar to murderers. Suicidal people “are generally considered to be either sad or mad; they are patients usually seen in a psychiatric office or hospital. People who commit homicide are usually seen as criminals and considered to be bad. They are commonly regarded as needing not treatment but punishment, and they are found, for the most part, in prison, not mental hospitals or private offices.”  On the subject of motivation for murder and suicide, Gilligan argues that “shame [is] the proximal cause of violence, the necessary – although not sufficient – motive for violent behaviour.” He wonders whether “unemployment, relative poverty, and the sudden loss of social and economic status have been observed to increase the intensity of the emotion of shame.”  Orwell on Nationalism Then I turn to George Orwell’s essay, Notes on Nationalism. He writes that this is...

The Monroe Doctrine This was what would now likely be termed an isolationist policy adopted by the Americans which stated that the Europeans had no business interfering in any way on the continents of the Americas – that is, Central and South America. The Americans supported independence movements in Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico. They were the first to recognise Brazilian independence in May, 1824. The British approached the Americans in 1823 to make a joint declaration to the effect that ex-Spanish colonies in the Americas were irrecoverable to Spain. In the end, the Americans decided not to make a joint statement but a separate one stating, in a word, “Hands off the Americas, Europe!” (Source: The Treasury of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Viking Penguin, 1992 Brain Surgery Henry Marsh, in his book, “Do no Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery,” admits to causing harm to a patient in an attempt to help her. His efforts to remove a tumour from her brain resulted in paralysis. He writes that “[He] had been insufficiently fearful.” He wouldn’t feel at peace again until the next successful operation had been completed. (Source: Marsh, Henry, Do no Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 2014 Ezra, the Scribe After the Judeans were banished sometime around the 6th century B.C.E. they were allowed to settle in Nippur, near Babyon. One of their tribe was Ezra, a scribe. He and some followers were tasked with going to Jerusalem by Artaxerxes, king of Persia. They had his protection but his interest wasn’t altruistic: he wanted them to establish an imperial outpost. Ezra was horrified by what he found in Judea: it was nearly deserted, and those who did live there were ignorant farmers who’d shed their...