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There’s nothing WEIRD about Biden.
The first big news story of the month was President Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son for any crimes he may have committed by selling his Dad’s name to ChiCom gang bosses and East Slavic corruptocrats.
For students of Chinese philosophy a much-discussed passage from midway through theAnalects of Confucius came to mind. InSimon Leys’ translation:
The Governor of Shè declared to Confucius: “Among my people, there is a man of unbending integrity: when his father stole a sheep, he denounced him.” Confucius said: “Among my people, men of integrity do things differently: a father covers up for his son, a son covers up for his father — and there is integrity in what they do.” (Analects, 13:18.)
[Shè (葉, pronouncedShuh) was a district in the ancient state of Chŭ, in or near present-day southwest Henan Province.]
So Confucius, the great moralist, is saying we should put family before the law. That little passage has generated a lot of commentary.
For example: Inhis lectures on theAnalects for Great Courses, Robert André LaFleur gives us that exchange from the middle of theAnalects just two and a half minutes into Lecture 1 of his 24 lectures. Here are his opening remarks:
Clip: To get a sense of the teacher and his book let’s start almost literally in the middle of a text that has become known as theAnalects — another translation could be theDiscourses — of a man named Confucius.
Readers of theAnalects are already past the halfway point when they come to a little anecdote that, in my estimation, sums up the teaching of the entire book.
The Governor of a little state named Shè is talking with Confucius …]
Much further on in his course, in Lecture 18, Prof. LaFleur returns to the passage.
[Clip: There’s always been a complex relationship in Chinese life between care for those one knows and to whom one is related in one form or another, and devotion to broader swathes of the public. Understanding that relationship is key to untangling the threads that bind large and small parts of Chinese society.
Think back to the opposing views of the Governor of Shè and Confucius in Chapter 13 of theAnalects over how a young man should respond when his father steals a sheep. Many of the worst blunders readers make when interpreting Confucius’Analects occur because they are not attentive to the seemingly contradictory message that one must protect one’s kin above alland toil on behalf of the larger community.
Those ideals are in constant tension; but understanding how they resonate, merge, and persist is central to understanding Confucius and his teaching. Governing the larger society requires balancing attention to family and public spirit. It is the greatest challenge of all in Confucius’ teaching.]
Confucius wouldn’t have seen any contradiction. In his imagination he saw society as a building of several floors, each floor supported by pillars on the floor below. The lowest level of pillars were those of filial piety and similar family-based virtues. Ifthey were neglected the entire structure would come crashing down.
Up on the higher floors, of course, subordinates should be loyal to their superiors,Ministers of State to their ruler, and so on; but filial piety was foundational.
That schema for human society, or something approximating it, prevailed almost everywhere and everywhen up to the late middle ages, when Northwest Europe took the turn to whatsocial anthropologist Joseph Henrich calls the WEIRD model: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.
The older, clannish, kin-centered schema still prevails in much of the world — certainly in what we call the Third World — and there are still pockets of it nested in among the general WEIRDness of the modern West, generating what it always generates: lies, lawlessness, and corruption.
In the Biden family, for instance. There ain’t nothing WEIRD about Joe.
One who understands.
Here’s a guy who understands what I said there.
People from different nations with different circumstances, histories, beliefs and traditions will — by definition — hold very different conceptions of good government, some irreconcilably opposed to our own. It has been said that a principal cause of Rome’s fall was that “many men who never knew republican life and did not care for it … became Roman citizens.” Why then do we Americans continue to import millions upon millions who have never known republican life and do not care for it? In doing so, we do not uphold our Founding creed; we hasten and enable its oblivion.
That was Michael Anton, posting attheUnz Review in March 2016. Later that year Anton published, this time in theClaremont Review of Books, “The Flight 93 Election,” a landmark essay often credited with helping Donald Trump win that year’s Presidential election.
Anton served for a year on Trump 45’s National Security Council, resigning when World Saver-in-Chief John Bolton took over the NSC. He has since made a living writing and lecturing.
December 8th Trump announced that Anton would be Director of Policy Planning in the Trump 47 State Department.
Trump noted that Anton served the last eight years “explaining what an America First foreign policy truly means.” [“Trump names several picks for State Department roles,”The Hill, December 8th 2024.]
Given the disagreements in Trump 45, it is highly unlikely that John Bolton will be appointed to any position in Trump 47. With any luck Michael Anton will be “explaining what an America First foreign policy truly means” to Trump and his people clear through to January 2029. Fingers crossed …
Tourists of the Caribbean.
At a party earlier this year Mrs Derbyshire got chatting to a friend of a friend (male, single, sixtyish) who winters in Belize. He gave a glowing account of the place, capturing my lady’s attention. She got it into her head that it would be fun to take a brief winter vacation in Belize.
I knew nothing at all about the place. Come on: How much doyou know?
Wikipedia told me that Belize wasBritish Honduras until attaining independence in 1981. Thus encouraged, I tried to look up the colony in my grandfather’s faithful 1922Atlas-Guide to the British Commonwealth of Nations & Foreign Countries. They gave it a very short description: the shortest of any territory, I think.
BRITISH HONDURAS. — The staple products are mahogany, logwood, etc. Chiccle, the basis of chewing gum, is exported, as are various tropical fruits.
That was it. No further economic stats, no geographical or demographic ones at all.
I checked with the State Department website.
Belize Travel Advisory. Violent crime — such as sexual assault, home invasions, armed robberies, and murder — are common even during daylight hours and in tourist areas …
Not very encouraging. The Mrs had set her heart on a Belize trip, though, and … happy wife, happy life. I booked us on an 8-day early-December tour withIntrepid, a well-reviewed Australian group-tour firm.
It was indeed a happy experience, taking in a side trip to Guatemala. I can now tick off two more nations on my been-there list. We encountered no crime, Intrepid having made sure to keep us well clear of gang-controlled areas. Laid-on transportation was timely and safe and the food was OK, although “Caribbean” was, and still is, well down on my list of favorite cuisines.
The accommodations were likewise OK. Downside: Local hostelries seem to operate on a one-in-three rule. Of your room’s shower, safe, and TV, only one will be in working order. Belize would benefit from anAHLA missionary endeavor.
The fun of the thing was principally social. There were six of us in our tour group:
- Mr & Mrs Derbyshire, the only married couple.
- Two young lovers from Zurich, fluent in English but conversing with each other in Swiss-German.
- Two American ladies not formerly known to each other, one from each coast, members of that mighty host of middle-aged females who get great pleasure from tours to exotic places but whose menfolk can’t see the point.
It was a cheerful group and we all got on very well. The conviviality was much helped by the tour guide, Lorenzo, who was everything a tour guide should be: unfailingly knowledgeable and good-humored, dealing with minor crises briskly and efficiently, and laughing at everyone’s jokes, even mine.
So altogether, a pretty nice winter break.
Belizian charms.
The social pleasures aside, I can’t say I found Belize and Guatemala very fascinating.I had already seen all the Mayan ruins I ever wanted to see.A half-dozen more added nothing to my understanding.
It crossed my mind, in fact, that were I not so uxorious I would likely have joined that counter-host of menfolk who can’t see the point. An hour or so into a trek through the Guatemalan jungle I could sense my innerVictor Meldrew stirring.
Not that Belize is without its charms. There is a lingering Britishness, for example, that of course touched my heart. Belize bankotesstill bear an image of the late Queen Elizabeth the Second; and the lobby ofthe premier hotel in San Ignacio is proudly decorated with a photographic record of Her Majesty’s visit there in 1994.
Belizians say “roundabout,” not “traffic circle”; and the local Creole is British-English-based. Sample proverb:
Parson christen e pikni fus.
“The parson christens his own child first,” i.e. charity begins at home.
That’s all under threat, of course. Belize is a tiny place, less than 9,000 square miles — just a tad bigger than New Jersey. The population is tiny, too, though: 400 thousand and change. (New Jersey has nine and a half million.) That yields a low population density: 47 people to the square mile.
The population-density figures for next-door Guatemala and Mexico are 430 and 170 per square mile. Water will find its level: Belizians grumble that it’s increasingly hard to get along without knowing Spanish.
There is also a big Mennonite — Amish, approximately — population; you see their horses and buggies everywhere (although some of their communities have upgraded to automobiles). They read their Bible in German but otherwise speak mostly Spanish.
For nonconformists there’s a geopolitical point in Belize’s favor: she is one of justtwelve nations that recognize the government in Taiwan as representing the Republic of China. I guess the ChiComs don’t think it’s worth the trouble to bully or bribe Belize into the majority. (There is actually a Taiwan Street in downtown Belize City.)
So: a small, warm, poor, underpopulated country in a volatile neighborhood. A lot of Americans have, like Mrs Derbyshire’s original informant, been buying property there for winter habitation. I don’t think I’ll be joining them, but we enjoyed our visit to their country. I wish the Belizians well with all my heart.
The death of print media.
A depressing thing about airports today is the absence of print media for sale.
With a considerable wait to sit through at Belize’s international airport, I went looking for a newspaper or magazine to read. There weren’t any.
Desperate to keep my mind active, I tallied the 21 retail outlets serving the 13 departure gates.
- 2 selling souvenirs, candy, and liquor.
- 5 selling souvenirs and candy but no liquor
- 2 selling souvenirs only
- 3 selling liquor only
- 1 selling clothes (T-shirts, nightwear)
- 4 selling fast food
- 1 selling fast food and souvenirs
- 2 table-service restaurants
- 1 bar
OK, maybe Belize doesn’t lead the world in literacy, but … not even a newspaper?
Our own airports are headed the same way. At a stopover in Philadelphia Idid manage to locate a newsstand, but even there it was slim pickings.
It’s useless to grumble, of course. The world changes; and right now it’s changing in a direction hostile to words printed on paper. Eh: I still, for a while longer, have myNew York Post to read over breakfast.
Who’s taking snuff?
I’m late with this one, for which I apologize. It arose froma segment in my September Diary in which I wrote about the changing fortunes of nicotine.
Including snuff. I noted that there still seem to be snuff-takers, but … who are they?
A reader set me straight.
You wanted to know if anyone still takes it: sure, Orthodox Jews. Smoking is forbidden on the Sabbath, and so snuff-taking was very common back in the day. Not so common anymore, but it’s still done by the older set, and by younger people trying to be nostalgic for things they never actually did. It’s even more common on Yom Kippur, when both smoking and eating are forbidden, and snuff is about the only thing that can be ingested.
The only tobacco I’ve ever had in my life was a handful of times I’ve had pinches of snuff in synagogue. It did nothing for me — I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to be doing. I do remember that I was scandalously young at the time …
ORDER IT NOWThere’s even an old Jewish joke: The rabbis say the world rests on three pillars: Study of Torah, the Temple service, and acts of kindness to others. The joke goes that after the Temple was destroyed, the three pillars came to God and asked what will happen to them.
“Oh, don’t worry,” answered God. “The Jewish people will build synagogues, and they will pray as a substitute for the Temple service and the rabbi will speak on the Torah as study.”
“But what about me?” asked Acts-of-Kindness. “Not a problem,” smiled God. “In the middle of the rabbi’s sermon, each congregant will turn to his neighbor and say, ‘Here, have a pinch of snuff!'”
Playing that back to a friend, he marveled that: “There’s some real colorful history and tradition there! Pity you could never make a movie about it.”
Me, a little slow on the uptake: “Why not?”
He: “Because that would be a snuff movie, duh!”
A valediction.
No Math Corner this month, reader. In its place, a valediction.
This is my last monthly diary. It is number 250, those numbersstretching back across 24 years. (There were not always twelve to the year.) That’s a nice neat number to end on. That it falls on a December doubles the nice-neatness.
Thank you for reading across these many years, and for your emails and donations. Radio Derb podcast and transcript will continue to appear weekly as usual.
Should you still feel in need of amonthly extra dose of my ramblings I shall be writing a regular column forChronicles magazine, starting with the February issue, which of course will appear at the end of January. If you don’t currently subscribe toChronicles I urge you to do so. It’s an excellent magazine; I’ve been contributing from the very beginning of this century,January 2000.
And if you find yourself feeling nostalgic about my Math Corner, there are worked solutions to 117 of themhere. I’m sorry 117 isn’t as nice’n’neat as the other numbers in this segment. It doesn’t even have an entry in David Wells’Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers. But that’s numbers for you: they’re just fundamentally unruly.
Happy New Year!
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It must have worn on Mr. Derbyshire to sustain a credible diary while ignoring the flailing of his adopted Uncle Sam. He couldn’t sign off, though, without tossing some hypocritical propaganda into his travelogue:
“Derb” for decades has looked the other way or cheered on the Establishment’s bullying and bribery, his perverse form of patriotism. (He even said a few years ago that “we” had agreed to the destruction of Afghanistan by electing politicians both Red + Blue who wrote that early chapter of GWOT.)
Do the announced change in format and new perch atChronicles mean that he’s pulling out here atTUR, like he did for about six weeks a few months ago? If not, where will the minionMEH0910 be spamming?
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-03.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33362
Smoking is forbidden on the Sabbath What foresight old Moses showed.
P.S. A short winter break: I can unreservedly recommend Madeira. We found that their prices drop as the Xmas/New Year revellers return home so we’d go for a week in the first half of January. We’ve found the Portuguese unusually pleasant people to be among. The holidaymakers were mainly North European – British, Dutch, German.
It’s true that it has a reputation for attracting holidaymakers who are “just wed or nearly dead” but that’s an amusing way of saying that you don’t have to put up with screaming children or noisy yahoos.
Anyway thanks for all the entertainment from your Diary. I wish you a happy, largely Biden-free, New Year.
Noooo! This can’t be the last derb’s diary! It’s the end of a treasured American institution and one of my few pleasures in life. What, no more math corner? No more literary reflections? I’m in the denial stage of grief.
By the way, derb’s considerations are far above the usual pieces in new criterion. More of those would be welcome.
This sad news truly jolted me. You’re one of my favorites Derb, see you at Chronicles.
Sad to see he’s hanging it up, just when he needs to comment regularly on the new TDS he coined – Trump Disappointment Syndrome.
The H1B crapola is Step One of it. Perhaps Mr Sailer can pick up that mantle.
Derb is ending the Monthly Diary, but he is still continuing Radio Derb, which is hosted atthe Z-Man’s website, and alsoarchived atDerb’s own website.
I have a substitute.
Consider expressions of the form, a^b times c^d, where {a, b, c, d} are the integers from two to five. Only primes are allowed as the base numbers, so four is only allowed as a power, since it is the square of two. No repetition of a numeral is allowed. What is the sequence of numbers, and how many are there? Why?
How does that change if four is added as an allowed base? What is the sequence then?
So is he pulling out entirely here, like he inexplicably did for about six weeks a few months ago?
If so, where atTUR will the minionMEH 0910 be spamming?
uxorious – I had to look that one up.
“one who is overly fond of his wife” and is labeled “a dated expression”
What I am seeing more often, are men who are overly fond of their dogs.
Its a White person trait.
“Uxorious”. Mr. Shire praises with faint damn.
We shall miss your diaries, sir.
Everybody is sad. How could he do this to us?
Hope Derb continues to post Diary type random comments in some form.
As for the brainteaser, there are 3 choices for the two bases and two choices for the assignment of powers to the bases, resulting in 6 numbers in the sequence. Adding 4 to the allowable bases means there are 6 choices for the bases so there are 12 possible numbers in the sequence.
My main reason for travel to Belize (or the Caribbean generally) was birding (or “twitching” as the oft-encountered Brits on such trips would put it). The warm weather and occasional dip in the pool–or sea, if you can find a spot that doesn’t look impossibly polluted–is nice, but as with the cultural ruins and food, not sufficient reason to go. If you’re into that sort of thing, the birding can be challenging and delightful, as I imagine Derb finds math problems.
As with Sailer, I sense my days on Unz are numbered, but good to know Derb will still be posting on Chronicles. Sic Semper Gloria.
I’m annoyed that nobody took my puzzle seriously, at least you did, at least in terms of permutations.
Allwing four as a base, as it is the second power of two, makes it a little dull. The most interesting one that are closest to A.D. year numbers are
2^4 x 5^3 = 2000, and the year of the now, 3^4 x 5^2 = 2025.
Some other numbers in the rule of excluing four as a base are interesting. The point is to do all calculations for it mentally, no paper, no calclator.
MEH – Kudos! Z-Man has an occasional article on TBP.
Lighten up, Greta
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-10.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33400
How about a transcript of
that we can read and discuss?
I look forward to the end of the aggressive gayness of MEH. That’s right I hate homosexuals as enshrined in el Constitution.
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-17.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33440
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-17.html#01
https://www.peterbrimelow.com/
https://www.peterbrimelow.com/t/archives
A couple of other ways of getting the current year:
1+3+5+ … +89=2025
1^3+2^3+3^3+ … +8^3=2025
The first is easily verified and can also be reduced to 45*45=2025. I didn’t bother to verify the second one.
Hic.
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-24.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33482
Who?
MEH puts the lotion in the basket.
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-01-31.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33513
https://www.peterbrimelow.com/p/bittersweet-tale-of-two-inaugurations
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-02-07.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33549
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-02-14.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33587
Why is shè pronounced shuh in its anglicization? What kind of bullshit anglicization is this?
Are we also to understand that Euros could never say Beijing, but constantly repeated the word back as Peking?
“Beijing”
“Peking”
“No, Bei-jing”
“Pe-king”
What the fuck is all this nonsense?
The problem isn’t the nonsense it’s your ignorance. No romanization system is perfect and whichever system gave us “Peking” is more imperfect than most, but screw you at the end of the day. People did indeed say “Peking” for decades. So fucking what? Should we still be calling the country Turkey? What about Burma?
How can the Persian Gulf be called the Gulf of Arabia?
Case in point: in Tibetan “Drepung” (heap of rice, a place name) is transliterated ‘Bras.sPungs. How do they get from “brass spungs” to “Drepung”? Don’t know, don’t care. Actually I do know because my toilet training didn’t produce a whiner.
Ever think it might represent a regional pronunciation? Quick, how many Chinese dialects and topolects are there?
If you can’t cope that’s sad but it’s on you.
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-02-21.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33639
Confucius and Biden’s adherence to tribalism was nothing new; tribalism, the preference given to those who share your genes, if very much the default for all living creatures. It was the development of non-tribal cultures in northeastern Europe that created the modern world that we live in. There are powerful tribal groups who work diligently to return us to a more traditional tribal world where their own group will triumph..
人之初
性本善
性相近
习相远
苟不教
性乃迁
教之道
贵以专
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-02-28.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33670
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-02-28.html#07
Derb, thatChronicles link doesn’t work.
Now this link does work:
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/author/johnderbyshire/
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-03-07.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33712
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-03-14.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33745
Please tell us, minion, if Mr. Derbyshire (or Mr. Sailer) has addressed the case of Mahmoud Khalil.
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-03-21.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33790
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-03-28.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33841
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-04-04.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33869
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-04-11.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33917
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-04-18.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33968
Any mention of Rumeysa Ozturk? Mahmoud Khalil?
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-04-25.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34004
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-05-02.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34060
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-05-09.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34112
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-05-16.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34172
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-05-23.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34200
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-05-30.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34244
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-06-06.html
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=34296
https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2025-06-06.html#06
Looks like Steve Sailer was not the only person who abandoned the Unz Review after Trump got elected in the 2024 election.