Barbarism, to paraphrase Christopher Dawson, is not a far-distant stage in the evolution of human society, but a perpetual possibility simmering under the surface of civilization. In no country on earth has barbarism erupted with more devastating force than in Somalia, a land of clashing creeds and ethnicities, murderous warlords, and, of course, those quintessential barbarians— pirates .
Partisanship is now (appropriately) at fever pitch, but some things should be beyond left and right. Among them is awed gratitude at the resilience of the American order. This is a nation where political reprisals take the form of unkind advertisements, and where the pirates illegally download Rocky III .
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…
