Originally I was going to read Metamorphoses by Ovid but I realized that I didn’t have the time. So I decided to listen to the audiobook of How to Get Over a Breakup instead. I hope that Metamorphoses was a better read.
This book was a disappointment. It did however get me to think about how little human nature has changed over time. Unfortunately Ovid provides horrible advice and I hope that it was written in jest and not as serious advice.
Mixed in with his morally bankrupt ideas there were some suggestions that were better. I will give one example of each. As a morally bankrupt idea he suggests before being intimate with your chosen partner to go have sex with someone else first so you will last longer with your partner. One of his better suggestions was to fill your time with activities after you break up so that your mind will not have the time to wander back to thoughts of your former love interest.
Overall this was not a book I would recommend.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
