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Reading Max Weber in praise of proportion and perspective reminded me of you-know-who…

This is the psychological quality of the politician: his ability to let realities work upon him with inner concentration and calmness. Hence his distance to things and men. ‘Lack of distance’ per se is one of the deadly sins of every politician. For the problem is simply how can warm passion and a cool sense of proportion be forged together in one and the same soul?

ps. How cool?

Max Hastings’s review (subscriber protected) of Andrew Roberts’s new book Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Victory in World War IIrams home the true nature of the Second World War. We think of it as a national triumph – and of course it was. Yet victory was only made possible by the immense sacrifice of Soviet troops. Four out of every five Germans killed in action died on the Eastern front. Russian losses were much higher.

A key tactical moment in the course of the war was the decision by Roosevelt and Churchill to pursue the Mediterranean strategy, attacking targets in North Africa rather than in continental Europe. Hastings writes:

Marshall admitted after the war that he and his colleagues did not understand, as did Roosevelt and Churchill, the importance of military theater: of commitments that might not be strategically decisive or even relevant, but that sustained a semblance of momentum in the Western Allied war effort.

Irrelevant victories to sustain momentum? Battles of perception? It is incredible how, on closer examination, even the bloodiest combats begin to look like confidence wars.

The dreadful Guardian Saturday magazine reports on a landmark 1976 psychology study:

Two American researchers, Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin, gave a group of elderly nursing home residents a plant to care for. Another group in the same home were given plants, but told that nurses would take care of them.

Three weeks later, those who had cared for their own plants reported much higher levels of happiness than those who hadn’t; 18 months later, their health and levels of activity had improved and, most significantly, fewer of those residents had died.

The author concluded from this that caring for others, even for plants, can make us happier – and even extend our lives.

I conclude that taking part in pseudo-scientific experiments can make us happier – and even extend our lives.

Perhaps someone can explain to me why my conclusion isn’t valid?

Reading Michel Foucault’s superb essay on the uses of history: “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” (pdf). I particularly liked these lines:

Rules are empty in themselves, violent and unfinalised; they are impersonal and can be bent to any purpose. The successes of history belong to those who are capable of seizing these rules, to replace those who had used them, to disguise themselves so as to pervert them, invert their meaning and redirect them against those who had initially imposed them.

I have a theory about this. It is: that the tidal waves of passive-aggression that sweep across offices is the result of just the kind of rule perversion that Foucault describes. The rules specify that aggression is bad; so people use these rules to oppress each other. Ever so politely, of course – but, frankly, I’d prefer a punch in the face to an “I’ll let you get back to it…”

[See also: How to apologise]

I’m reading The Sun Also Rises at the moment. It’s very Hemingwayish, more so somehow than the other novels. When there’s less happening, style and preoccupations come through much more clearly.

One line made me laugh. It comes about halfway through the book, when the main character – Jake Barnes – visits a man he knows in Pamplona to buy tickets for the bullfighting. Jake says:

He was an archivist, and all the archives of the town were in his office. That has nothing to do with the story.

It’s a strange thing to say. The whole book is full of observations like that – why tell us that this one is irrelevant? I guess it serves to remind the reader how every detail is being marshalled towards the final effect. Anyway, it struck me as amusing.

It’s a fine book, as Jake would say. Reading it, I’m reminded of one of the liqueurs the characters are endlessly drinking – a pernod, or an aguardiente. Like them, this is cool, dry and slightly sour – and, of course, unexpectedly strong.

If you’re looking for something to go on holiday with you could do worse than this. It’s easy to read, has short chapters and is only 210 pages long. It also makes you think about drinking – something we can only really do properly on holiday. All his novels have that effect, or at least they do on me.

All Hemingway’s novels could also be summed up by the drinks in them – For Whom The Bell Tolls would be a spicy Spanish wine, Green Hills of Africa a whisky. A Farewell to Arms has vast amounts of all sorts of booze, including a the delightful-sounding eggnog spiked with sherry. Perhaps it would be a beer, or maybe a vermouth. The Old Man and the Sea is all about the absence of drink.

Speaking of which…

I know I’m biased, but I think my sister Sapphire’s paintings are brilliant. This is a selection of her still lifes – you can see them enlarged here. My favourite is the golden apple (third or fourth in), which she gave to my other sister for Christmas last year. I got a DVD.

Some of the other ones are for sale, I think. They’re magnificent when they’re framed – Saph decorates the frame as well.

You can contact her via the comments. I’ll pass on any messages.

Gordon Brown spoke very well at TED. Yes, you read that right. He was charming, moving, passionate, frank and deeply moral – the prime minister we wish he had, not the one we think we’ve got.

I was particularly impressed by the way Brown referred to the “corrupt” Burmese regime, or the “fixed” Zimbabwean election. Hardly world-changing views I know, but he did so in a direct, down-to-earth way, without any sense that he was posturing or grandstanding.

One philosophical note. At the beginning of his talk, Brown shows a series of iconic photos of suffering and poverty. Their importance, he says, lies in their form:

What we see unlocks what we cannot see. What we see unlocks the invisible ties and bonds of sympathy that bring us together to become a human community.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith set out to explain why humans were able to form moral judgements, given our natural inclination towards self-interest. The answer, he found, lay in the visual sense.

Smith decided that it was the sight of observing others which made people aware of themselves and the morality of their own behavior. Knud Haakonssen, the editor of TMS, writes that in Smith’s theory

Society is … the mirror in which one catches sight of oneself, morally speaking.

Brown has consistently argued that the Left can claim Adam Smith just as well as the Right. Here’s another sense in which that is true.

The Telegraph’s Daily Bung gives a small insight into the ongoing existential crisis that is being life as a Spurs fan:

… fantasy football pie in the sky stuff may ease Joe Cole’s way out of Stamford Bridge, from whence he will make the short journey to White Hart Lane and presumably watch his talent and promise wither and die on the vine.

That’s the bleak picture painted for the currently injured forward by the Mirror, with Harry Redknapp launching a £10 million bid for his former player at this very moment. The paper go on to says that Chelsea would not be interested in selling and, even if they were, would want more than £10 million, which takes a little of the punch out of the story, eh?