November 28, 2023
I was reading If Winter Comes, a novel by A.S.M. Hutchinson, written in 1921. He talks about Britain in the days when things were heating up in Europe, but before WWI began.
“The British public had never taken any interest in international affairs and it did not wish to take any interest in international affairs. It certainly did not wish to be disturbed by them…
“It [the mayhem in Europe] was characteristically intriguing in the nature of its excitement. It was characteristically intriguing because, like all the domestic sensations to which the British Public had become accustomed, it in no way interfered with the lives of those not directly implicated in it…[It] caused no member of [its] audience to go without his meals. [It] interfered neither with pleasure nor with business.”
That reminds me of us right now. Ukraine is fighting for its life, the Middle East is engulfed in a conflagration, but so far we’re just onlookers. I hope we don’t find out that we’re going to be a lot more involved than we thought we were.
