This summer I went on a backpacking trip up a mountain about 6 hours away from where I live. We had the best luck all the way up and down that 8,000 ft mountain, only for it all to nearly fall apart at the end.
First we got down, only to realize I couldn't find the keys to my car. 3 hours from cell-phone reception. Miraculously, after a half-hour of searching I found them lodged into my ruck harness - presumably where they had landed when I was quickly packing that morning, despite 6 hours of hiking over rough terrain. That by itself could have turned pretty ugly.
But we got on the road, and drove 3 hours to my friend's hometown, only to eat a bunch of food and burn a bunch of time because we were tired and indecisive. By the time I finally get on the road I've been up 12 hours, hiked down a mountain, and had about 6 hours sleep in the last 48. Alone on the straightest, most boring road you can imagine - and it's getting dark.
After about an hour, I pull off to the side because I'm getting groggy. But with traffic whipping past me I don't want to stop there. In retrospect, I should have slept right then and there. But I don't, I get back on the road and call my friends to see if they want to meet up and drive my car. Only there's nowhere to stop, and I'm barely hanging on at this point.
Eventually we figure out that there's a rest area (the only one for hours in either direction) up ahead that I can pull into and wait in. So now I've got my window open and my radio blasting and I'm drinking water and trying to keep my eyes open. I see the familiar blessed sign - and it informs me that there is a rest area in 9.5 miles. That's like an eternity to me at this point.
Semis are blasting past me on the other side of the two-lane highway with their bright beams disorienting as hell, and their shocking passage is terrifyingly close at this point. I finally see the rest area sign again - 2 miles to go. Dear god, this is brutal.
The cars behind me are getting close as I slow down because I DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS EXIT. But their beams make me further disoriented, and at this point I figure I have about 5 minutes left before I'll just fall asleep. I've already heard the rumblestrip a couple times, and I figure this is it. I see the familiar blue rest area sign (my vision is so bad at this point it's hard to focus on anything more than that) - 3/4 mile. No shit. I remember being infuriated at this. Who the hell plants so many signs for a damn rest area?
The last 1/2 mile brought me to my limit. I had started the day at the top of a mountain, and now I was about to die like a fucking idiot. I pretty much lost control of my speed at this point, coasting along at 10 under and focusing entirely upon the course and staying awake. I see the final sign up ahead, but to add insult to injury a huge line of semis zooms past me in the other direction. It felt like a gauntlet. In the end I'm barely able to limp off the road and into the rest area parking lot, where I fall asleep almost instantly.
I woke up one hour later with my friend knocking on the window with a concerned smile. She got some coffee and then drove us home. I'm never doing that to myself ever again.
More stories of near death experiences can be found in this thread. There's one about a kayaker on a Class 5 rapid that made me wince, and then want to write my own.
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essay. Show all posts
24.11.08
10.9.08
The Why of the Vice-Presidential Pick (Part Two)
This is the second half of my essay analyzing the vice-presidential picks by Barack Obama and John McCain. I'd suggest reading the first part before delving into this one.
According to the Median Voter Theorem, Obama’s decision should have been relatively straightforward. Having clinched his party nomination, Obama should have deliberately moved towards the median, independent voter – effectively following a political Laffer curve. Clinton’s widespread support among moderate women would make her the obvious choice from that game theory model. Whatever votes Obama lost from the contention would be more than made up for by independents and cherry-picked Republican moderates.
But he didn’t pick Clinton. Obama chose Biden.
In Game Theory class, this decision was rationalized using Prospect Theory. That is, that Obama knew that picking Clinton would improve his chances of winning the election, but the utility of probably winning the Presidency with Clinton as VP was lower than potentially winning the election without the worry of an administration at odds with itself – essentially that he was too emotionally biased against Clinton to make the right call. This model is supported by the largely adversarial primary campaign, and Obama’s statement towards the end of the contest that he was not considering Clinton as a candidate for vice-president.
However, I disagree with this understanding. For all the idealism displayed in the campaign – the grandiose speeches and calls for “Hope” and “Change,” Obama is fundamentally an American pragmatist. In his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, as well as many of his speeches, Obama displays a considered attitude conscious of the difficulty of the road ahead. He appears driven by a desire to effect policy, and willing to compromise in order to do so. It seems uncharacteristic of the man to jeopardize the prospects of the entire liberal movement in order to spite Clinton.
For me at least, this model appears insufficient. In game theory, we are taught that a model is only correct if it serves a purpose. While perhaps this is merely confirmation bias, I don’t think that a model predicated upon the irrationality of Obama and his campaign advisors is particularly serving the purpose of explaining Obama’s decision. These are people who created a juggernaught campaign, raised unheard of amounts of money, and shoved aside a shoe-in candidate at the 10-yard line – it does not seem likely that they would bench Clinton for a Hail Mary pass rather than kiss and make up.
Therefore, I drop the prospect theory explanation, and return to the discussion of Obama’s choice between focusing on independent voters and depressing conservative turn out.
The Median Voter Theorem is predicated upon the existence of the uninformed voter. That is the purpose of appealing to the median voter – to convince the uninformed that their opinions are moderately liberal or moderately conservative. Converting the decided voter is far more of a crapshoot. But in an election that has seen record advertising and discussion, truly uninformed voters are rare at this point. Most people have already decided if they are liberal or conservative, and are unlikely to cross all the way over the aisle.
From this perspective, Obama and McCain were engaged in an infinitely serial Prisoner’s Dilemma with imperfect information: they were effectively cooperating with each other by striving for moderate voters and increasing their base for this election and those in the future. Each party benefited from the contest, because it pulls in donations and marginalizes the third parties. But at some point each campaign needed to stop going after the increasingly marginal number of undecided voters, call that a 50 / 50 game, and work on shoring up their base in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.
In this model, it can be expected that the two parties will follow the Trigger Strategy (as opposed to Tit For Tat in the primaries or between like-minded parties,) meaning they will cooperate until “Nature” provides a triggering event that will cause one player to defect, followed by the other, for the remainder of the game.
That is exactly what seems to have happened.
Biden is a liberal who will help to bolster turnout in Democratic blue-collar areas. His credentials are unlikely to actually convert those leaning towards McCain, but rather to allay concerns that might keep moderate liberals home or induce disaffected Republican voters to voting against Obama. Whereas picking Clinton would have rallied a limp conservative flag.
McCain seems to have recognized this signal for what it was. Rather than picking Joe Lieberman to drive home McCain’s maverick image, or even Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty to gain the median voters ignored by the Democratic pick, McCain chose little known Sarah Palin. The little-known Alaskan governor has proved to be a hit with social conservatives and small government traditionalists, but has struck out with moderates and all but the most ardent PUMAs.
While the McCain / Palin ticket has seen such rocky roads out of the starting gate that they haven’t really been able to get on the offensive, I predict that Republicans will begin fielding attacks aimed at depressing Democratic turnout as the official campaign kicks into full gear. Though neither campaign will totally abandon rhetoric aimed at convincing undecided voters, particularly in battleground states, I think that the candidates are going to focus on raising the percentages of their base, rather than increasing the size of the base as a whole. I’d also anticipate aggressive tactics by the DNC and RNC to gain the full support of the Green Party and Libertarian Party respectively.
I have one final point to make supporting this model, which lies with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. If Prospect Theory was correct, and Obama spited Clinton while McCain retaliated against his party preventing him from choosing Lieberman, then Clinton’s and Romney’s involvement with their respective campaigns would be very limited. Instead, both Clintons have maintained their stumping around the Mid-West, while Romney is revving up for an offensive after Republicans throw off the Palin controversies, while being touted as the Republican candidate for 2012 or 2016.
Surely the prospect of allowing those two to recover by retaining them as stump speakers would be little different from having to deal with them as vice-presidents. And the Republicans are certainly no idealists. The Prospect Theory model just doesn’t explain the picks.
According to the Median Voter Theorem, Obama’s decision should have been relatively straightforward. Having clinched his party nomination, Obama should have deliberately moved towards the median, independent voter – effectively following a political Laffer curve. Clinton’s widespread support among moderate women would make her the obvious choice from that game theory model. Whatever votes Obama lost from the contention would be more than made up for by independents and cherry-picked Republican moderates.
But he didn’t pick Clinton. Obama chose Biden.
In Game Theory class, this decision was rationalized using Prospect Theory. That is, that Obama knew that picking Clinton would improve his chances of winning the election, but the utility of probably winning the Presidency with Clinton as VP was lower than potentially winning the election without the worry of an administration at odds with itself – essentially that he was too emotionally biased against Clinton to make the right call. This model is supported by the largely adversarial primary campaign, and Obama’s statement towards the end of the contest that he was not considering Clinton as a candidate for vice-president.
However, I disagree with this understanding. For all the idealism displayed in the campaign – the grandiose speeches and calls for “Hope” and “Change,” Obama is fundamentally an American pragmatist. In his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, as well as many of his speeches, Obama displays a considered attitude conscious of the difficulty of the road ahead. He appears driven by a desire to effect policy, and willing to compromise in order to do so. It seems uncharacteristic of the man to jeopardize the prospects of the entire liberal movement in order to spite Clinton.
For me at least, this model appears insufficient. In game theory, we are taught that a model is only correct if it serves a purpose. While perhaps this is merely confirmation bias, I don’t think that a model predicated upon the irrationality of Obama and his campaign advisors is particularly serving the purpose of explaining Obama’s decision. These are people who created a juggernaught campaign, raised unheard of amounts of money, and shoved aside a shoe-in candidate at the 10-yard line – it does not seem likely that they would bench Clinton for a Hail Mary pass rather than kiss and make up.
Therefore, I drop the prospect theory explanation, and return to the discussion of Obama’s choice between focusing on independent voters and depressing conservative turn out.
The Median Voter Theorem is predicated upon the existence of the uninformed voter. That is the purpose of appealing to the median voter – to convince the uninformed that their opinions are moderately liberal or moderately conservative. Converting the decided voter is far more of a crapshoot. But in an election that has seen record advertising and discussion, truly uninformed voters are rare at this point. Most people have already decided if they are liberal or conservative, and are unlikely to cross all the way over the aisle.
From this perspective, Obama and McCain were engaged in an infinitely serial Prisoner’s Dilemma with imperfect information: they were effectively cooperating with each other by striving for moderate voters and increasing their base for this election and those in the future. Each party benefited from the contest, because it pulls in donations and marginalizes the third parties. But at some point each campaign needed to stop going after the increasingly marginal number of undecided voters, call that a 50 / 50 game, and work on shoring up their base in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.
In this model, it can be expected that the two parties will follow the Trigger Strategy (as opposed to Tit For Tat in the primaries or between like-minded parties,) meaning they will cooperate until “Nature” provides a triggering event that will cause one player to defect, followed by the other, for the remainder of the game.
That is exactly what seems to have happened.
Biden is a liberal who will help to bolster turnout in Democratic blue-collar areas. His credentials are unlikely to actually convert those leaning towards McCain, but rather to allay concerns that might keep moderate liberals home or induce disaffected Republican voters to voting against Obama. Whereas picking Clinton would have rallied a limp conservative flag.
McCain seems to have recognized this signal for what it was. Rather than picking Joe Lieberman to drive home McCain’s maverick image, or even Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty to gain the median voters ignored by the Democratic pick, McCain chose little known Sarah Palin. The little-known Alaskan governor has proved to be a hit with social conservatives and small government traditionalists, but has struck out with moderates and all but the most ardent PUMAs.
While the McCain / Palin ticket has seen such rocky roads out of the starting gate that they haven’t really been able to get on the offensive, I predict that Republicans will begin fielding attacks aimed at depressing Democratic turnout as the official campaign kicks into full gear. Though neither campaign will totally abandon rhetoric aimed at convincing undecided voters, particularly in battleground states, I think that the candidates are going to focus on raising the percentages of their base, rather than increasing the size of the base as a whole. I’d also anticipate aggressive tactics by the DNC and RNC to gain the full support of the Green Party and Libertarian Party respectively.
I have one final point to make supporting this model, which lies with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. If Prospect Theory was correct, and Obama spited Clinton while McCain retaliated against his party preventing him from choosing Lieberman, then Clinton’s and Romney’s involvement with their respective campaigns would be very limited. Instead, both Clintons have maintained their stumping around the Mid-West, while Romney is revving up for an offensive after Republicans throw off the Palin controversies, while being touted as the Republican candidate for 2012 or 2016.
Surely the prospect of allowing those two to recover by retaining them as stump speakers would be little different from having to deal with them as vice-presidents. And the Republicans are certainly no idealists. The Prospect Theory model just doesn’t explain the picks.
7.5.08
Tocqueville v Mill (Part Two)
I wrote a class essay comparing two of liberal theory's earliest adherents, Tocqueville and J.S. Mill. I thought that I would share it here. One of the things I find most fascinating about the authors is that so many of their arguments are continued today: the relationship between liberty and equality, for instance, or the role of women in society. Reading the old authors gives context, and a reference point to better understand today's debates.
This is the second of two parts of this essay:
The previous passages are examples of how Mill and Tocqueville tend to unite in message, but deviate in tone. But this is not to say that this is always the case. Both authors speak to the equality of women in society, and in generally positive tones towards women.
In his essay The Subjection of Women, Mill writes at length about the importance of female empowerment, which he considers a major issue confronting democratic societies. Tocqueville echoes this perspective in his short chapter ‘How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman,’ which he concludes with the hypothetical question: “[Were I] asked to what I think must be principally attributed the remarkable prosperity and growing strength of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of their women.” (Tocqueville, 268)
However, once the two authors are examined critically, one recognizes that there are striking differences between their real opinions on this issue. Mill speaks of the status of women in terms of slavery, while Tocqueville easily assumes the “inferiority” of women compared to men.
“I have not noticed,” Tocqueville writes, “that American women considered conjugal authority as a happy usurpation of their rights nor that they believed that to submit to it was to abase themselves. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they fashioned for themselves a kind of glory out of the voluntary renunciation of their will and that they placed their grandeur in bending themselves to the yoke and not escaping it. That, at least, is the sentiment that the most virtuous ones express: the others keep quiet, and in the United States one does not hear an adulterous wife noisily clamoring for woman’s rights while trampling on her most sacred duties.” (Tocqueville, 266)
Comparatively, Mill argues forcefully for greater freedoms on the part of women – for an escape from the domestic role that Tocqueville espouses.
“The legal subordination of one sex to the other,” Mill writes, “is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.” (Mill, 119)
In this, it is clear that despite having a similar tone, Mill strongly differentiates himself from Tocqueville, who characterizes the former’s argument as submission to the “despotic empire of women.”
Thus, it is shown that the two men differ greatly on this subject, as they do on other topics such as racial segregation and Mill’s leanings beyond liberalism, towards libertarianism. Still, it is best to note their similarities than to contrast their differences, for both lived in an era where liberalism remained a revolutionary idea.
Tocqueville and Mill share themes in their works. Both authors promote American-style democracy, individual freedom and the role of the middle-class. They both contend with the dichotomies of liberty versus authority, and liberty versus equality. And perhaps the most important similarity of all is their common fear of the tyranny of the majority, which was perhaps best explained thusly by Prof. James Ingram: “It is a fear that the public will become a tyrant, and eventually appoint one.”
For Tocqueville, this fear was vindicated 20 years after the publication of Democracy by the coronation of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as emperor of France.
This is the second of two parts of this essay:
The previous passages are examples of how Mill and Tocqueville tend to unite in message, but deviate in tone. But this is not to say that this is always the case. Both authors speak to the equality of women in society, and in generally positive tones towards women.
In his essay The Subjection of Women, Mill writes at length about the importance of female empowerment, which he considers a major issue confronting democratic societies. Tocqueville echoes this perspective in his short chapter ‘How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman,’ which he concludes with the hypothetical question: “[Were I] asked to what I think must be principally attributed the remarkable prosperity and growing strength of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of their women.” (Tocqueville, 268)
However, once the two authors are examined critically, one recognizes that there are striking differences between their real opinions on this issue. Mill speaks of the status of women in terms of slavery, while Tocqueville easily assumes the “inferiority” of women compared to men.
“I have not noticed,” Tocqueville writes, “that American women considered conjugal authority as a happy usurpation of their rights nor that they believed that to submit to it was to abase themselves. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they fashioned for themselves a kind of glory out of the voluntary renunciation of their will and that they placed their grandeur in bending themselves to the yoke and not escaping it. That, at least, is the sentiment that the most virtuous ones express: the others keep quiet, and in the United States one does not hear an adulterous wife noisily clamoring for woman’s rights while trampling on her most sacred duties.” (Tocqueville, 266)
Comparatively, Mill argues forcefully for greater freedoms on the part of women – for an escape from the domestic role that Tocqueville espouses.
“The legal subordination of one sex to the other,” Mill writes, “is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.” (Mill, 119)
In this, it is clear that despite having a similar tone, Mill strongly differentiates himself from Tocqueville, who characterizes the former’s argument as submission to the “despotic empire of women.”
Thus, it is shown that the two men differ greatly on this subject, as they do on other topics such as racial segregation and Mill’s leanings beyond liberalism, towards libertarianism. Still, it is best to note their similarities than to contrast their differences, for both lived in an era where liberalism remained a revolutionary idea.
Tocqueville and Mill share themes in their works. Both authors promote American-style democracy, individual freedom and the role of the middle-class. They both contend with the dichotomies of liberty versus authority, and liberty versus equality. And perhaps the most important similarity of all is their common fear of the tyranny of the majority, which was perhaps best explained thusly by Prof. James Ingram: “It is a fear that the public will become a tyrant, and eventually appoint one.”
For Tocqueville, this fear was vindicated 20 years after the publication of Democracy by the coronation of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as emperor of France.
5.5.08
Tocqueville v Mill (Part One)
I wrote a class essay comparing two of liberal theory's earliest adherents, Tocqueville and J.S. Mill. I thought that I would share it here. One of the things I find most fascinating about the authors is that so many of their arguments are continued today: the relationship between liberty and equality, for instance, or the role of women in society. Reading the old authors gives context, and a reference point to better understand today's debates.
This is the first of two parts of this essay:
French historian Alexis de Tocqueville and British philosopher John Stuart Mill are both important authors in the history of liberalism and individual freedom. Tocqueville’s post French-revolutionary Democracy in America examined the successes and failures of 19th century America, with an eye towards the democratization of Western Europe. Mill’s On Liberty, published 25 years later, is considered a founding document of liberal thinking. Together, the two writers propose powerful arguments for personal liberty and democratic government – but from different perspectives. With different backgrounds and different political realities, it is not surprising that Tocqueville and Mill have different views on many issues; what is surprising is the number of striking similarities they do have.
Tocqueville was born a French aristocrat, in a time where the nobility had far more access to education and political power than the lower classes. This perspective permeated his writing, though he ended up supporting the republican movement that diminished the power of the aristocratic class.
“If one encounters less brilliance [in a Democratic state] than in the bosom of an aristocracy,” Tocqueville writes in the beginning of Democracy, “one also finds less misery; pleasures will be less extreme and well-being more general; the sciences less grand and ignorance rarer; feelings less energetic and habits milder; one will notice there more vices and fewer crimes.” (Tocqueville, 9)
Mill takes a note from Tocqueville’s writings, and he also explores the effects – positive and negative – that democracy has upon society. However, though Mill is equally well educated (and perhaps even more academic), he was decidedly middle-class (his father, James Mill, was a well-known liberalist author, but certainly not a noble). J.S. Mill’s upbringing means he identifies more with the common citizen than Tocqueville does. While both authors - in their own way - extol the virtues of the democratic middle class, Mill takes a more inclusionist tone. This can be seen from the beginning of On Liberty, where Mill’s language is more reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence than Tocqueville’s reflective work.
“From this liberty of each individual,” Mill writes, “follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” (Mill, 16)
Still, despite their distinct perspectives, Tocqueville and Mill often see eye to eye in a general sense. Both authors support individual freedoms, democratic government and suffrage. And each senses societal problems ignored or engendered by democracy, though the two remain broadly supportive of democratic ideals. For Tocqueville these concerns merely form part of his extended critique of American democracy, but Mill focuses his attentions upon these perceived problems.
"Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable,” Mill writes. “Europe is, in my judgment, wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation.” (Mill, 72)
This is the first of two parts of this essay:
French historian Alexis de Tocqueville and British philosopher John Stuart Mill are both important authors in the history of liberalism and individual freedom. Tocqueville’s post French-revolutionary Democracy in America examined the successes and failures of 19th century America, with an eye towards the democratization of Western Europe. Mill’s On Liberty, published 25 years later, is considered a founding document of liberal thinking. Together, the two writers propose powerful arguments for personal liberty and democratic government – but from different perspectives. With different backgrounds and different political realities, it is not surprising that Tocqueville and Mill have different views on many issues; what is surprising is the number of striking similarities they do have.
Tocqueville was born a French aristocrat, in a time where the nobility had far more access to education and political power than the lower classes. This perspective permeated his writing, though he ended up supporting the republican movement that diminished the power of the aristocratic class.
“If one encounters less brilliance [in a Democratic state] than in the bosom of an aristocracy,” Tocqueville writes in the beginning of Democracy, “one also finds less misery; pleasures will be less extreme and well-being more general; the sciences less grand and ignorance rarer; feelings less energetic and habits milder; one will notice there more vices and fewer crimes.” (Tocqueville, 9)
Mill takes a note from Tocqueville’s writings, and he also explores the effects – positive and negative – that democracy has upon society. However, though Mill is equally well educated (and perhaps even more academic), he was decidedly middle-class (his father, James Mill, was a well-known liberalist author, but certainly not a noble). J.S. Mill’s upbringing means he identifies more with the common citizen than Tocqueville does. While both authors - in their own way - extol the virtues of the democratic middle class, Mill takes a more inclusionist tone. This can be seen from the beginning of On Liberty, where Mill’s language is more reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence than Tocqueville’s reflective work.
“From this liberty of each individual,” Mill writes, “follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” (Mill, 16)
Still, despite their distinct perspectives, Tocqueville and Mill often see eye to eye in a general sense. Both authors support individual freedoms, democratic government and suffrage. And each senses societal problems ignored or engendered by democracy, though the two remain broadly supportive of democratic ideals. For Tocqueville these concerns merely form part of his extended critique of American democracy, but Mill focuses his attentions upon these perceived problems.
"Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable,” Mill writes. “Europe is, in my judgment, wholly indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation.” (Mill, 72)
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