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It is the particular genius of the American system to balance ambition with ambition through a divided government (executive, legislative and judicial)

Conservatives believe that finite and fallen creatures are often wrong. We know that many of our attitudes and beliefs are the brain’s justification for pre-rational tendencies and desires

All of us have things to learn, even from our political opponents. The truth is out there, but it is generally broken into pieces and scattered across the human experience. We only reassemble it through listening and civil communication.

And conservatives believe that a just society depends on the moral striving of finite and fallen creatures who treat each other with a respect and decency that laws can encourage but not enforce.

no serious constitutional recourse seems to remain. While open to other options, I see none. It will now fall to citizens and institutions to (1) defend the legislature and judiciary from any encroachment, (2) defend every group of people from organized oppression, including Muslims and refugees, (3) expand and defend the institutions — from think tanks to civil liberty organizations — that make the case for a politics that honors human dignity. And pray for the grass to grow.

this type of conservatism — a conservatism of intellectual humility and moral aspiration — also has the advantage of being organic. It grows with tenacity in hidden places, eventually breaking down the cement and asphalt of our modern life.

This is not the political force that has recently taken over the Republican Party

That has been the result of extreme polarization, not a turn toward enduring values. The movement is authoritarian in theory, apocalyptic in mood, prone to conspiracy theories and personal abuse, and dismissive of ethical standards. The president-elect seems to offer equal chances of constitutional crisis and utter, debilitating incompetence.

The plausible case that Russian espionage materially contributed to the election of an American president has been an additional invitation to anger. Now, not only the quality but also the legitimacy of our democracy is at stake.

But what is the proper conservative response? It is to live within the boundaries of law and reality

In the midst of all our justified skepticism, we can never be skeptical of this: that the reason for politics is to honor the equal value of every life, beginning with the weakest and most vulnerable. No bad goal — say, racial purity or communist ideology — outweighs this commitment. And no good goal — the efficiency of markets or the pursuit of greater equality — does either.

The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom

Michael Gerson Opinion

But Germans are no longer so ready to be put on the moral defensive or to view the Nazi era as the defining episode of their past. Even non-Germans seem willing to move on. Recent books like “Germania” and “The German Genius” suggest that English-language publishing may be entering a post-swastika phase. Germany still atones but now also preaches, usually on the evils of debt, the importance of nurturing industry and the superiority of long-term thinking in enterprise. Others are disposed to listen. “Everyone orients himself towards Germany,”

A third of Germans think the country is overrun by foreigners, according to a newly published poll; a majority favour “sharply restricting” Muslim religious practice. Over a tenth would even welcome a Führer who would govern with “a strong hand”—a sign that the embers of extremism still glow.

the Bavarian sister party of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), declared this month that Germany needs no further immigration from Turkey or the Arab world. Germany is “not an immigration country”, he insisted, contradicting a hard-won consensus among conservatives.

the Berlin republic is a different sort of character from its westward-leaning, Bonn-based predecessor. Scholars had struck several awkward coinages to describe war-chastened Germany: it was a “tamed power” engaged in “attritional multilateralism”. These no longer seem apt for today’s more confident and self-willed Germany. But its identity is still unformed

“Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks. And the Acropolis while you’re at it,” demanded Bild, a popular tabloid

These unEuropean outbursts startled not just Greeks, who brandished swastikas in response, but Europeans generally. They had grown up believing that the Germans saw their own interests as inseparable from those of their fellow Europeans. Now they glimpsed a different, ugly German, smug about his economy and untroubled by his past.

The crisis has created a new pecking order, at least temporarily. Germany, with its high-competitiveness, low-debt economy, is on top. The rest are having to adjust, including France, traditionally a joint leader of the European project. This is unsettling. “You get an enormous sense of German self-righteousness, which is very difficult to take, especially when there are solid foundations for it,” says François Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. France, which has lagged behind Germany in making structural reforms, feels its influence waning. “France has to do its homework to be able to restore some level of influence in Europe,

Germany’s brightest business prospects do not involve its slow-growing neighbours but the charismatic economies of Asia and Latin America. A German acceptance of Turkish membership of the EU looks less likely than ever.

Despite their economic strength, Germans fear the worst. They believe their country “has passed its zenith”, says Mrs Kocher, the pollster. This pessimism shapes Germany’s dealings with the rest of the world. Unlike most countries, Germany is not driven by any great ambition, but rather by the fear that “things could fall apart if they don’t hold on to stability,”

Germany’s overall direction is obscure. It is torn, intrigued by its new possibilities but painfully aware that alone it does not count for much in the world. Its population is already shrinking. Europe will lose economic and demographic bulk relative to China, India and Brazil. The EU was virtually ignored at last year’s Copenhagen summit on climate change, even though it had taken the lead in setting targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. This was “an enormous shock”, says Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who now leads the liberals in the European Parliament. “It shows we need one voice.” Fear of war launched the European project; he hopes that fear of irrelevance will drive it forward.

in military terms, Germany remains a midget compared not just with America but with Britain and France, which together account for 70% of the EU’s military research and development and 60% of its deployable forces.

The modern GE was built by Jack Welch, the youngest CEO and chairman in company history when he took over in 1981. He ran it for 20 years, becoming the rare CEO who was also a household name, praised for his strategic and operational mastery.

their most obvious problem. GE couldn’t live without GE Capital, still so big it was essentially the nation’s seventh largest bank. But investors couldn’t live with GE Capital and its unshakable shadow of risk, either.

it worked more like a collection of businesses under the protection of a giant bank. As the financial sector came to drive more of the U.S. economy, GE Capital, the company’s finance arm, powered more of the company’s growth. At its height, Capital accounted for more than half of GE’s profits. It rivaled the biggest banks in the country, competed with Wall Street for the brightest M.B.A.s and employed hundreds of bankers.

The industrial spine of the company gave GE a AAA credit rating that allowed it to borrow money inexpensively, giving it an advantage over banks, which relied on deposits. The cash flowed up to headquarters where it powered the development of new jet engines and dividends for shareholders.

Capital also gave General Electric’s chief executives a handy, deep bucket of financial spackle with which to smooth over the cracks in quarterly earnings reports and keep Wall Street happy

GE shares were trading at 40 times its earnings when Welch retired in 2001, more than double where it had historically. And much of those profits were coming from deep within Capital, not the company’s factories.

When the financial crisis hit, Capital fell back to earth, taking GE’s share price and Immelt with it. The stock closed as low as $6.66 in March 2009. General Electric was on the brink of collapse. The market for short-term loans, the lifeblood of GE Capital, had frozen, and there was little in the way of deposits to fall back on. The Federal Reserve stepped in to save it after an emergency plea from Immelt.

the near-death experience taught investors to think of GE like a bank, a stock always vulnerable to another financial collapse

At its peak, General Electric was the most valuable company in the U.S., worth nearly $600 billion in August 2000. That year, GE’s third of a million employees operated 150 factories in the U.S., and another 176 in 34 other countries. Its pension plan covered 485,000 people.

What if the GE Jack Welch built didn’t work any more?

Cracks in the performance of the company’s industrial lines—its power turbines, jet engines, locomotives and MRI machines—would now be plain to see, some executives worried, without Capital’s cash to help cover the weak quarters and pay the sacrosanct dividend

Most of the shortfall came from its service contracts, which should have been the source of the easiest profits. Instead, the heart of the industrial business was hollow. And its failure was about to tip the entire company into crisis.

Former colleagues compared him to Bill Clinton because of his magnetic ability to hold the focus of a room. He sounded like a leader. He was a natural salesman.

Immelt was so confident in GE’s managerial excellence that he projected a sunny vision for the company’s future that didn’t always match reality. He was aware of the challenges, but he wanted his people to feel like they were playing for a winning team. That often left Immelt, in the words of one GE insider, trying to market himself out of a math problem.

Alstom’s problems hadn’t gone away, but now its stock was cheaper, and Immelt saw the makings of a deal that fit perfectly with his vision for reshaping his company. GE would essentially swap Capital, the cash engine that no longer made sense, for a new one that could churn out profits each quarter in the reliable way that industrial companies were supposed to.

To the dismay of some involved, GE’s bid crept upward, from the €30 a share that the power division’s deal team already believed was too high, to roughly €34, or almost $47. Immelt and Kron met one-on-one, and the deal team realized the game was over. The principals had shaken hands.

The visions for the present and the future were both fundamentally flawed. As GE’s research department was preparing white papers heralding “The Age of Gas,” the world was entering a multiyear decline in the demand for new gas power plants and for the electricity that made them profitable.

When advisers determined that the concessions to get the deal approved might have grown costly enough to trigger a provision allowing GE to back out, some in the Power business quietly celebrated, confiding in one another that they assumed management would abandon the deal. But Immelt and his circle of closest advisers wanted it done. That included Steve Bolze, the man who ran it and hoped someday to run all of General Electric.

“Steve’s our guy,” McElhinney said in one meeting. If Bolze was elevated to CEO, those behind him in Power would rise too. “Get on board,” he said. “We have to make the numbers.”

Immelt, trapped in Welch’s long shadow, craved a bold move to shock his company out of the doldrums that had plagued his tenure. It was time for GE to be reinvented again.

In the dry language of accounting in which he was so fluent, Flannery was declaring a pillar of Immelt’s pivot had failed: GE had been sending money out the door to repurchase its stock and pay dividends but wasn’t bringing in enough from its regular operations to cover them. It wasn’t sustainable. Buybacks and dividends are generally paid out of leftover funds.

when GE spun off Genworth, there was a chunk of the business, long-term-care insurance, that lingered. Policies designed to cover expenses like nursing homes and assisted living had proved to be a disaster for insurers who had drastically underestimated the costs

The bankers didn’t think the long-term-care business could be part of the Genworth spinoff. To make the deal more attractive, GE agreed to cover any losses. This insurance for insurers covered about 300,000 policies by early 2018, about 4% of all such policies written in the country. Incoming premiums weren’t covering payouts.

Two months after Miller flagged the $3 billion, it was clear the problem was a great deal larger. GE was preparing for it to be more than $6 billion and needed to come up with $15 billion in reserves regulators required it to have to cover possible costs in the future. The figure was gigantic. By comparison, even after the recent cut, GE’s annual dividend cost $4 billion.

JP Morgan analyst Steve Tusa, who led the pack in arguing that GE was harboring serious problems, removed his sell rating on the stock this week. GE’s biggest skeptic still thinks the businesses are broken but the risks are now known. The stock climbed back above $7 on Thursday, but is down more than 50% for the year and nearly 90% from its 2000 zenith.

In the 19th century, the secularization of Western society led to the secularization of pain. It was no longer a passion to be endured but a sensation to be quashed.

The concept of pain as a purely physical phenomenon reached its zenith in the 1990s

having pain designated a “fifth vital sign,” alongside blood pressure, temperature and breathing and heart rate.

This coincided with the release of long-acting opioids like OxyContin. Doctors believed they now had an effective remedy for their patients’ suffering

looking back it’s clear that using opioids to treat chronic pain — backaches, bum knees and the like — might well be considered the worst medical mistake of our era.

ecades of research suggests that opiates provide little to no benefit for chronic noncancer pain

Why is this? Studies have shown that opioids can reduce patients’ pain thresholds.

They can also result in a condition called opioid-induced hyperalgesia, in which people feel more and more pain as they are prescribed higher and higher doses of opioids

the mind does play a pivotal role in the experience of pain. After a pain signal reaches the brain, it undergoes significant reprocessing.

How much something hurts can vary depending on factors like your expectations, your mood and how distracted you are

pain is contagious and transmittable.

Conditions like depression and anxiety greatly increase the chance of developing chronic pain, while patients who experience pain are at high risk of developing depression or anxiety

there is considerable overlap in the areas of the brain that deal with pain and emotion.

Objectively, there is no doubt that illnesses and injuries can cause immense suffering. The question is how severe that suffering is, and how long it lasts

pain sensitivity varies significantly among people, most likely as a result of genetic differences.

rug companies greatly underplayed the risks of opioids, while billions of dollars in marketing told people that pills were the only answer to their ailments.

future doctors should be taught that pain is part of the story of the person who suffers from it, not just a separate physical phenomenon.

this education should incorporate ways to avoid prescribing opioids for chronic use.

Perhaps the most important tool physicians need to manage pain is empathy.

Physical therapy that doesn’t just manipulate joints but also addresses the context pain comes alive in, encourages optimism and builds emotional resilience has been found to be more effective.

unfortunately our health system encourages doctors to see as many patients as possible as quickly as possible. We need to change how physicians are paid in order to give them the time to really talk with patients about their pain.

I felt that the pain was my body’s way of telling me that something was wrong, and I didn’t want to silence that voice with a temporary fix.

What pulled me out after almost a year of agony was not just rigorous physical therapy that molded my spine back into shape but also the kindness of my friends, my family and my future wife.

a spiritual and emotional experience alleviated through prayers rather than prescriptions.

A bigoted Roman Catholic, Henry was rigorous in the repression of Protestantism, which was approaching the zenith of its power in France.

In foreign affairs Henry continued his father’s warfare against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V

He left four sons by his marriage to Catherine de Médicis: the future kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III and François

Claude, who married Charles III the Great, Duke of Lorraine

Margaret, who married Henry of Navarre (the future Henry IV)

The July Revolution of 1830 brought Louis-Philippe and the Orleanists into power.

The Orleanists supported Louis-Philippe’s grandson and heir, Louis-Philippe-Albert, count de Paris, after the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848 and during the Second Republic and Second Empire. The demise of the Second Empire, in 1870, offered another chance for a restoration of the monarchy, but the Third Republic was born while the Orleanists and Legitimists were still arguing over a candidate. After the direct male line of the elder Bourbons died out in 1883, most of the Legitimists joined the Orleanists in fruitlessly supporting the count de Paris for the throne.

“One is talking about artefacts that were put in the deep freeze 1,000 years ago, and later and earlier, and were taken out when we found them. So a textile is almost perfectly preserved, one might find arrows with the fletching perfectly preserved, with the sinew still in place, the glue that glued the feathers to the shaft. These are quite remarkable finds.”

While the objects are frequently “extraordinary”, he said, “what is really important archaeologically about them isn’t the individual objects, it’s the story that putting together all of the objects can tell you” about the pass and the people who travelled it.

Last October, North Korea displayed its biggest missile yet -- an updated version of the Hwasong-15

Japan, America's most important ally in the Pacific and home to numerous US military bases housing tens of thousands of US personnel, was alarmed.

North Korea has previously demonstrated it has missiles that can reach Japan. In 2017, it tested two ballistic missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Later that year, Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, that soared skyward before splashing into waters off the coast of Japan. If it had flown on a standard trajectory, David Wright, an expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it could have traveled 13,000 kilometers (8,100 miles).

"Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United States,"

The atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, by the US in 1945 killed 70,000 people with its initial blast, and left tens of thousands of others to die slowly from burns or radiation-related illnesses.

The CFR report notes, however, that as the massive missile displayed at the parade had not yet been tested, its real capabilities remain unknown.

The South Korean Defense Ministry puts Pyongyang's army at 1.28 million people compared to Seoul's 550,000.

North Korea has successfully tested nuclear bombs on six occasions, in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016 and in 2017, according to the CFR report.

"With each test, North Korea's nuclear explosions have grown in power,"

Ballistic missiles are powered only through the initial stages of their flight, reaching a zenith at some point and then falling from gravity onto their targets.

"We're going to have to learn to live with North Korea's ability to target the United States with nuclear weapons," Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies, said in the CFR report.

A 2020 white paper from South Korea's Defense Ministry said Pyongyang has 13 missile brigades. At October's military parade, nine missiles were unveiled, including the massive ICBM and a submarine-launch ballistic missile, according to the document.

"North Korea is expected to continue to upgrade its nuclear and missile capabilities in the name of strengthening its self-defense capabilities and mobilize all of its manpower and resources with the aim of improving residents' lives by 2022 when it marks the 110th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birthday,

Pyongyang's army has developed new multiple-rocket launchers that can hit anywhere in South Korea, Seoul's Defense Ministry said, potentially putting the country's entire population of more than 50 million people in danger.

almost 30,000 US troops are based in South Korea on US military installations that dot the country.

The ballistic missiles Pyongyang tested Thursday -- the second weapons test in less than a week -- were likely of a shorter range variety

North Korea's ground forces can also call on 4,300 tanks, 2,600 armored vehicles and 8,800 artillery pieces

The North's navy has 430 combat ships and 70 submarines.

its air force has 810 combat aircraft.

North Korea's firepower could be brought to bear quickly on Seoul because the South Korean capital is only about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the 38th parallel that divides the Korean Peninsula.

However, regardless of whether Pyongyang ever makes good on its threats, the CFR says the potential for attack can't be ignored. 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King Djoser asked Imhotep, an architect, priest and healer, to design a funerary monument for him; the result was the world’s first major stone building, the Step-Pyramid at Saqqara, near Memphis. Egyptian pyramid-building reached its zenith with the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo.

During the third and fourth dynasties, Egypt enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity. The pharaohs held absolute power and provided a stable central government; the kingdom faced no serious threats from abroad; and successful military campaigns in foreign countries like Nubia and Libya added to its considerable economic prosperity

until about 2160 B.C., when the central authority completely dissolved, leading to civil war between provincial governors. This chaotic situation was intensified by Bedouin invasions and accompanied by famine and disease.

The kingdom also built diplomatic and trade relations with Syria, Palestine and other countries; undertook building projects including military fortresses and mining quarries; and returned to pyramid-building in the tradition of the Old Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom reached its peak under Amenemhet III (1842-1797 B.C.); its decline began under Amenenhet IV (1798-1790 B.C.

The controversial Amenhotep IV (c. 1379-1362), of the late 18th dynasty, undertook a religious revolution, disbanding the priesthoods dedicated to Amon-Re (a combination of the local Theban god Amon and the sun god Re) and forcing the exclusive worship of another sun-god, Aton. Renaming himself Akhenaton (“servant of the Aton”), he built a new capital in Middle Egypt called Akhetaton, known later as Amarna. Upon Akhenaton’s death, the capital returned to Thebes and Egyptians returned to worshiping a multitude of gods.

In 525 B.C., Cambyses, king of Persia, defeated Psammetichus III, the last Saite king, at the Battle of Pelusium, and Egypt became part of the Persian Empire.

The last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt–the legendary Cleopatra VII–surrendered Egypt to the armies of Octavian (later Augustus) in 31 B.C. Six centuries of Roman rule followed, during which Christianity became the official religion of Rome and the Roman Empire’s provinces (including Egypt). The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs in the seventh century A.D. and the introduction of Islam would do away with the last outward aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and propel the country towards its modern incarnation.

Until recently, cancellation flowed exclusively downward, from the powerful to the powerless

in this era of fallen gatekeepers, where anyone with a Twitter handle or Facebook account can be a publisher, banishment has been ostensibly democratized

the N.F.L. has a different power at its fingertips: the power of monopoly

if we are to construct such a world, we would do well to leave the slight acts of cancellation effected in the quad and cafe, and proceed to more illustrious offices.

The N.F.L. is revered in this country as a paragon of patriotism and chivalry, a sacred trust controlled by some of the wealthiest men and women in America. For the past three years, this sacred trust has executed, with brutal efficiency, the cancellation of Colin Kaepernick.

It would be nice to live in a more forgiving world, one where dissenting from groupthink does not invite exile and people’s occasional lapses are not held up as evidence of who they are

Mr. Kaepernick’s cancellation bars him from making a living at a skill he has been honing since childhood.

the wrongdoing of elite institutions was once hidden from public view, in the era of Donald Trump it is all there to be seen.

A sobering process that began with the broadcast beatings of civil rights marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965, then accelerated with the recorded police brutality against Rodney King, has achieved its zenith with the social media sharing of the executions of Walter Scott, Laquan McDonald and Daniel Shaver.

The new cancel culture is the product of a generation born into a world without obscuring myth, where the great abuses, once only hinted at, suspected or uttered on street corners, are now tweeted out in full color

Nothing is sacred anymore, and, more important, nothing is legitimate — least of all those institutions charged with dispensing justice. And so, justice is seized by the crowd.

Mr. Kaepernick is not fighting for a job. He is fighting against cancellation. And his struggle is not merely his own — it is the struggle of Major Taylor, Jack Johnson, Craig Hodges and Muhammad Ali

This isn’t a fight for employment at any cost. It is a fight for a world where we are not shot, or shunned, because the masters of capital, or their agents, do not like our comportment, our attire or what we have to say.

the power of networks has varied over time and that the relative importance of the tower and the square has ebbed and flowed. Nonetheless, Ferguson sees two specific periods as standing out as intensely “networked eras.” The first started in the late 15th century, after the introduction in Europe of the printing press, and lasted until the late 18th century. The second, “our own time,” began in the 1970s and is still going on.

from the late 1790s until the late 1960s, was terrible for networks. Ferguson writes that “hierarchical institutions re-established their control and successfully shut down or co-opted networks. The zenith of hierarchically organized power was in fact the mid-twentieth century — the era of totalitarian regimes and total war.”

“The Square and the Tower” will not disappoint readers who have come to expect from Ferguson ambition, erudition, originality and expansive historical panoramas. These often come mixed with telling anecdotes, illuminating minutiae, fun facts and even some facile one-liners that, while entertaining, don’t add much to the argument.

it is too much, and not all of it is illuminated by the “theoretical insights from myriad disciplines.” In fact, it is surprising how little Ferguson relies on the initial chapters on network theory to make his case.

In the remaining eight parts of the book, this network theory mostly disappears and the story is told in standard historical narrative.

its main unit of analysis, the social network, is too imprecise a concept to provide a solid foundation from which to launch the book’s epic theorizing. Most networks have some hierarchical features, and, as Ferguson notes, “a hierarchy is just a special kind of network

Nonetheless, the networks-and-hierarchies dichotomy does work as a narrative device that allows a gifted storyteller to take his readers on a fascinating tour of world history.