Battle of Lepanto post, R.I.P.

In case you  missed it, I made a post yesterday about the Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571. It had a link to the Wikipedia page (that link) and another to G.K. Chesterton's poem "Lepanto" with some excerpts from the latter. 

There was also a meme making a joke about putting your feet up on an ottoman while saying your rosary. (Link. It might work.)

Now I had a devil of a time with stray code showing up in that blog post, screwing up the formatting but I thought I finally had the stray code stripped out. However, when I checked this morning I saw that I had a couple big white bars there indicating there were some stray "div" references, so I went to edit them out.

And somehow screwed up the layout of the entire blog so that my let sidebar was just gone, and only some of the right sidebar was there; what there was, was at the bottom of the page.

I tried several things, but finally deleted that post, and viola! Sidebars are back. So for the eight or nine people that even know this blog exists, that's the story of how I lost a really entertaining, informative post, but also how I came to have a new theme on the page.

Have You Kippled Lately?

Kipling Society homepage

Anent my second most recent post:
Poems - The Sons of Martha

The Sons of Martha

THE Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, " Be ye removèd" They say to the lesser floods " Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd - they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill tops shake to the summit - then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

 The rest of the poem, as well as notes on the text, sources, references, etc.,  at the link.

This one is a perennial favorite in some corners of the blogosphere: Poems - 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'

"Wrongthink SF Giveaway"

Appropriately for the 242^nd anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, the Wrongthink Sci-Fi Giveaway is giving away works of Science Fiction by authors who have been marginalize by the Social Justice Warriors who think fiction should be ideological agenda driven.

Enter at this URL: http://badnovelist.com/giveaways/wrongthink-sci-fi-giveaway/?lucky=9667

Contemplating the election today, all I could think of was "For God's sake, no one visit Dan'l Webster's grave!"

— Drang (@DWDrang) October 30, 2016

Or, heck, maybe someone should go tell him what we've got up to. I'd like to see what he'd do... I think.

Well, this is... interesting...

Incest, suicide, and murder: What we can expect from Tolkien's dark new story. Published 8/20/2015. World.

"Oh, that wizard and hobbit stuff is for kids!"

Which is right down there with the attitude of a former co-worker that "It's all just demonic crap."

Why didn't I know about this?!

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has a web site.

For some reason I thought the contest had been retired years ago, but apparently rumors of it's demise were greatly exaggerated.

Alas, the gems and jewels from the earliest years of the contest are only available in the remainders bins on the shelves of your local used book store.

I wonder if I still have my copies...? Or did maybe someone who shall remain nameless, but who is probably even now wishing I had never heard of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, dispose of them...?

(For better or worse, there does not seem to be a website for the International Imitation Hemingway Competition, AKA "The Good Bad Hemingway Contest." Which does seem to be defunked. Alas.)



(It's killing me that I haven't been able to work any really horrendous puns or abuses of grammar or punctuation or sentence structure or usage or other really good examples of really bad writing in here because that just really seems like the thing to do here but if you can't do such a thing out of the joy of the thing, then...)

Wotcher, Sir Terry

Damnit.

Well, whaddaya know?

A search on Amazon for "libertarian science fiction" returns some interesting results.  L. Neil Smith and J. Neal Schulman (what is it with Neil/Neals?)m of course, a refrigerator magnet of Heinlein in midshipman uniform, the complete F. Paul Wilson (again with the initial initials!) LaNague Federation stories (staring with "Lipidleggin'")...  C.M. Kornbluth and A.E. Van Vogt.  (Met Van Vogt, way back when I was a Neo in fandom.  At the time, the thought of a Canadian writing books based on the premise that THE RIGHT TO BUY WEAPONS IS THE RIGHT TO BE FREE was not particularly ironic...)
Vin Suprynowicz is there.
Lots of what seems to be self-published stuff, speaking of which, DO NOT buy Carl Bussjaeger's books from Amazon, they're pirated editions.
Anthony Pacheco is there.  So is a lot of NOT science fiction...
...A lot of which seems intended to bash libertarianism.
Or Ayn Rand, specifically.

Oddly enough, a "sponsoring link" showed up at the bottom of the page for one of Washington's Representatives, Cathy McMorris Rogers.  Less dodly, another one was for The Libertarian Futurist Society.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAH!

I have no doubt that Robert A. Heinlein had more to do with the man I grew up to become than any other non-blood relation.

The Heinlein Society
The Heinlein Biography
The Heinlein Archives
And, for "Heinlein's Kids" with money than I, the Virginia Edition of RAH's works includes all his works, including unpublished fiction and non-fiction, letters, and screenplays. 
Yes, that's screenplayS, plural...

Shall We Kipple? (III)

'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know." 

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death." 

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die." 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! 

This could well serve as a summary of current "conservative" thought.

Shall We Kipple? (II)

Dane-geld

A.D. 980-1016*

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

To call upon a neighbour and to say: –

"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,

 Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld

And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,

To puff and look important and to say: –

"Though we know we should defeat you,

we have not the time to meet you.

We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

 But we've proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

 You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,

 For fear they should succumb and go astray;

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,

You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,

 No matter how trifling the cost;

For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

 And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Feel free to add dates, i.e., 1930-1938, 1979-2012, etc.

Shall we Kipple? (I)

The Truce of the Bear

1898

YEARLY, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in -
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless - toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad - the Bear that walks like a Man!

"There was a flint in my musket - pricked and primed was the pan,
When I went hunting Adam-zad - the Bear that stands like a Man.
I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow,
When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago!

"I knew his times and his seasons, as he knew mine, that fed
By night in the ripened maizefield and robbed my house of bread.
I knew his strength and cunning, as he knew mine, that crept
At dawn to the crowded goat-pens and plundered while I slept.

"Up from his stony playground - down from his well-digged lair -
Out on the naked ridges ran Adam-zad the Bear -
Groaning, grunting, and roaring, heavy with stolen meals,
Two long marches to northward, and I was at his heels!

"Two long marches to northward, at the fall of the second night,
I came on mine enemy Adam-zad all panting from his flight.
There was a charge in the musket - pricked and primed was the pan -
My finger crooked on the trigger - when he reared up like a man.

"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer,
Making his supplication rose Adam-zad the Bear!
I looked at the swaying shoulders, at the paunch's swag and swing,
And my heart was touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing.

"Touched witth pity and wonder, I did not fire then . . .
I have looked no more on women - I have walked no more with men.
Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray -
From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away!

"Sudden, silent, and savage, searing as flame the blow -
Faceless I fell before his feet, fifty summers ago.
I heard him grunt and chuckle - I heard him pass to his den.
He left me blind to the darkened years and the little mercy of men.

"Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer style,
That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard) a mile?
Luck to the white man's rifle, that shoots so fast and true,
But - pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear can do!"

(Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and grey -
Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his pay.)
"Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard -
Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear,
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;
When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,
When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer
That is the time of peril - the time of the TRuce of the Bear!"

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door,
Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o'er and o'er;
Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the flame,
Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow's game;

Over and over the story, ending as he began: -
"There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a Man!"

Reading

Amazon.com: Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (9780743249904): Eliot A Cohen: Books, Eliot A. Cohen: The story of frontier warfare in 17th-19th Century America-- especially along the "Great Warpath", the Hudson River up to Lake George and Lake Champlain--and how the frontier warfare experience led to the "American Way Of War." For we Americans do, indeed, have a different way of making war than other peoples, even going on a century and a half after fighting the last Indian War. How much this influenced American Exceptionalism, or vice versa, I'm not prepared to opine at this time...

This is a period that has fascinated me as long as I can remember, because I think I realized--unconsciously, at first--that it did have such a large part in who we became.

Mr. Cohen sent a career working in the US Government in the State and Defense Departments, and sometimes he uses modern terminology or jargon that would have been unrecognizable to, say, Cotton Mather, Robert Rogers, or George Washington. But using modern terminology or concepts doesn't render the conclusions invalid, and, frankly, I think that, once the concepts were explained to them, our forefathers would have grasped the terms and concepts and made use of them.

Recommended for anyone with an interest in American military history, or American culture. 

***

Defiance, by Nechama Tec.  Apparently, the Jewish culture center in Seattle had an event last year about the Bielski Partisans, and one or members of the unit were there.  I was a little annoyed that I hadn't known, since Mrs. Drang's boss's mother in law was involved in setting it up, and certainly someone should have known... Sigh.  

Anyway, he Daniel Craig movie was based on this book, at least in part. The writing style can occasionally be off-putting, it might help to remember that the author is not a native speaker of English.

***

Up next:  White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America (9780306814730): Stephen Brumwell.  A factual re-telling of the St. Francis Raid by Rogers' Rangers, in retaliation for the massacre of the garrison of Ft. William Henry (as retold memorably, if not 100%  factually, in Last of the Mohicans.  The St. Francis Raid was also the subject of the first half of Kenneth Roberts' novel Northwest Passage, and the movie of the same name.)  (I notice that Firefox does not like the spelling "Mohicans."  Firefox is correct in this case:  The proper spelling is actually Mahicans.)

***

I heartily recommend that anyone who is interested in the general subject of frontier conflicts between Europeans/Americans and Native Americans  read Allan W. Eckert's Winning of America series, which fall into the odd genre of narrative history, i.e., they read like novels. Novels with copious foot/end notes, but novels.  I especially like when a later volume has a footnote that says something like "Contrary to what some young idiot named Eckert wrote 30 years ago..."

Reading, 02/27/2012

Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson
Going back to the library, so I'll just end my posting about this one with a quote from his Conclusion:

Why did the West dominate the rest and not vice versa? I have argued that it was because the West developed six killer applications that the Rest lacked. These were:

1. Competition, in that Europe itself was politically fragmented and that within each monarchy or republic there were multiple competing corporate entities.
2. The Scientific Revolution, in that all the major seventeenth century breakthroughs in the mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology happened in Western Europe.
3. The rule of law and representative government, in that an optimal system of social and political order emerged in the English-speaking world, based on private property rights and the representation of property-owners in elected legislatures.
4. Modern medicine, in that nearly all the major nineteenth and twentieth century breakthroughs in health care, including the control of tropical diseases, were made by Western Europeans and North Americans.
5. The consumer society, in that the Industrial Revolution took place where there was both a supply of productivity-enhancing technologies and a demand for more, better, and cheaper goods, beginning with cotton garments.
6. The work ethic, in that Westerners were the first people in the world to combine more extensive and intensive labour {sic--he's a Scot} with higher savings rates, permitting sustained capital accumulation.

How many of those are under attack today from one quarter or another of the progressive sphere?

This is one of the first books I've gotten from the library in quite a while that I felt like actually purchasing in hard cover...

Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer.  Does the phrase "Honest graft" seem like a contradiction in terms to you?  Yeah, me too.  But not congresscritters.  They have special "ethics" rules just for them.

What a bunch of crooks. 

"Civilization: The West And The Rest"

Currently reading Niall Ferguson's "Civilization:  The West And The Rest".  This is the third or fourth book by Ferguson I've read, and the most accessible. 

The title sums it up:  Why did China stagnate and the West prospered?  Why did Islam regress, while the West advanced?  Why did North America (and by extension the Anglosphere) enjoy liberty and stability while the former possessions of Spain and Portugal sank into--or remained in--chaos and violence?  And so on... and what is the prognosis for the West's future?

Recommended.

Reading

Working my way through Niall Ferguson's War of the West--about halfway through now.  While many refer to the 20th Century as The American Century, I get the impression that Mr. Ferguson feels that England could (and should) have prevented a lot of the true tragedies from happening.

John Billings' The Two-headed Eagle, his third story of Linienschiffsleutnant Ottokar Prohaska of Kaiserlicht und Koeniglicht, er, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, before and during WWI.  This one takes place during the five-month-or-so interlude when Otto was on the beach, if that phrase applies when a submariner is taken from his pig boat and seconded to the Air Corps.
These books read somewhat like the Perils of Pauline, if Pauline had been an Eastern European subject of Emperor Franz Josef.  I can't fathom the amount of research that had to be done to write these.  (Assuming it wasn't just made up from whole cloth, which, I suppose, is not impossible for the details regarding the Austro-Hungarian navy before and during WWI...)
Also, for some reason I picked up the first title in the series expecting it to read sort of like the officer's version of The Good Soldier Schwiek.  Aside from detailed descriptions of the arcane bureaucratic nightmare that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire in it's dying days, not so much.

How To Be Invisible, JJ Luna.  I think I saw this recommended on Instapundit.  Some good advice here, the emphasis on staying legal distinguishes it from similar publications from Paladin Press or Loompanics or the like.
The writing style is  bit off-putting for me, too much quoting of newspaper items, with details including names and the like.  Too many news reports cited.  Also was a bit turned off by the paragraph on page 4 about how many firearms there are in America, and the statement about how much more crime there is here than in Europe... Hmmm, last time I looked at the statistics, it sure looked like crime here was at a lower rate than there...
Also a lot of reference to "personal enemies."
Author resides in the Canary Islands.
I guess, if you think that "invisibility" is the ideal form of safety...

Currently Reading

I think this'll be a new, ongoing feature.  I keep meaning to post reviews, but...

Just finished:  Dead Six, by Larry Correia and Mike Kupari.  Thriller/military action-adventure in the near future.

Just started:  Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon, by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.  How a bunch of Democrats, and a few RINOs, turned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the Monsters That Ate The Economy.

Next Up:  The End of Sparta: A Novel, by Victor Davis Hanson.  So far as I know, his first work of fiction.  (No matter what the Puffington Host might think.)(And I use "think" in the loosest possible sense...)

Plus, The Works of H. Beam Piper by H. Beam Piper is on the ebook reader.  1700+ (nominal, electronic) pages!

RIP

R.I.P. Anne McCaffrey, Creator of Pern and The Ship Who Sang

Verse of the Day

Inspired by my misunderstanding of Bill Quick's post Daily Pundit » Deals on Screw Guns

Screw-guns
by Rudyard Kipling

SMOKIN’ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be’ind me, an’ never a beggar forgets
It’s only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain’t:
We’d climb up the side of a sign-board an’ trust to the stick o’ the paint:
We’ve chivied the Naga an’ Looshai, we’ve give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are built in two bits—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

If a man doesn’t work, why, we drills ’im an’ teaches ’im ’ow to behave;
If a beggar can’t march, why, we kills ’im an’ rattles ’im into ’is grave.
You’ve got to stand up to our business an’ spring without snatchin’ or fuss.
D’you say that you sweat with the field-guns? By God, you must lather with us—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

The eagles is screamin’ around us, the river’s a-moanin’ below,
We’re clear o’ the pine an’ the oak-scrub, we’re out on the rocks an’ the snow,
An’ the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an’ stamp o’ the lead-mules the jinglety-jink o’ the chains—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

There’s a wheel on the Horns o’ the Mornin’, an’ a wheel on the edge o’ the Pit,
An’ a drop into nothin’ beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit:
With the sweat runnin’ out o’ your shirt-sleeves, an’ the sun off the snow in your face,
An’ ’arf o’ the men on the drag-ropes to hold the old gun in ’er place—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

Smokin’ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool,
I climbs in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule.
The monkey can say what our road was the wild-goat ’e knows where we passed.
Stand easy, you long-eared old darlin’s! Out drag-ropes! With shrapnel! Hold fast—’Tss! ’Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they’ll be only your graves, but you can’t get away from the guns!

Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift, I

In this first excerpt from Paul Rahe's book Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift,  which I wrote of here, Professor Rahe is talking about Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his book The Social Contract, specifically the four kinds of laws, the political, civil, criminal, and the fourth "most important kind", the unwritten laws "which is engraved neither in marble nor in bronze but in the hearts of the citizens", made up of ""mores, of customs, and... opinion."

Even in his discussion of this fourth species of law, Rousseau understates the magnitude of the challenge facing the lawgiver, for the importance he attributes to mores, customs, and opinions derives from the fact that, like Machiavelli, Hobbes, Hume, and Montesquieu, he denies that man is a political animal.  In consequence, he observes, the polity depends on artifice, and

a man who dares to undertake the institution of a people must sense that he is in a condition to change, so to speak, human nature; to transform each individual who by himself is a whole perfect and solitary, into part of a much greater whole from which each individual receives in a certain fashion his life and his being; to alter the contribution of man for the purpose of giving it added strength; to substitute an existence partial and moral for an existence physical and independent which we have all received from nature.  In a word, it is necessary that he remove from man the strengths belonging to him in order to give him strengths which are foreign to him and which he cannot use without the help of others.  The more that these natural strengths are dead and annihilated, the more those acquired are great and durable, the more the institution is solid and perfect.  Insofar as each Citizen is nothing, is able to do nothing except with all the others, and the strength acquired by the whole is equal or superior to the sum of the natural strength of all the individuals, one can say that the legislation is at the highest point of perfection that it can attain.

While we often praise a team as being an example of "The whole is greater than that sum of the parts", Rousseau takes this to an extreme which approaches blasphemy for the average American (and reaches it, for some of us).

Rousseau would seem here to be denying that the very individuality of the individual, that which distinguishes us from other social animals, has any value. 

Authoritarian dictators love this reasoning, of course.  "You are nothing without the state!"  It doesn't matter whether they say it in French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, or with an accent from somewhere near the Loop, they'll try and convince one and all that the individual citizen's (subject's, peasant's, proletarian's) life only has meaning in the context of service to, and services from, the Motherland, the Fatherland, the Homeland.

Tall tree, short rope, some assembly required.