Powerful by @anneapplebaum - and I'd throw in another literary reference alongside hers to "The Scarlet Letter" 1/x
@anneapplebaum In her novella "Autres Temps," Edith Wharton tells the story of Mrs. Lidcote, who is exiled from New York's high society in disgrace because she divorced her husband sometime in the 1880s. 2/x gutenberg.org/files/24132/24…
@anneapplebaum Then history repeats itself. Sometime in the mid-1910s (the novella was published in 1916), Mrs. Lidcote's daughter Leila divorces her husband. Mrs Lidcote rushes home from European banishment to stand with her daughter against the impending social catastrophe ... 3/x
@anneapplebaum ... only to discover: nobody cares. On shipboard, Mrs Lidcote overhears a group of wealthy younger New Yorkers talking about who's who in society. Her daughter's name is mentioned, and - 4/x
@anneapplebaum Times have changed! A woman is no longer a pariah for leaving a husband she does not love. Leila is all right. She can remarry another society husband and mingle freely. Emancipation at last. Only ... 5/x
@anneapplebaum ... not for Mrs Lidcote herself. Nobody any longer remembers *why* Mrs Lidcote is so scandalous, only *that* she is scandalous. The fact that what she did in 1880-something would be perfectly acceptable in 1910-something does not matter. Pariah then, pariah now. 6/x
@anneapplebaum I often think of Wharton's story when I hear cases like those described by @anneapplebaum

The social pendulum will swing, as it always does. The young people of the 2030s will likely regard their elders who came of age in the early 2010s as absurdly censorious 7/x
@anneapplebaum just as in Wharton's story of the more permissive 1910s vs the more stringent 1880s.

But to the people crushed by social disapproval in one era, the easier standards of the next won't matter. Nobody ever remembers the details, only the outcome. 8/x
@anneapplebaum You can read "Autres Temps" here.
-END- gutenberg.org/files/24132/24…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with David Frum

David Frum Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @davidfrum

14 Sep
You don't need a new book to tell you that Trump tried to overturn an election and the Constitution by violence.

Or that House/Senate Republicans refused to impeach/convict him for his violent attempt.

Or that Trump is the front-runner for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination.
At this point, the news is not what Trump did in January 2021.

The news is the ever-growing number of Republicans willing to excuse, justify, exonerate, and repeat what Trump did in January 2021.
I know it's hard to keep being shocked.

But it did really actually happen that as a sitting president Donald Trump tried to overturn the US Constitution by violence.

And that a big chunk of the Congress and the country shrugged off the attempt as no big deal.
Read 4 tweets
12 Sep
How's the mass civil disobedience campaign against vaccine mandates going? At United Airlines, 50% of unvaccinated employees have already complied in the first 3 weeks of the 5 week grace period, according to CEO Jack Kirby. npr.org/2021/09/10/103…
How's the mass civil disobedience campaign against vaccine mandates going? At Delta Airlines, the vaccination rate has risen to 78% in just two weeks since a mandate was imposed, with no resignations, says the company's chief health officer. seattletimes.com/business/delta…
How's the mass civil disobedience campaign against vaccine mandates going? Tyson's Food imposed a mandate in August, employee vaccination rate has risen from 45% to 72% - cutting number of unvaccinated workers in half in less than a month whitehouse.gov/covidplan/
Read 17 tweets
11 Sep
In her excellent biography of Nancy Reagan, @ktumulty debunks the claim that Nancy's conservative Republican stepfather Loyal Davis swayed Ronald Reagan's political views. Instead, says @ktumulty, there's only one documented instance of Davis influencing Reagan ... 1/x
@ktumulty ... in 1967, when the California legislature enacted a permissive abortion law. Governor Reagan pondered whether to sign it. Davis - by then one of the country's most eminent brain surgeons - urged that Reagan should. For that reason or others, Reagan did. 2/x
@ktumulty Davis disapproved of the New Deal, but he put on record his distaste for organized religion of any kind and his lack of faith in Christianity in particular. Politics then was different from politics now. 3/3
Read 4 tweets
6 Sep
A footnote to my @TheAtlantic on the hazards of individual gun ownership. 1/x theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
@TheAtlantic As the article details, the vast majority of American gun buyers buy their guns with a view to protecting themselves or their families. Very few entertain fantasies of waging private war on the government. They mostly buy handguns, not rifles, let alone military-style rifles. 2/x
@TheAtlantic Yet here on Twitter (and in the email I get), there is a lot of talk about the private gun as bulwark against state tyranny. If the Nazis come to power in the United States, gun carriers will mobilize to do battle for the liberties of us all. So let's talk about that idea. 3/x
Read 21 tweets
3 Sep
A toddler in Florida found his father's gun, then fatally shot his mother in the head as she talked to colleagues on Zoom. globalnews.ca/news/8109852/m…

Fewer than half of American gun owners consistently store all their weapons safely. theatlantic.com/magazine/ar
That happened just this past August, shortly after we finished work on my @TheAtlantic piece on guns. Also in August, a North Carolina man who had not secured his gun was fatally shot by his own two-year-old son. independent.co.uk/news/world/ame…
@TheAtlantic Just two days ago, a Minnesota man annoyed by the antics of young people in a car in the next road lane shot and killed an 18 year old boy. twincities.com/2021/09/01/st-…
Read 10 tweets
28 Aug
"Parole Sirhan Sirhan? Are you crazy?"

"Look, the governor appointed you to this commission. You owe him. He's facing a tough recall election. He needs you to tee up for him an easy, crowd-pleasing, tough-on-crime VETO. So do your damn duty for your party, parole commissioner!"
For those asking, yes the governor can over-rule the commission.

And for those making the point that some members of the RFK family support the parole, I'll just note that the family member chiefly pushing it is RFK Jr. cnn.com/2021/08/27/us/…
More about RFK Jr here. Basically, you shouldn't trust him to read the time of day off a digital clock. mcgill.ca/oss/article/co…
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(