Henry Kissinger on the limits of democracy in the Middle East

Some states as presently constituted may not be governable except through methods of governance or social cohesion that Americans reject as illegitimate. These limitations can be overcome, in some cases, through evolutions toward a more liberal domestic system. Yet where factions within a state adhere to different concepts of world order for survival, American demands to call off the fight and assemble a democratic coalition government tend either to paralyze the incumbent government (as in the Shah's Iran) or to fall on deaf ears (the Egyptian government led by General SISI - now heeding the lessons of its predecessors' overthrow by tacking away from a historic American alliance in favor of greater freedom of maneuver). 

Henry Kissinger, World Order. Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History (Penguin Books 2015) 136

Conor Foley on the limits of forcible and non-forcible humanitarian interventions and human rights

Humanitarian interventions are at best a necessary evil since by their very nature they cause harm to the societies they are trying to help. Even at their most benign, relief assistance operations, such as the one following the tsunami, lead to economic and social distortion, weaken local capacity and encourage dependence. Military interventions are even more destabilizing and result in significant costs for both the occupier and occupied. It is noticeable how few places where large-scale humanitarian interventions took place in recent years have succeded in making the transition to stability. Virtually all these countries remain deeply fractured societies with weak national authorities. Some are effectively still governed as international protectorates, to the increasing frustration of their own populations. [...]
Many commentators have also noted striking similarities between today's debates on humanitarian interventions and those that took place towards the end of the nineteenth century during the 'scramble for Africa'. The missionaries, teachers and doctors who followed the soldiers of European armies presumably believed they were helping to spread the benefits of 'civilization' to 'backward races'. Anti-slavery activists enthusiastically supported military action against the largely Arab-controlled slave trade. The British Navy's decision to interdict slave ships flying foreign flags and liberate their victim was a humanitarian assault on the previously accepted international legal doctrine of respect for state sovereignty. The treaties enabling slave traders to be put on trial by any state that captured them also laid the basis for subsequent laws of universal jurisdiction. John Stuart Mill could be seen as one of the earliest advocates for the establishment of international protectorates, when he argued that' 'Despotism is a legitimate form of government in dealing with barbarians, providing the end be their improvement.'
Of course, the analogies can be overdone but they require western liberals to think more seriously about the supposed universal values they hope their interventions will promote. [...] international human rights and humanitarian law were primarily drafted by western political leaders and the supporters of both movements remain overwhelmingly middle-class, liberal and western in their social backgrounds, yet the main focus of their efforts is in places where quite different conceptions of these notions prevail [...]
This suggest the need to develop a rather different discourse on human rights interventionism, one which is more modest in recognizing its limitations, but more ambitious in recognizing what needs to be done. A useful starting point would be to acknowledge that the conception of human rights western liberals have created, refined and prepackaged for export, is not the only one in existence. A broader dialogue is needed for the ways in which respect for human dignity, personal freedom and individual autonomy can be located in discussions of how to address the injustices caused by the imbalances of wealth and power in the world today. Combating extreme equality are two of the most important underlying causes of conflict and humanitarian crises, human rights and humanitarian organizations haven an important role to play in the arguments for economic justice.

Conor Foley, The Thin Blue Line. How Humanitarianism Went to War (Verso 2008/2010), 233-5 (footnotes omitted) 

Why Nations Fail

The most common reason why nations fail today is because they have extractive institutions. [...] their extractive economic institutions do not create the incentives needed for people to save, invest, and innovate. Extractive political institutions support these economic institutions by cementing the power of those who benefit from the extraction. Extractive economic and political institutions, though their details vary under different circumstances, are always at the root of this failure.

Daren Acemoglu and James A Robinson, Why Nations Fail. The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Crown Business Books 2012) 368 and 372

Abschied

Alle Häfen

waren am schönsten beim Lichten

der Anker 

Dagmar Nick, Schattengespräche

Creativity and War

It could be argued, for instance, that the breakaway from classical literary, musical, and artistic styles that is so characteristic of the twentieht century was an indirect reaction to the disillusion people felt at the inability of Western civilization to avoid the bloodshed of World War I. It is no coincidence that Einstein's theory of relativity, Freud's theory of the unconscious, Eliot's free-form poetry, Stravinsky's twelve-tone music, Martha Graham's abstract choreography, Picasso's deformed figures, James Joyce's stream of consciousness prose were all created—and were accepted by the public—in the same period in which empires collapsed and belief systems rejected old certainties.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity. Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (HarperCollins e-books 2009) 107

Kafka und der Abschied

es gibt ein Kommen und ein Gehn
Ein Scheiden und oft kein – Wiedersehn

Wilhelm Schmid zur Gelassenheit

"Ein kultureller Sinn, der dem Älterwerden gegeben werden kann, ist die Entdeckung von Ressorucen, die das Leben leichter und reicher machen, gerade jetzt. Eine solche ist die Gelassenheit. Es scheint an ihr zu fehlen: Die Moderme wühlt die Menschen dermaßen auf und wirbelt ihr Leben so sehr durcheinander, dass die Sehnsucht nach Gelassenheit wächst. Sie war ein großer Begriff in der westlichen Philosophie seit Epikurs ataraxia (>>Nicht-Unruhe<<) im 4./3. Jahrhundert v. Chr., in der christlichen Theologie seit Meister Eckahrts gelazenheit im 13./14. Jahrhundert. In der Moderne aber geriet sie in Vergessenheit. Sie fiel dem stürmischen Aktivismus, dem wissenschaftlich-technischen Optimismus zum Opfer, ihre Zurückhaltung galt nicht als Tugend. Die simulierte Coolness, die an ihre Stelle trat, hielt immerhin die Erinnerung an ihre humane Tiefe und Wärme wach. Eine bestimmte Lebenszeit schien wie geschaffen für die Gelassenheit: Das Älterwerden. Aber auch d araus ist eine stürmische Zeit geworden, die Gelassenheit will nicht mehr so ohne Weiteres gelingen. Wie ist sie wiederzugewinnen? Kann die älter werdende Gesellschaft eine gelassenere werden?"

Wilhelm Schmid, Gelassenheit. Was wir gewinnen, wenn wir älter werden (Insel Verlag 2014), 15f.