VPS is complementary to MEOW; when WJ writes:

> "Dogs, would you live forever?" shouted Frederick the Great. "Yes," say our utopians, "let us live forever, and raise our level gradually."

he's within epsilon of Orwell's Tin Pacifists. But without both Bildung and VPS (I get my adrenalin dumps from sport*, and note that since I stopped fencing I suffer in winter from lack of regular VPS) there is very little attractive to:

— What do we want?

— Gradual change!

— When do we want it?

— In due course!

* there is a lot to be said for the kind of tournament weekend where during the days everyone tries to kill each other, and then in the evenings everyone parties together — almost like a "pie in the sky when you die" the vikings would've wished for?

EDIT: note that WJ channels Plato's Guardians. I don't know what metaphor JEC used but suspect he would've reached for a christian metaphor. JFK went for the pseudo-martial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPnJXXX5Ic

Lagniappe: (PH)

  The road to wisdom? -- Well, it's plain
  and simple to express:
           Err
           and err
           and err again
           but less
           and less
           and less.

EDIT2:

  向前一小步
  文明一大步

EDIT3: TK, UKlG in Dispossessed on youth being as suited for anarchy as they are for military service...