Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Dedication -- To My Nieces and Nephews Prologue: A Little Knowledge I want to warn you from the very beginning: A memoir is very much like a confession, and you must be wary of people who write confessions. They are rarely sincere about their failings or themselves in their narratives because they cannot bear to be sincere about themselves in their lives. Everyone quotes Socrates’ famous apothegm: Know thyself. Few are willing to trace his self-knowledge to its bitter end in forced suicide, and fewer still practice what he preached. In the 21 st Century – Your century, my dear nieces and nephews – it may not be necessary to know oneself at all. In any case, perhaps it is better to concentrate on others. My century – the 20 th , the bloodiest in the history of the world, full of introspective maniacs – had its fill of self-regarding “men like gods.”