Topic
Protection in this collection is most honest when it acknowledges that protectors also protect their own interests. Twain's banker-and-umbrella is the most cited entry in the collection on institutional protection: the people and institutions that claim to protect you tend to withdraw when you actually need protecting. Napoleon on religion keeping the poor from murdering the rich is the most unsentimental account of what ideological protection actually does. Russell on love as a haven of refuge is the personal counterweight: the most reliable protection is not institutional but relational. Shaw on the fire and the nearest painting is the comedy version of triage under pressure: protection requires decisions about what matters most. Nietzsche's best-weapon-against-an-enemy-is-another-enemy is protection as geopolitics, which has been guiding strategy since before Rome. Twain on press freedom laws that protect nobody from the press closes the collection: the gap between proclaimed protection and actual protection is often the political space most worth examining.