Sublime

He despised the mathematical or utilitarian approach to politics. He attacked those who mistook comfort for civilisation. In his view real civilisation required deeper roots. A nation to be worthy of the name will build on its own history, customs and creed.

the mental inertia that John Stuart Mill called the ‘deep slumber of a decided opinion’.

despotically over

Europe, as noted earlier, has in a short span of time gone from being the most predictable and stable region—one where history seemed to have truly ended (as suggested in an influential essay published in 1989 by the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama)—to something dramatically different. Democracy, prosperity, and peace all seemed firml