wretchard writes: “Of all the handicaps that a culture can labor under, no disadvantage is quite so heavy as an addiction to lies. The sheer inability of the intellectual and cultural leaders, the priests of political correctness, to see past their own conceits is a terrible burden to endure.”

And Anton writes: “Stand with the priciples of classical Western Civilization or march down the Path of Folly into a new utopian Dark Age.”

Richard’s title, “The Consolotions of Philosophy,” refers to the great prose-poem of late antiquity, “The Consolation of Philosophy,” written (c. 523 A.D.) by the Roman senator Boethius. From an old senatorial family, educated in the classics, he was in prison for (allegedly) plotting against the Ostrogoth emperor Theodoric. The quotation from Richard, above, could serve as a summary of the “Consolation,” in which the prisoner Boethius, guided by Lady Philosophy, works towards an understanding of lies and truth.

After Boethius . . . the troubles and tribulations and tribalisms of the Dark Ages. But the Middle Ages never forgot Boethius or the “Consolation,” the greatest of works of late antiquity.

Chaucer was a disciple of Boethius and a student of the “Consolation.” Here is a stanza (modernized a little) from “Lack of Steadfastness”

“Sometime this world was so steadfast and stable
That man’s word was [his] obligacioun;
And now it is so false and deceivable
That word and deed, as in conclusion,
Be nothing alike, for turned up-so-down
Is all this world for mede [gain] and wilfulnesse,
That all is lost for lack of steadfastnesse.”