Victor Davis Hanson talks about War and Peace.

Penner and I had the great opportunity to attend a talk that Victor Davis Hanson gave as part of the Community Speakers Series at the Saroyan Convention Center. If you ever get a chance to see Hanson in person, do so. The man is the very embodiment of reflective erudition. I can't help but think that our public discourse would be dramatically raised by a few mandatory classes in the Classics and, certainly, listening to Hanson is like listening to Mozart compated to the "nails on chalkboard" cacaphony offered by the likes of Howard Dean and Jeanine Garofolo.

The speech was well attended by several hundred individuals, most of whom appeared to be retired. I'd guess that I and my host were among the youngest people in the audience and we're in our forties. But stop there for a second. Reflect on the fact that several hundred people went to listen to a Classics professor who used words like "manichean" and casually noted that the last time two consenual societies went to war with each other was 415 BC when Athens invade Sicily as if he expected everyone to understand these references. Note that's several hundred people in Fresno, California, and I rather suspect that they did understand these references.

Hanson spoke away from the podium and without notes and presented an engaging and coherent analysis of war through the ages, making particular use of Thucydides assertion that wars are started by fear, honor or perceived interests. His view appears to be that bin Laden may have been motivated by the element of fear since he and his kind are looking at a future where you can go anywhere and find someone in sneakers carrying a walkman and wearing a "University of California T-shirt." That future must appear threatening to bin Laden. Hanson likened it to the Spartans who knew that Athen's "likeability" threatened their way of life.

Perhaps, Penner will post his take on Hanson's talk in the comment box. I did want to commemorate this accolade to life in the Valley:

Hanson pointed out that he finds more wisdom and common sense among farmers in Selma than in all of the facultry meeting rooms of all of the great universities he's been to. Academics, he reflects, have tenure and something about tenure makes academics think that they can reason with other people who will recognize that the academics are correct because they are so dad-gummed educated. This attitude is fostered by the unique hot-house environment of the academic world where you have lifetime tenure and what you do isn't supposed to have consequences on your income.

Farmers, on the other hand, know that life is unfair. They can do everything right - they can plant, weed and water - and in the end a freak storm can wipe everything out. "Crap just happens." So it's not surprising, according to Hanson, that a farmer in Selma is more likely to say, "that Osama is one bad dude. He's not going to stop, until someone goes out there and stops him." Crap happens, but what are you going to do about it? Whine and pass a resolution? Or roll up your sleeves and fix the problem?

Being originally from the Valley, I appreciate Hanson's observation. I think if you're from a place like Fresno, you can go either of two ways. You can either be embarrassed by the provincial backwardness of your home and swear to leave and go to where people are sophisticated and cultured. Or you can go to the big city and realize that those folks are a bunch of silly eunuchs. Many of my friends took the first course and they're gone to LA or San Francisco or wherever. God bless them, but based on my experience, Hanson and I made the better choice.