🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 76 (from laksa037)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa076.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war","crawl_time":1774612581,"first_indexed_time":0,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,substack!wit,\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war s443","src_root_hash":"14862242593741677076","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"The Wit's Guide To War - by Benjamin Errett - Get Wit Quick","meta_descriptions":["Or, the one good -ism"],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Everyone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.”\n“I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”\n—\nFrançois Truffaut\nWhich Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of\nThe Good Soldier Švejk\n.\nThis satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine.\n“Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.”\n— Joshua Glenn\nAs the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war,\nthe inspiration for\nCatch-22\nand\nM*A*S*H\n, and a recurring theme in Czech history.\n“Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,”\nan economist told a New York Times reporter\nin Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy.\n“I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”\n— Bernard de Fontenelle\nWar is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read\nthis\nNew York Times\ninterview with General Stanley McChrystal\n, who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article\nhas since been corrected\nbut the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war!\n“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”\n— Robert Lynd\nEvery schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war.\n“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”\n—\nFannie Hurst\nAnd Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their\nElection Profit Makers\npodcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the\nStrait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day\n. It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year!\nShare\n“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”\n— Jeannette Rankin\nAs Einštein\nfamously didn’t say\n, World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week?\nShare Get Wit Quick\nEach month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole!\nThis week I was chewing through\nThe Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore\n, a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in\nHarper’s\n. It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed:\nThe people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history.\nGet Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a\nmagpie\nnamed Magnus after the magician in\nRobertson Davies\n’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the\nofficial typeface of the band Vulfpeck\n. The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at\ngetwitquicker.replit.app\n. The book was\nElements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting\n. I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below.","attrs_markdown":"[![Get Wit Quick](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!k9fj!,w_40,h_40,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa1f44feb-f788-42f7-90ee-ccd04ebd4791_1280x1280.png)](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/)\n\n# [![Get Wit Quick](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!xIDG!,e_trim:10:white\/e_trim:10:transparent\/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F36a39ae7-751f-4401-8b10-aac3ae260640_6168x1304.png)](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/)\nSubscribe\n\nSign in\n\n# The Wit's Guide To War\n### Or, the one good -ism\nMar 26, 2026\n\n14\n\n3\n\n4\n\nShare\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!ug0N!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18a1defb-e0b5-4908-a1c0-ce12f00eb273_467x371.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!ug0N!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18a1defb-e0b5-4908-a1c0-ce12f00eb273_467x371.png)\n\n*No one wins; it’s a war of man. But [Josef Lada’s art](https:\/\/whosoutthere.ca\/2023\/02\/16\/the-brave-josef-lada\/) is pretty winning.*\n\nEveryone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.”\n\n> ***“I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”***  \n> — [François Truffaut](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2025\/04\/12\/antiwar-film\/)\n\nWhich Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of *[The Good Soldier Švejk](https:\/\/files.libcom.org\/files\/The%20Good%20Soldier%20Svejk%20-%20Jaroslav%20Hasek.pdf).* This satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine.\n\n> ***“Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.”*** — Joshua Glenn\n\nAs the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war, [the inspiration for](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/) *[Catch-22](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/)* [and](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/) *[M\\*A\\*S\\*H](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/)*, and a recurring theme in Czech history.\n\n“Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,” [an economist told a New York Times reporter](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1969\/06\/30\/archives\/schweikism-used-in-czech-protests-worker-goslow-movement-said-to.html) in Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy.\n\n> ***“I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”***  \n> — Bernard de Fontenelle\n\nWar is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read [this](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) *[New York Times](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html)* [interview with General Stanley McChrystal](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html), who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article [has since been corrected](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html#:~:text=A%20correction%20was%20made%20on%C2%A0March%2024%2C%202026%3A%C2%A0An%20earlier%20version%20of%20this%20article%20misidentified%20the%20people%20who%20were%20affected%20by%20U.S.%20and%20British%20intervention%20in%201953.%20They%20were%20Iranians%2C%20not%20Iraqis) but the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war\\!\n\n> ***“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”***  \n> — Robert Lynd\n\nEvery schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war.\n\n> ***“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”***  \n> — [Fannie Hurst](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2021\/08\/02\/interested-war\/)\n\nAnd Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their *Election Profit Makers* podcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the [Strait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day](https:\/\/epm.fireside.fm\/372?t=0). It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year\\!\n\n[Share](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n***\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9jwV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9jwV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)\n\n> ***“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”*** — Jeannette Rankin\n\nAs Einštein [famously didn’t say](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2010\/06\/16\/future-weapons\/#more-679), World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week?\n\nLoading...\n\n[Share Get Wit Quick](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n***\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!udAT!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!udAT!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)\n\nEach month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole\\!\n\nThis week I was chewing through *[The Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore](https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2026\/04\/the-joke-isnt-funny-anymore-will-self-death-of-satire\/)*, a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in *Harper’s*. It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed:\n\n> ***The people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history.***\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!iwUX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!iwUX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)\n\n*Get Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a [magpie](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-magpie-mind) named Magnus after the magician in [Robertson Davies](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/how-to-rag-on-the-maple-leaf)’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the [official typeface of the band Vulfpeck](https:\/\/ohnotype.co\/fonts\/vulf). The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at [getwitquicker.replit.app](https:\/\/getwitquicker.replit.app\/). The book was [Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting](https:\/\/benjaminerrett.com\/elements-of-wit). I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below.*\n\n14\n\n3\n\n4\n\nShare\n\nPrevious\n\n#### Discussion about this post\nComments\n\nRestacks\n\n[![Stephen D Forman's avatar](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!KoGd!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F46bc9fad-56c9-42a4-ad11-8b216a63fcaf_592x592.jpeg)](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/9007441-stephen-d-forman?utm_source=comment)\n\n[Stephen D Forman](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/9007441-stephen-d-forman?utm_source=substack-feed-item)\n\n[14h](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war\/comment\/233846983 \"Mar 26, 2026, 10:08 PM\")\n\nLiked by Benjamin Errett\n\n“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. But you shouldn’t have to lose everything.”\n\n— Jeannette Rankin, SVP Geovera Sales & Marketing\n\n[www.geovera.com](http:\/\/www.geovera.com\/)\n\n[Reply]()\n\n[Share]()\n\n[1 reply by Benjamin Errett](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war\/comment\/233846983)\n\n[![Myq Kaplan's avatar](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!t77Z!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b4d7b27-ede5-4640-b1cf-728390ad5db1_2550x3300.jpeg)](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/5512319-myq-kaplan?utm_source=comment)\n\n[Myq Kaplan](https:\/\/substack.com\/profile\/5512319-myq-kaplan?utm_source=substack-feed-item)\n\n[17h](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war\/comment\/233745495 \"Mar 26, 2026, 6:32 PM\")\n\nDear Benjamin,\n\nGreat post. Thank you for these quotes about war:\n\n“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”\n\n— Robert Lynd\n\n“I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”\n\n— Bernard de Fontenelle\n\n“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”\n\n— Fannie Hurst\n\nThank you for sharing as always.\n\nLove\n\nMyq\n\n[Reply]()\n\n[Share]()\n\n[1 more comment...](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war\/comments)\n\nTop\n\nLatest\n\nDiscussions\n\nNo posts\n### Ready for more?\n\n© 2026 Benjamin Errett · [Privacy](https:\/\/substack.com\/privacy) ∙ [Terms](https:\/\/substack.com\/tos) ∙ [Collection notice](https:\/\/substack.com\/ccpa#personal-data-collected)\n\n[Start your Substack](https:\/\/substack.com\/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer)\n\n[Get the app](https:\/\/substack.com\/app\/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button)\n\n[Substack](https:\/\/substack.com\/) is the home for great culture\n\nThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please [turn on JavaScript](https:\/\/enable-javascript.com\/) or unblock scripts","attrs_readable_markdown":"Everyone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.”\n\n> ***“I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”***  \n> — [François Truffaut](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2025\/04\/12\/antiwar-film\/)\n\nWhich Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of *[The Good Soldier Švejk](https:\/\/files.libcom.org\/files\/The%20Good%20Soldier%20Svejk%20-%20Jaroslav%20Hasek.pdf).* This satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine.\n\n> ***“Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.”*** — Joshua Glenn\n\nAs the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war, [the inspiration for](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/) *[Catch-22](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/)* [and](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/) *[M\\*A\\*S\\*H](https:\/\/lithub.com\/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk\/)*, and a recurring theme in Czech history.\n\n“Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,” [an economist told a New York Times reporter](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1969\/06\/30\/archives\/schweikism-used-in-czech-protests-worker-goslow-movement-said-to.html) in Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy.\n\n> ***“I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”***  \n> — Bernard de Fontenelle\n\nWar is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read [this](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) *[New York Times](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html)* [interview with General Stanley McChrystal](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html), who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article [has since been corrected](https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/23\/opinion\/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html#:~:text=A%20correction%20was%20made%20on%C2%A0March%2024%2C%202026%3A%C2%A0An%20earlier%20version%20of%20this%20article%20misidentified%20the%20people%20who%20were%20affected%20by%20U.S.%20and%20British%20intervention%20in%201953.%20They%20were%20Iranians%2C%20not%20Iraqis) but the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war\\!\n\n> ***“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”***  \n> — Robert Lynd\n\nEvery schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war.\n\n> ***“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”***  \n> — [Fannie Hurst](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2021\/08\/02\/interested-war\/)\n\nAnd Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their *Election Profit Makers* podcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the [Strait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day](https:\/\/epm.fireside.fm\/372?t=0). It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year\\!\n\n[Share](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-wits-guide-to-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9jwV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!9jwV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)\n\n> ***“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”*** — Jeannette Rankin\n\nAs Einštein [famously didn’t say](https:\/\/quoteinvestigator.com\/2010\/06\/16\/future-weapons\/#more-679), World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week?\n\n[Share Get Wit Quick](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share)\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!udAT!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!udAT!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)\n\nEach month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole\\!\n\nThis week I was chewing through *[The Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore](https:\/\/harpers.org\/archive\/2026\/04\/the-joke-isnt-funny-anymore-will-self-death-of-satire\/)*, a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in *Harper’s*. It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed:\n\n> ***The people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history.***\n\n[![](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!iwUX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)](https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!iwUX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)\n\n*Get Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a [magpie](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/the-magpie-mind) named Magnus after the magician in [Robertson Davies](https:\/\/wit.substack.com\/p\/how-to-rag-on-the-maple-leaf)’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the [official typeface of the band Vulfpeck](https:\/\/ohnotype.co\/fonts\/vulf). The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at [getwitquicker.replit.app](https:\/\/getwitquicker.replit.app\/). The book was [Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting](https:\/\/benjaminerrett.com\/elements-of-wit). I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below.*","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Everyone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.” “I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.” — François Truffaut Which Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of The Good Soldier Švejk . This satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine. “Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.” — Joshua Glenn As the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war, the inspiration for Catch-22 and MAS*H , and a recurring theme in Czech history. “Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,” an economist told a New York Times reporter in Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy. “I hate war, for it spoils conversation.” — Bernard de Fontenelle War is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read this New York Times interview with General Stanley McChrystal , who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article has since been corrected but the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war! “The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.” — Robert Lynd Every schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war. “We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.” — Fannie Hurst And Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their Election Profit Makers podcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the Strait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day . It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year! Share “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” — Jeannette Rankin As Einštein famously didn’t say , World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week? Share Get Wit Quick Each month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole! This week I was chewing through The Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore , a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in Harper’s . It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed: The people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history. Get Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies ’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck . The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at getwitquicker.replit.app . The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting . I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below.
Markdown	[![Get Wit Quick](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!k9fj!,w_40,h_40,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa1f44feb-f788-42f7-90ee-ccd04ebd4791_1280x1280.png)](https://wit.substack.com/) # [![Get Wit Quick](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!xIDG!,e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F36a39ae7-751f-4401-8b10-aac3ae260640_6168x1304.png)](https://wit.substack.com/) Subscribe Sign in # The Wit's Guide To War ### Or, the one good -ism Mar 26, 2026 14 3 4 Share [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ug0N!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18a1defb-e0b5-4908-a1c0-ce12f00eb273_467x371.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ug0N!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F18a1defb-e0b5-4908-a1c0-ce12f00eb273_467x371.png) No one wins; it’s a war of man. But [Josef Lada’s art](https://whosoutthere.ca/2023/02/16/the-brave-josef-lada/) is pretty winning. Everyone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.” > *“I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”* > — [François Truffaut](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/04/12/antiwar-film/) Which Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of [The Good Soldier Švejk](https://files.libcom.org/files/The%20Good%20Soldier%20Svejk%20-%20Jaroslav%20Hasek.pdf). This satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine. > *“Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.”* — Joshua Glenn As the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war, [the inspiration for](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [Catch-22](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [and](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [M\A\S\H](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/), and a recurring theme in Czech history. “Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,” [an economist told a New York Times reporter](https://www.nytimes.com/1969/06/30/archives/schweikism-used-in-czech-protests-worker-goslow-movement-said-to.html) in Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy. > “I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”* > — Bernard de Fontenelle War is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read [this](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) [interview with General Stanley McChrystal](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html), who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article [has since been corrected](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html#:~:text=A%20correction%20was%20made%20on%C2%A0March%2024%2C%202026%3A%C2%A0An%20earlier%20version%20of%20this%20article%20misidentified%20the%20people%20who%20were%20affected%20by%20U.S.%20and%20British%20intervention%20in%201953.%20They%20were%20Iranians%2C%20not%20Iraqis) but the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war\! > *“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”* > — Robert Lynd Every schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war. > *“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”* > — [Fannie Hurst](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/02/interested-war/) And Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their Election Profit Makers podcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the [Strait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day](https://epm.fireside.fm/372?t=0). It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year\! [Share](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) * [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9jwV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9jwV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg) > “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” — Jeannette Rankin As Einštein [famously didn’t say](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/16/future-weapons/#more-679), World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week? Loading... [Share Get Wit Quick](https://wit.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) * [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!udAT!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!udAT!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png) Each month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole\! This week I was chewing through [The Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore](https://harpers.org/archive/2026/04/the-joke-isnt-funny-anymore-will-self-death-of-satire/), a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in Harper’s. It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed: > *The people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history.* [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iwUX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iwUX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png) Get Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a [magpie](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-magpie-mind) named Magnus after the magician in [Robertson Davies](https://wit.substack.com/p/how-to-rag-on-the-maple-leaf)’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the [official typeface of the band Vulfpeck](https://ohnotype.co/fonts/vulf). The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at [getwitquicker.replit.app](https://getwitquicker.replit.app/). The book was [Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting](https://benjaminerrett.com/elements-of-wit). I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below. 14 3 4 Share Previous #### Discussion about this post Comments Restacks [![Stephen D Forman's avatar](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KoGd!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F46bc9fad-56c9-42a4-ad11-8b216a63fcaf_592x592.jpeg)](https://substack.com/profile/9007441-stephen-d-forman?utm_source=comment) [Stephen D Forman](https://substack.com/profile/9007441-stephen-d-forman?utm_source=substack-feed-item) [14h](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war/comment/233846983 "Mar 26, 2026, 10:08 PM") Liked by Benjamin Errett “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. But you shouldn’t have to lose everything.” — Jeannette Rankin, SVP Geovera Sales & Marketing [www.geovera.com](http://www.geovera.com/) [Reply]() [Share]() [1 reply by Benjamin Errett](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war/comment/233846983) [![Myq Kaplan's avatar](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!t77Z!,w_32,h_32,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b4d7b27-ede5-4640-b1cf-728390ad5db1_2550x3300.jpeg)](https://substack.com/profile/5512319-myq-kaplan?utm_source=comment) [Myq Kaplan](https://substack.com/profile/5512319-myq-kaplan?utm_source=substack-feed-item) [17h](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war/comment/233745495 "Mar 26, 2026, 6:32 PM") Dear Benjamin, Great post. Thank you for these quotes about war: “The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.” — Robert Lynd “I hate war, for it spoils conversation.” — Bernard de Fontenelle “We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.” — Fannie Hurst Thank you for sharing as always. 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Readable Markdown	Everyone knows that the War To End All Wars (if not excursions) began when Franz Ferdinand was shot. But only Schweik dared ask the pertinent question: Which Ferdinand? “I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Pruša the chemist’s and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoška who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.” > *“I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.”* > — [François Truffaut](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2025/04/12/antiwar-film/) Which Schweik? The one rendered in the original Czech as Švejk and the hero of [The Good Soldier Švejk](https://files.libcom.org/files/The%20Good%20Soldier%20Svejk%20-%20Jaroslav%20Hasek.pdf). This satirical 1921 novel by Jaroslav Hašek follows this conscript whose can-do attitude and can’t-do ability made him the worst thing that could happen to the Austro-Hungarian war effort. He follows every order to the letter, happily shares his irrelevant thoughts while doing šo, and in the process completely derails the military machine. > *“Employing low cunning and high spirits, a Schweikist loudly proclaims his loyalty to the prevailing authority while simultaneously defying it in a thousand small ways.”* — Joshua Glenn As the original blank Czech, Schweik is to his country what Don Quixote is to Spain. And the geniuš of the book, the reason the Soviets didn’t ban it, is that it’s hard to pin down whether Schweik is obstinate by nature or on purpose. Either way, Schweikism is the ultimate štatement against war, [the inspiration for](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [Catch-22](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [and](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/) [M\A\S\H](https://lithub.com/why-every-progressive-should-read-the-good-soldier-svejk/), and a recurring theme in Czech history. “Workers now don’t just come late to their job, if they come at all, and knock off for a beer an hour later, as they have been doing all those years,” [an economist told a New York Times reporter](https://www.nytimes.com/1969/06/30/archives/schweikism-used-in-czech-protests-worker-goslow-movement-said-to.html) in Prague in 1969. “They follow šafety regulations to the letter, say they don’t understand work norms or interpret them wrongly, and slow down plant tempos tremendously.” If you want to subvert bureaucratic lethality, overload the bureaucracy. > “I hate war, for it spoils conversation.”* > — Bernard de Fontenelle War is God’s way of teaching us (or, more pointedly, Americans) geography, as they used to joke during the first Iraq War. That line came to mind as I read [this](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html) [interview with General Stanley McChrystal](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html), who led U.S. Special Forces during the second Iraq war and only slightly undermined his many years of expertise when he mixed up his histories of Iran and Iraq. The article [has since been corrected](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/opinion/trump-iran-general-mcchrystal.html#:~:text=A%20correction%20was%20made%20on%C2%A0March%2024%2C%202026%3A%C2%A0An%20earlier%20version%20of%20this%20article%20misidentified%20the%20people%20who%20were%20affected%20by%20U.S.%20and%20British%20intervention%20in%201953.%20They%20were%20Iranians%2C%20not%20Iraqis) but the geography lesson is incomplete; good thing there’š more war\! > *“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”* > — Robert Lynd Every schoolchild learns that the First World War was caused by -isms — nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and (as if we wouldn’t notice this one isn’t like the others), entangling allianceš. But Schweikism might be the one išm that stops wars. Unless of course we count -isms that don’t end in -ism, which is basically Dadaism, yet another byproduct of that war. > *“We may not be interested in this war, but it is interested in us.”* > — [Fannie Hurst](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/02/interested-war/) And Schweikism, the art of subversion through idiocy, is alive and well if you know where to look. On their Election Profit Makers podcast, David Rees and Jon Kimball recently discussed the logistics of dying the [Strait of Hormuz green for St. Patrick’s Day](https://epm.fireside.fm/372?t=0). It would be difficult, given all the mines and the fast-moving water, but what better way for Iran to defy the U.S. military? It’s too late now — but there’š always next year\! [Share](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-wits-guide-to-war?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9jwV!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9jwV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4a7a0a3f-b125-41f7-a89f-20b13e3ca32a_1456x226.jpeg) > *“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”* — Jeannette Rankin As Einštein [famously didn’t say](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/16/future-weapons/#more-679), World War III will be fought with drones, World War IV with šticks and stones, World War V with Nerf guns, World War VI with Chekhov’s guns, and World War VII will be fought against Roman numerals. Enough with all the fighting, though! Next week? [Share Get Wit Quick](https://wit.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!udAT!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!udAT!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff416c50b-1a26-4057-ae3e-c6f5d63b4ca7_1011x191.png) Each month my paid subscribers and I exchange some of the best things we’ve read, seen, heard, and experienced in a special issue called Get Wit Picks. The March edition is coming your way soon! This is what’s at the end of the rabbit hole\! This week I was chewing through [The Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore](https://harpers.org/archive/2026/04/the-joke-isnt-funny-anymore-will-self-death-of-satire/), a deathbed screed against the things that are going wrong by Will Self in Harper’s. It’s dense and allusive, like all Self’s writing; the opposite of a hot take. A cool give, if you will. He writes about taking a 15-month break from the news, after which it seems like everything has šped up tremendously but no one noticed: > *The people around me seemed blissfully unaware of this—largely because those who lose touch with the rate and speed and manner with which the world turns are not the Rip Van Winkles among us; they’re those who stay continuously awake, wired on the methamphetamine of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, all while they deceive themselves that this means they’re somehow participating in history.* [![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iwUX!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!iwUX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4b8d31f2-ca2d-46ec-87da-8602fa0bbb25_1456x156.png) Get Wit Quick No. 363 didn’t even touch upon The War of Jenkins’ Ear, The 335 Years War, or The War of the Bucket, none of which ended all wars. This newsletter’s mascot, a [magpie](https://wit.substack.com/p/the-magpie-mind) named Magnus after the magician in [Robertson Davies](https://wit.substack.com/p/how-to-rag-on-the-maple-leaf)’ Deptford Trilogy, prefers flight to fight. The title font is Vulf Sans, the [official typeface of the band Vulfpeck](https://ohnotype.co/fonts/vulf). The inferior-for-now AI replicant is at [getwitquicker.replit.app](https://getwitquicker.replit.app/). The book was [Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting](https://benjaminerrett.com/elements-of-wit). I may have overdone it on the š’s, treating them like word garnish. A rally-around-the-flag effect ought to prompt more taps of the ❤️ below.
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