Standpatism is the clarified quintescence of social sin. To desire to be as good as one’s father is a laudable ambition, but the standpatter is bitterly opposed to being any better. He is determined to carry grandfatherly virtues into a grandsonly age. This is the ideal which for centuries has held progress bound in China. The son who is only as good as his father is worse than his father, for the father practiced the virtues of his time, while the son fell behind his.
2003 And the pots, and the shovels, and the wick trimmers, and the ladles, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered, they took away. (2 Kings 25:14, Authorized Version of 1611 (King James Version), 2003 edition)
British Director Ronald Eyre kept the action crisp; he was correctly content to execute the composer's wishes, rather than impose a fashionably idiosyncratic view of his own.
The third most common motive for Americans to commit espionage is disgruntlement, usually caused by the person's relationships or treatment in the workplace, and the associated desire to take revenge.
