Where do men like Kara-Murza come from?

And how can we be more like them?

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can count.

Seriously, the two kinds of people are those who experience the emotion of fear, and those who do not.

Actually, scratch that: everybody experiences the emotion of fear. There may once have been human beings who did not know what it meant to be afraid, but they were all eaten by sabertooth tigers millions of years ago.

Some of us are wussier than others, of course, but everybody fears something and adjusts his or her behavior accordingly. Children fear their parents and teachers. Adults fear their spouses and bosses. Politicians fear their voters. University administrators, in 2023, fear their students. At least one cable news channel so fears its viewers, it will pay out nine-figure defamation settlements in lieu of telling its audience the truth.

Even I have a “drafts” folder full of…