Charles Krauthammer - Physician, Historian, Commentator
December 30, 2019 at 8:25 p.m.
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His commentaries were original, informative, often humorous, analytical and always timely. The topics were broad. He was comfortable discussing current events, politics, science, medicine, history, philosophy, sports (particularly baseball), space flight or logic. His death last year left us without a replacement and we are a saddened and a less-educated nation because of it.
Fortunately, there are two books available containing his columns and speeches and they are a delight. The first is “Things That Matter,” and the most recent compiled by his son, “The Point of it All.” I read some of the chapters over and over again and try to learn from at least one of them at bedtime. With all that is going on in politics today, I would relish listening to or reading his comments.
Before he died, Krauthammer said, “I am leaving this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life - full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that made it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”
Charles was born on March 13, 1950, and died on June 21, 2018. He graduated from McGill University in Canada, attended Balliol College, Oxford, England, and received his medical degree from Harvard.
Krauthammer spent seven years in Boston, four as a student and three as a psychiatric resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. While at Harvard at 22, he suffered a diving accident that severed his spinal cord and left much of his body paralyzed. He did not hide his disability, noting that “all it means is whatever I do is a little bit harder and probably a bit slower with a little more effort.”
As a historian, Krauthammer was fond of Winston Churchill, finding him indispensible. Without Churchill, Krauthammer wrote, the world would be unrecognizable, impoverished and tortured. Nazism would have prevailed and civilization would have descended into a darkness the likes of which it have never known.
According to Krauthammer, Churchill single handedly saved Western civilization and brought victory to the war. He then immediately rose to warn prophetically against its sister barbarism, Soviet communism.
Krauthammer was equally enamored with scholars who love math and he wrote about them.
One, Paul Erdos, a prodigiously-gifted and productive mathematician was a favorite. Erdo’s whole life was so improbable that no novelist could have invented him. Erdos had no home, no family, no possessions, no address. He went from conference to conference, university to university, knocking on the doors of mathematicians throughout the world, and moving in.
When Erdos died, he left no survivors, but in reality he did leave hundreds of scientific collaborators, and 1,500 mathematical papers produced with them. (This is an astonishing legacy in a field where a lifetime product of 50 papers is considered extraordinary.)
As a scientist, Krauthammer asked in one of his columns whether we are alone in the universe. The discussion included reasons why there has been no evidence of such life. According to Fermi, the great physicist, “All of our logic, all our anti-isocentrism, assures us that we are not unique - that they must be there. And yet we do not see them.”
One answer may be that advanced societies have destroyed themselves. Krauthammer remarked that we too are near extinction, with nuclear weapons in the hands of half-mad tyrants (North Korea) and possibly radical zealots like Iran. He relies on politics to restrain such folly. He summarized his thoughts by noting that politics - in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations is sovereign in human affairs and that everything rests upon it.
There were few limits to Krauthammer’s commentaries. He was a strong believer in the English language as a requirement for immigrants and its means for assimilation. Krauthammer felt that making English an “official” language would make clear what is expected for those who wish to live here. Every citizen upon entering America, and its voting booth, should minimally be able to identify the words president and vice president and county commissioner and judge. According to Krauthammer, those who come to this country, swear allegiance and accept its bounty, must understand how to join its civic culture, in English.
Final Thoughts
In the comments written in the back of “Things that Matter,” one columnist described Krauthammer as possessing a steel-trap logic, epic wit and a profound sense of history. He was surely our best communicator, the composer of America’s greatest prose. He will be missed.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
His commentaries were original, informative, often humorous, analytical and always timely. The topics were broad. He was comfortable discussing current events, politics, science, medicine, history, philosophy, sports (particularly baseball), space flight or logic. His death last year left us without a replacement and we are a saddened and a less-educated nation because of it.
Fortunately, there are two books available containing his columns and speeches and they are a delight. The first is “Things That Matter,” and the most recent compiled by his son, “The Point of it All.” I read some of the chapters over and over again and try to learn from at least one of them at bedtime. With all that is going on in politics today, I would relish listening to or reading his comments.
Before he died, Krauthammer said, “I am leaving this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life - full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that made it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.”
Charles was born on March 13, 1950, and died on June 21, 2018. He graduated from McGill University in Canada, attended Balliol College, Oxford, England, and received his medical degree from Harvard.
Krauthammer spent seven years in Boston, four as a student and three as a psychiatric resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. While at Harvard at 22, he suffered a diving accident that severed his spinal cord and left much of his body paralyzed. He did not hide his disability, noting that “all it means is whatever I do is a little bit harder and probably a bit slower with a little more effort.”
As a historian, Krauthammer was fond of Winston Churchill, finding him indispensible. Without Churchill, Krauthammer wrote, the world would be unrecognizable, impoverished and tortured. Nazism would have prevailed and civilization would have descended into a darkness the likes of which it have never known.
According to Krauthammer, Churchill single handedly saved Western civilization and brought victory to the war. He then immediately rose to warn prophetically against its sister barbarism, Soviet communism.
Krauthammer was equally enamored with scholars who love math and he wrote about them.
One, Paul Erdos, a prodigiously-gifted and productive mathematician was a favorite. Erdo’s whole life was so improbable that no novelist could have invented him. Erdos had no home, no family, no possessions, no address. He went from conference to conference, university to university, knocking on the doors of mathematicians throughout the world, and moving in.
When Erdos died, he left no survivors, but in reality he did leave hundreds of scientific collaborators, and 1,500 mathematical papers produced with them. (This is an astonishing legacy in a field where a lifetime product of 50 papers is considered extraordinary.)
As a scientist, Krauthammer asked in one of his columns whether we are alone in the universe. The discussion included reasons why there has been no evidence of such life. According to Fermi, the great physicist, “All of our logic, all our anti-isocentrism, assures us that we are not unique - that they must be there. And yet we do not see them.”
One answer may be that advanced societies have destroyed themselves. Krauthammer remarked that we too are near extinction, with nuclear weapons in the hands of half-mad tyrants (North Korea) and possibly radical zealots like Iran. He relies on politics to restrain such folly. He summarized his thoughts by noting that politics - in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations is sovereign in human affairs and that everything rests upon it.
There were few limits to Krauthammer’s commentaries. He was a strong believer in the English language as a requirement for immigrants and its means for assimilation. Krauthammer felt that making English an “official” language would make clear what is expected for those who wish to live here. Every citizen upon entering America, and its voting booth, should minimally be able to identify the words president and vice president and county commissioner and judge. According to Krauthammer, those who come to this country, swear allegiance and accept its bounty, must understand how to join its civic culture, in English.
Final Thoughts
In the comments written in the back of “Things that Matter,” one columnist described Krauthammer as possessing a steel-trap logic, epic wit and a profound sense of history. He was surely our best communicator, the composer of America’s greatest prose. He will be missed.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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