"The Agogment Rate"

Does the rate of scandal erode the weight of scandal — and is there a mathematical expression for this thought? Will the swirl of fiascos finally settle into a fixed impression of the president, even among some of his reflexive supporters? Or is it more like what Dostoyevsky has Raskolnikov say in “Crime and Punishment”: “Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”?

Bret Stephens, The New York Times, May 23, 2017

"You Say You Want a Revolution"

“We were fond together because of the sweep of open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.” 

 ― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph