Ross Douthat on Liberals & Obama

Courtesy of Tyler Cowen @ Marginal Revolution once again, this Ross Douthat column from NYT seems to track with one of my posts yesterday about Obama alternatives. Obama can't act by fiat. Perhaps, as Garry Wills has argued, he's been somewhat self-limiting out of excessive caution, but he can only do so much so fast. The other issue Douthat raises (citing Cowen) about what will and won't work deserves the healthy skepticism that Cowen & Douthat accord it. I've been intrigued by the stimulus vs. debt reduction debate going on between some very smart and capable people; however, in the end, we don't know which course of action will bring us the promised land. We should, I suggest, try to avoid obvious harm. Finally, liberals (a term I hate to have to use, so indefinite and at times pejorative) don't appreciate what Obama has done. If nothing else, some health care reform that brings us within reach of universal coverage is a tremendous accomplishment, as Douthat notes.

Steven Johnson on the Effects of Media

This post from Steven Johnson, a fine author, includes a link to his article in the NYT today. It's a point I wonder about: what effect does the bombardment of media, now especially web-based media have upon us? I think it's good, but I've spent a good deal of today writing blogs and catching up on blogs, as well as having read the NYT last night. I haven't yet turned to a couple of fine books that I'm reading. Good or bad? I think good, overall. I think that the faster movement of ideas, especially in bite-sized chunks on the web, is constructive with positive intellectual benefits. I do think that longer, considered works are important, perhaps more important than these smaller pieces, but we just have to balance our diet. I worry that there's a lot of books that I'm not reading because I'm spending more time with on-line reading, which I consider more current, more cutting-edge, so I do try to balance the current with the proven. Johnson & Nicholas Carr, whose work he reviews, discuss some important issues very thoughtfully.

David Brooks on Stimulus vs. Debt Reduction

I found this at Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution: David Brooks in the 6.10.10 NYT on "Prune & Grow". I think that Krugman addressed these arguments somewhere in one of his blog posts. So where does that leave laypersons? I think that in this book review by Herbert Gintis, also courtesy of Marginal Revolution, lays the best answer: faulty economic modeling, models based on equilibrium that don't tell us about dynamic states in disequilibrium.

The Judts on Political Optimism & Pessimism

Tony Judt, NYU professor of history and his son, 14 year-old Daniel, published this written exchange today in NYT. It hits upon a number of issues, it's well written, and it provides some topics for further consideration.

1. Political Cynicism. Many folks are down on Obama these days. He isn't providing the leadership we need; he's too conciliatory and not confrontational enough; he's not changed the world sufficiently, etc. Certainly some criticisms are justified, and concerned citizens (well, some anyway) should express their concerns. We need to act and think cautiously in this regard, however, as political cynicism comes easily and cheaply. No, Obama has not brought peace the Middle East, has not gotten us out of Iraq or Afghanistan, and has not stopped the oil from spewing into the Gulf. Has he neither parted the Red Sea nor walked upon water. We must judge him, like all actors on the political (or perhaps any stage) by the choices available to him, and the choices available to him are in large measure a matter of constraints laid upon him. To what extent has he held the political, not the mention the technological, power to control and shape events? I suggest that this is the test for all actors in any arena. Before coming down too hard on Obama, we should think about what options that American people and their Congress have provided him. Did the electorate get behind a better health care reform bill? Is Congress saying they want to address global warming? Are the American people now going to say, "we've got to use less oil. Please tax and price oil so that it reflects the real costs that it imposes on us by supporting corrupt regimes, despoiling our home (the Earth), and skewing our choices about energy"?
   
2. Political Choices. We as voters elected Obama. Some now seem unhappy with him. So what choice do you wish you'd made differently? Do you now wish that you'd voted for John McCain? Not me, not by a long shot. I admire Herbert Hoover in some ways, ditto Jimmy Carter, but as political leaders, they weren't the right person for the job when they served. BTW, the implicit comparison for McCain with Hoover and Carter should be taken cautiously, very cautiously. I don't want to besmirch Hoover or Carter unfairly. Do you wish that Hillary Clinton would have received the nomination and been elected? To my mind, that would have been fine, but I don't believe that we'd see a significantly different political environment. On the down side, we'd have a different but probably still virulent cultural and political divide. BTW, Secretary Clinton seems to being doing a fine job as SOS. However, I don't know that her preferred policies would differ significantly from those chosen by Obama. Would you have preferred some other Democrat? They all seem rather small—if not downright toxic—now, and none of them were the best choice at the time, either.
   
3. Corporations. I think that we have a big problem with corporations. Simply put, most multinational corporations, or publically traded corporations, have a huge gap between shareholders, management, and stakeholders. Shareholders are out there, distant from the actual corporation. Does a mutual fund that I own hold shares in BP? I could find out, but I don't—what good would it do? Shareholders want return on their investment measured in terms of money, not measured in terms of green fields and blue oceans. I know, we all want a clean environment in the abstract, but how many honestly invest on that basis? Managers have to please shareholders, which are increasingly large entities, by the only reliable measure available to them: money. Other stakeholders, such as workers, neighbors, and the larger world, have precious little say in all of this. This leads me to think that maybe we need to re-think the business corporation. How do we prevent externalization of costs and misevaluation of resources across such a wide variety of interests? James Gustave Speeth, a Yale law professor, raises this concern in one of his books (excellent) on the environment. (I read a library copy; sorry I can't provide the cite.)
   
4. Regulation. It does seem that regulation will make a comeback, but we should be careful. The market, imperfect as it is, should be the bedrock of regulation. I know, I know: the misplaced faith of Greenspan, et al. was in the market's ability to regulate. But the market needs help, not junking. Here's where one hopes first-rate legal scholar and social scientist Cass Sunstein will do good work in his job as head of the regulation overview agency in the White House. Some regulation by regulation is in order, but let's do it effectively, and not just by bureaucratic (no malice intended) fiat. See James Surowiecki on financial reform, for instance. I think that this is a great challenge for all governments (I'm talking to you, too, China): how to keep the golden goose of markets and capitalism producing without letting the sorcerer's apprentice get out of control.

Warner in NYT re “Dysregulation”

Judith Warner has a short article in the NYT Mag today on "Dysregulation Nation". The idea of our failing to regulate ourselves as a nation isn't new, as Warner knows by citing Christopher Lasch's classic from the late 70's, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Era of Diminishing Expectations (1979). Let me offer some quick thoughts on her article:

1. The issue of self-regulation and of social & political regulation is one of the oldest problems to vex humankind. The Greeks thought a great deal about it, the Old Testament is full of the issue, starting with the story of Adam and Eve, and I think (here I'm getting a bit out of my league), this is what Confucius was largely about.
   
2. A great analytical consideration of the problem comes from Thomas Schelling in an article entitled "The Intimate Contest for Self-Command", which I read many years ago, but which has stuck with me because of it's a compelling metaphor and applicability to my life. Schelling, a Nobel prize winning economist and author of a great book, Arms and Influence, used the story of Odysseus binding himself to the mast so that he could hear the Sirens' song and yet not be drawn irresistibly to them (and thereby death). Jon Elster gives an extended treatment of these issues in his book, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality (1985), which (like all of Elster), is brilliant and insightful.
   
3. Modern brain research is giving us better insight into the physiological basis of how different brain structures and systems allow for this shortcoming. However, I think that psychiatrist and Christian spiritual writer Gerald May got it right even before the current bounty of brain research allowed us greater insight into brain functioning and structure. May posits that our reasoning brain, our most unique and human (and weak) characteristic, works by saying "no" to impulses from the other parts of the brain, such as the emotional brain or the hunger signal, to give but two examples. Let me quote from May:
   

   The vast majority of feedback that naturally occurs in the brain is inhibitory. The cell systems that initiate activity are, for the most part, in a constant state of readiness and potential activity, so the higher systems of the brain must maintain balance and function primarily by inhibiting them. The cerebral cortex inhibits deeper centers; the right and left sides of the brain mutually inhibit each other; ceils in the brainstem inhibit cells in the spinal cord. Effective action primarily takes place thought selective inhibition.
   

   I have often marveled at this arrangement of things. It seems to indicate that human beings . . . are inherently active, dynamic, vibrant. Maybe it is in the nature of sentient life not to have to be stimulated in order to act, but to be always ready to go. It means we are not simply passive responders to external stimuli. In the very essence of our being, we are initiators. Perhaps, in the image of our Creator, we ourselves are endless creators.
   

       Addiction & Grace: Love & Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions (1988), pp.74-75.
   

4. Just as individuals seem to ebb and flow on issues of self-control (well, I do anyhow), so, I think, do societies. In fact, this may be the greatest challenge for any democracy. The problem that I perceive with democracies comes from the fact that they seem to gravitate toward a lowest common denominator. Low taxes, high spending, disregard for long-term consequences: these problems may be worse for democracies, although all forms of political organization suffer from these problems. (Exhibits: Greece, California.) It's just that other systems, more tightly controlled by elites, can inflict pain (present loss of some sort) for some anticipated future (and current) gain. Of course, non-democratic political systems inflict pain primarily for the benefit of the rulers, but something like defense (e.g., the Soviet Union) can be argued to be necessary for the long-term survival of the regime. Perhaps I'm too hard on democracies, but we need some forms of self-binding. Jon Elster, at least at one time (Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraint (2000)), suggested that constitutions in a democracy were a form of self-binding. I think that he later recanted that argument, but I'm not sure why. For instance, the Iowa constitution, like many constitutions, requires a balances budget. (N.B.: This would probably not prove a good addition to the federal constitution.)
   
5. Many religious directives come in the form of "thou shalt not", or prayers like "lead us not into temptation". NNT, coming out of a Greek Orthodox and ancient Mediterranean tradition, endorses such thinking as a way of maintaining our robustness and of dealing with our blindness to Black Swans. NNT argues that the cultures of the Mediterranean, including Islamic culture, wisely put limits on debts. This is also a form of self-binding. Some debt, however, is certainly good; however, if it's for current consumption, probably not so good.
   
6. Warner suggests that contemporary culture may be worse that other times in dealing with the challenge of delayed gratification. Comparisons of this sort are, I think, very tricky, yet I think that they provide us with a worthwhile ideas. We are, I'd wager, significantly different from the New England Puritans of the 18^th century. Warner does a good job of identifying possible mechanisms (hope I'm using Elster's term correctly here) for our seeming lack of self-control. It's an interesting—and as you can discern from this post—thought-provoking article for me.

Shenk’s The Genius in All of Us & Straud’s Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain

I just finished listening to David Shenk's recent The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong
(2010 320p.). Shenk's book joins The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How (2009) and Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everyone Else (2^nd entry) in emphasizing what we do by way of learning over what we endowed with by nature. Shenk goes after the idea that genius, however we define it, resides in our genetic inheritance. He argues that we no longer can accept a G (genetics) + E (environment) paradigm. Instead, we have to think of G x E; that is, how genes interact with the environment to create outcomes. Genetic expression, not genetic inheritance, becomes a foundation for understanding how we come to perform and act. He follows many of the common examples, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Yo-yo Ma, Michael Jordan, and others. What sets them and others at that level apart? It isn't their genetic inheritance; it's their intense practice and drive.

 

These three books, all quite interesting, all point to one answer: if you want to be really good at something, do the hard work of practice. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, man, practice."

I usually wouldn't note a book that I haven't read, but since it's in a similar vein, and I have it on good authority, I'll make an exception. C read and enjoyed The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind
by Barbara Strauch (2010 256p.). This book helps us older folks understand that our aging brains have a lot left in them. Among the most interesting things, some studies have shown persons who functioned at very high levels up the time of their death had definite signs on autopsy of Alzheimer's. Their brains perceived that some portions weren't functioning and apparently moved the functions to a different area of the brain. And, of course, the nuns study gets plenty of mention. It also seems that a high level of education is as good a protection of brain health as one can hope for. It's going on my "to read" list.

NNT & Roubini on Newshour

NNT appeared with Nouriel Roubini in a recent segment of Newshour. Both of them predicted the crash, and did so on Newshour in 2006, so they invited them back for a joint appearance. Interestingly, Roubini joins in the call of deficit reduction although he recognizes that it could trigger an economic slowdown. I trust his opinion in this regard more than NNT's. Both fear the potential for a longer, bigger downturn if we don't act to reduce the deficit.

NNT Interview & Krugman to the Contrary

A pithy interview with NNT here. He really likes the UK's new PM, David Cameroon, whom impressed me on a TED talk that he gave. This interview gives a sense of NNT's irreverence and insight. And in case anyone is interested, more drum beating on deficit reduction. I think that we may want to think about debt reduction as St. Augustine prayed about chastity: "Oh, Lord, make me chaste, but not yet." (This may be a loose translation, but we'll go with the popular version.)

But Paul Krugman to the rescue from Germany in today's NYT. Krugman uses the 1937 analogy, and he notes that stimulus seems the way to go because the economy far under capacity, with no sign of inflation. So why the belt-tightening now? NNT & NF & others like them have to answer the question. Of course overeating is bad, but if you've been undernourished for a while, you should eat more than you normally would. Contrary to NNT, is all debt bad? For those out of a job—as I was in 1974 under Gerald Ford's "Whip Inflation Now (WIN)" recession, you'd really like to have paycheck and you don't worry so much about the long-term balance of the federal budget. And, by the way, where were these deficit hawks from 2000-2010. Do they all think that Obama and the G-20 stimulus was unjustified? What's different now?

Cohen on Soccer & Brooks on Two Capitalisms

Roger Cohen writes in the NYT about Kissinger, soccer (football), and how it all relates to international politics. Fun.

David Brooks addresses the topic of free market capitalism vs. state capitalism, taking off from Ian Bremmer's new book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?. As usual, Brooks gives a complex topic a careful consideration within the very limited confines of a newspaper column.

Ferguson, NNT & Krugman Miscellany

Niall Ferguson on Australian television from 5/31/10: He's worried, and he thinks Keynes can be right, but not when you start from a position of fiscal weakness. The debate continues. BTW, some economies, like China and India, as well as Australia and Canada, seem to be in pretty good shape.

NNT speaks with James Surowiecki of the New Yorker about the new edition of The Black Swan and current economics. Like Ferguson, NNT remains worried about the banks. Yikes! NNT, like Ferguson, is campaigning to bring down the level of debt, both public and private. Will it crash and burn a fragile economy, or is it the start of fiscal sobriety? The debate continues. NNT wants a more "robust" society, one that doesn't fail as easily as what we just experienced. Robustness means the ability to take shocks and survive. Robustness comes from redundancy, and redundancy is the opposite of debt. However, in the name of efficiency, we eliminate a great deal of robustness in society. NNT suggests:

1. Low debt. It's like stopping smoking: the best way to reduce your risk exposure.
   
2. End complex derivatives.
   
3. Eliminate moral hazard (i.e., no bailouts).Don't give a drug addict more junk.
   
4. Don't try to predict Black Swans, just make yourself immune to them (or reduce their impact).
   

Another NNT interview, this time on CNBC: Shorter than the above interview, but long enough to cover some important points. NNT gets his points across quickly:

1. Fragility from too much debt.
   
2. Untrustworthiness of forecasts, so create robustness.
   
3. The 2008 crash was not a black swan; it was not as a surprise to all. It's a frame of reference situation. The turkey is surprised at Thanksgiving, but not the butcher.
   
4. NNT fears inflation, even hyper-inflation. He fears a failed Treasury auction.
   
5. NNT fears all currencies currently. He likes only short-term treasury bonds because of the fear of inflation.
   

Here is NNT @ NYU-POLY, where he teaches and does research. In this talk, he talks about iatrogenic injuries, "healer" caused injuries, in this situation it's applied to market advisers as opposed to just physicians.

"You are what you overcome."

"You may know all the answers, but the important thing to know is, what are the questions?" Reality demands the right questions.

Finally, a dose of Paul Krugman to keep the deficit hawks honest.

Tony Judt on Israel and the U.S.

Tony Judt in today's NYT, "Israel Without Clichés" presents the most insightful and succinct appraisal of Israel and of its relation to the U.S. that I have seen. A huge amount of sloganeering and worthless posturing goes on when someone tries to address issues in the Middle East that involve Israel, so to read someone with a open-minded perspective that will discuss the problems and strengths of Israel should cause everyone to rejoice. Highly recommended.

Krugman on Sachs Joining Fiscal Conservatives

This post notes that Jeffrey Sachs, best known currently for his work to alleviate extreme poverty in the developing world, weighs in via Financial Times as a deficit hawk. Sachs thinks that the stimulus is too slow, and the need really goes to investment, not immediate spending. Continuing his ongoing argument, Krugman, via Brad DeLong, argues that Sachs has no firm ground for this conclusion. This may all seem quite ethereal, but whatever path we follow will create very real results—the only question is whether those results will be for good or ill.

Barnett on Globalization & Identity

Thomas Barnett's interesting article in World Politics Review about globalization and identity addresses issues that Barnett comments upon frequently. I find his perspective instructive and worth serious consideration. In short, the issues resolve around how we may define ourselves as distinct while we become more closely connected. Interesting stuff.

Krugman, et al. v. Ferguson, et al.: What’s the Problem?

This article directly addresses an implicit debate that I've been following. On one side, Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, on the other, Niall Ferguson and others, including Nassim Taleb. The issue: cut back federal spending in fear of long-term debt (think Greece), or stimulate the economy to continue raising the us out of the economic doldrums and avoid a lost decade (think Japan). At this point, I side with Krugman, who is thinking (rightly, I believe) short-term. Long term, Ferguson and Taleb and the deficit hawks are right: too much debt is a bad thing. The bad guys: W. Bush and his cronies. He and his Congress ballooned the federal deficit, leaving the Obama administration much less room to do what is necessary in the way of deficit spending.

For history buffs, remember that FDR became deficit hawkish at the beginning of his second term and took the nation into a second down turn. It took WWII, with its unprecedented deficit spending, to lift us out of the Great Depression. Keynes tried to warn FDR, but to no avail. Are we in danger of repeating the same mistake?

Stanley Fish & Company: Whither Education?

Stanley Fish writes on the benefits of a "classical" education. By "classical", he does not mean exclusively concerned with a Latin & Greek language and civilization curriculum, but more an emphasis on basic subjects taught in a rigorous manner. He enlists recent writing by Martha Nussbaum (for whom I have very high regard), Diane Ravitch, and Leigh Bortins on the subject. I have a lot of sympathy for this perspective, but does it apply appropriately to all kids? On one hand, one would think not; however, it seems like this is more the curriculum of American schools in the first half of the 20^th century, which I believe proved immensely successful. Also, too much seat time, especially in the early years, probably isn't such a good idea. I'm not sure, but the debate is an important one, as it seems that many find our education system still faltering in many places.

Incredibly Strong, Balanced & Flexible

As a three or so times a week yoga practitioner for about the last three or so years, I now have an even greater appreciation of challenges of strength, balance, and coordination demonstrated in these videos. We see it in gymnasts and acrobats as well as yogis. This Youtube video, like those of Damian Walters (2009) and (2010), makes me green with envy. I feel like I ought to get down and give 10 every time I see something like this. Amazing stuff.

William Li: Can we eat to starve cancer? A TED Talk

An interesting presentation by William Li @ TED. A theory of why diet can and does make a difference in helping prevent the diseases of civilization.

John Wooden: 1910-2010

I can't let my blog go without acknowledging the passing of John Wooden. In late grade school I started following college basketball, as I become interested in playing basketball about that time. I quickly learned about UCLA. Their press became famous, and then they recruited Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), who was an incredible player. This only made them better.

College games on television were relatively rare in those days, but if they played, I wanted to see it. When Iowa had its great team in 1970, the Hawks stumbled in the first round, but UCLA, without Alcindor and before Walton, still won the NCAA. (I'd liked to have seen the Hawks take a turn at the Bruins; UCLA defeated Jacksonville in the Finals, the team that eliminated the Hawks in the first round.) At that time I had no appreciation of the man on the bench, but since then I've learned a lot more about him, and like very many of his players, have come to a much deeper appreciation of his talents, values, and skills. He was a high school English teacher turned college coach, and he always continued to think of himself as a teacher. You can read articles from the NYT here and here and here.

BTW, the game that Drake played against UCLA in 1969 in the semi-finals was a great game. The Bulldogs had their finest hour then.

One final note: In The Talent Code, the authors describe a couple of UCLA profs who decided to observe Wooden to learn about his methods. They had been jocks, so they came to practice expecting lots of whistles, exhortations, and scrimmages. Instead, they found a quiet man who would explain exactly what he wanted to his players exactly what he wanted them to do, then he'd watch them, and then he'd correct the flaws to get the result he wanted. Each drill was carefully prepared and executed. No yelling, no ranting, just teaching.

Taleb Interview by Lydon

Click here to listen to a good interview of Taleb. Taleb, who makes for delightful reading, can be difficult to listen to when interviewed because he can become a bit agitated and tongue-tied (English is not his native tongue). However, in listening to the first part of this interview, he gives a rather calm yet always interesting exposition of his ideas. The site (courtesy of Huffington Post) also provides a written summary of the interview by Christopher Lydon, which I paste below for your reading enjoyment & consideration:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of the great wiseguys or wisemen of the moment. Quite possibly both.

For a world that wants better than the fatuous "perfect storm" account of the economic meltdown -- or of BP's gusher in the Gulf, or of 9.11 for that matter -- Taleb has revised and extended his cult classic, The Black Swan. His anomalous "black swan" (since swans are by definition white) has three properties: it's (1) any one of those unforeseen developments that comes (2) with big consequences and (3) a concocted cause-and-effect after-story. In conversation, Taleb is trying to get us to let go of "causes" and fix on the word "fragility." He is explaining -- sometimes elliptically, aphoristically, through metaphors, jokes and old folk wisdom -- why "the economic crisis has barely begun," why indeed we seem to have entered the Age of the Black Swan.

In a Letterman List, our conversation might be reduced to this:

10. Mother Nature is robust. Large modern corporations are fragile.

9. When the big bridge collapses, the "news" interest will be in the last truck that made it over, when the real story should be about the fragility of the bridge.

8. Somewhere in every Black Swan story there's a turkey. The turkey has a clear understanding of history, and of growth. The nice farmer feeds him every day, and the turkey keeps getting fatter. Then comes Thanksgiving. It's a Black Swan for the turkey. But not for the butcher.

7. We can say safely that the Black Swan started entering society with agriculture, with the fact that we started settling. Complexification started then... In my tableau of what's fragile and what's robust, the nation-state is a fragile entity, whereas city-states are more robust. So the creation of the nation-state created this big unpredictable event, that First War. Even those who saw it coming didn't see the damage it was about to cause. So the First War probably is the most consequential one, and it came in two volumes...

6. I think that today we are entering a different world of Black Swans because of the Internet.

5. Newspapers make us stupid. They overexplain with "causes" of things that can't be checked. And because they are driven by the sensational, they misrepresent risk. I prefer the social filter of news, over dinner or lunch. Anything that draws me away from face-to-face contact is harmful to my health.

4. Grandmothers had a rule of thumb after the Great Depression: work and save for a few years before you get into risk... Unpredictability and debt are not friends.

3. On bailouts: My analogy is to the gambler who is now gambling with the trust fund of his unborn great-great-granchildren... Prudence should be the first thing on the agenda of governments, not speculation. Stimulus packages are speculation... We are gambling on a massive recovery. It's too big a gamble, and besides it's immoral.

2. In the economic crisis, and in the Gulf of Mexico, what we should be discovering is not who made what mistake, but the fact of fragility. Alas, what we don't learn is... that we don't learn.

1. No government can fortify something that's inherently fragile

Sinek on Why

Simon Sinek presented a very good TED talk that I that I learned about from a useful site, Presentation Zen. Sinek's premise, which he's published as Start with Why, seems incredibly simple, yet it quite ignored by many speakers. Sinek argues that to persuade people you have to let them know "why" before going on to "what" or "how". Sinek calls upon contemporary brain research to argue that we begin with motives arising out of the emotional part of the brain. When we reflect upon this, it's really old hat dressed up anew: Aristotle emphasized the trio of logos (reasoning, logic), ethos (the trustworthiness of the speaker), and pathos (emotions). Those who persuade effectively have always known this insight, at least intuitively. Sinek, however, does us a favor by reminding us mortals that we cannot take the importance of placing the emotional grounds up front as given. Sinek agrees with the premise of the book Switch, which I'm now reading, that uses the metaphor of the elephant and the rider; the elephant is the emotional drive, the rider the rational decision-maker. Both have to work in tandem to complete a change or switch. Sinek's take away line: MLK didn't give the "I have a plan" speech; he gave the "I have a dream speech." So true! This book will go onto my list to read.

Orlando Patterson on Democracy & Violence

Orlando Patterson, sociology prof at Harvard, wrote an interesting article in the Sunday NYT about democracy and violence. The argument, I think now well refuted, was that democracies wouldn't go to war with each other. Patterson, however, looks at domestic violence and suggests that some democracies have greater violence than their authoritarian peers. Patterson points to street crime in India compared to street crime in China as one example (although the horrific attacks on school children in China demonstrate that no society can claim immunity from random violence). Patterson cites factors that seem to allow greater violence in developing democracies. I cite the article because Americans seem to place so much faith in democracy, although we don't stop to think what democracy means and entails any more than we carefully consider the meaning and implications of love. Both are god terms that users intend to conjure up images of goodness without considering the depth and implications of the terms involved. The Greeks, who left us the records of the first experiments with democracy, executed Socrates. Plato spent much of his adult life trying to figure out a better way. I don't think that he succeeded, but he and other critics surely have raised some legitimate concerns. In the end, I come down with Churchill on democracy: it's the worst form of government, except when compared to all of the rest.

Robert Frank on Economics & Framing

In my continuing crusade to identify sounder economic thinking, I want to share an article by Robert Frank in the NYT. In short, humans are not Spock-like reasoning machines, but we're imperfect decision makers who are often swayed by the deceptive and clearly irrelevant. Frank cites the gold standard studies of Kahneman and Tversky to show how random numbers can influence a totally unrelated estimate of the number of African nations in the U.N. But here's Frank's interesting take on their well-known research: "In such cases, Professors Tversky and Kahneman wrote in 1981, 'the adoption of a decision frame is an ethically significant act.'" Frank goes on to discuss how framing affects political decisions, how lies and deceptions can influence a debate. Frank notes—and I agree here—that the legal system provides a relatively poor vehicle for rectifying such deceptions and outright lies. Rather, Frank cites none other than Adam Smith (a great moral philosopher) in support of the use of social sanctions "as an effective alternative to legal and regulatory remedies". He cites Jon Stewart for his use of humor as a sanction, although Frank doubts that many of the targets of his barbs know or care about Stewart's skewers. Frank concludes by writing: "That's why it's important for the circle of critics to widen — and why we need to remember that framing a discussion appropriately is "an ethically significant act". I concur.

Krugman: Follow the Money

Citing Paul Krugman may seem like a broken record, but I find that he hits the nail on the head most often. In his column today, he notes how right-wing populism, which I believe represents a lot of wind generated by a relative few, gets used again by corporate interests. This is What's the Matter With Kansas? all over again. Regulation of markets and taxes sufficient to pay our bills are necessary for a strong, healthy economy and democracy. The Bush Administration lived on the free lunch doctrine too often by cutting taxes and throwing regulation out the window. It left us with markets wrecked, and a fiscal crisis that threatens our future because of a huge deficit that we accumulated before we came to the point that we needed to run a deficit to prime the pump.

Pink on Effective Signs

Dan Pink posts a couple of examples of very effective signs. Nothing like a good graphic to get a message across!

Words from Marcus Aurelius

"Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses…This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours."

"Your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again."

"Take it that you have died today, and your life's story is ended; and henceforward regard what future time may be given you as an uncovenanted surplus, and live it out in harmony with nature."

Wills on the Church Scandal & Ferguson on History

In an article in TNR, Garry Wills publishes an important assessment of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

Niall Ferguson speaks about history. A print version of the interview can also be found at that site. In these brief monologues, Ferguson discusses the value of history as a topic of study; his "hero", Dr. Who, and the allure of time travel to Ferguson as a youth; and a discussion of the "six killer apps" that gave the West the predominant place in world history for the last 500 years or so, but which have now been "downloaded" by other parts of the world that now allow them to challenge Western predominance.

Imaginative Literature

I posted my Classics Edition of favorite reading back on April 16 (3^rd post down). Now I post imaginative literature, which I will define as any work of literature, poetry, drama, or novel written after Shakespeare. I will list them in the order that they came to me when I jotted them down. No particular pattern here, I don't think.

1. John Donne, "Love Poems of John Donne". I don't know how, but I came upon a recording of Richard Burton reading these, and it is magnificent. I believe that Donne was a minister, but he certainly could write a poem to the glories of love.
   
2. George Herbert, Poems. Some of these were set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams, and I love them; but spoken or sung, they are beautiful. They sing of grace and redemption with a singular beauty.
   
3. William Blake, shorter poems, such as "Songs of Innocence", "Songs of Experience", and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". The longer poems get a bit too complex, but some of these shorter poems are pure beauty within simplicity.
   
4. Jane Austen, Persuasion. Perhaps the novel that I didn't see on the big screen first (although I think that there is a fine film production). It captures the intricate Austen world that I don't think that I'd enjoy reading her more famous works now.
   
5. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and Benito Cereno. I'm a late comer to Melville (as the nation under-appreciated him until the 1920s). But, oh my, the wait proved worthwhile. John Patrick Diggins sings praises to Melville in his work, and this prompted me to try Moby
   Dick by audio book. Wow, a great performance of a great work. In addition, Hannah Arendt in On Revolution provides an intriguing discussion of Billy Budd that led me into that haunting work.
   
6. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I read this in high school. Twain's sharp tongue and ironic humor tickles the fancy of a high school kid, and I found it delightful.
   
7. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent. I went through a Conrad phase. He captures characters in extreme and difficult situations.
   
8. Willa Cather, My Antonia & Death Comes for the Archbishop. C & I read My Antonia together on her recommendation, and it proved a treat, a story that we could identify with, set as it is on the Nebraska prairie. I read Death for our trip to Santa Fe, and it, too, provided a glimpse of an American life, albeit a very different life than the young woman of the prairie.
   
9. George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman. I've enjoyed a number of Shaw's plays, but this is a favorite, perhaps because I saw a portion of it performed in Cedar Falls the first your we were married, with Myrna Loy and Ricardo Montalban. (I did not know that I would later fall for the young Myrna Loy in the The Thin Man films.) Also, my parents had a copy of this play that I took a bit early. It's Nietzsche rendered with the Anglo-Irish wit of Shaw, delightful and thoughtful at the same time.
   
10. T. S. Elliot, The Four Quartets and "The Journey of the Magi." I don't know that I knew of Elliot's Four Quartets until I heard a portion of it read in a film version of John Fowles's "The Magus" (with Michael Caine). It struck me then, and it's never let go. Other than portions of Shakespeare, it's a work of literature that I've found worth memorizing (in part). As for the "Journey of the Magi", I first heard it performed by Alec Guinness on a recording when we lived in Champaign. Guinness's voice with Elliot's unique vision of a traditional Christmas tableau made for a lasting impression on me that makes it my Advent poem of choice.
    
11. Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter, The Power and the Glory, and The End of the Affair. It's hard to pick a favorite Greene work; indeed, for literary travel, I have wandered in Greeneland quite a bit (his work also translates very well to film). Like Conrad before him, Greene places his characters in extremis, dealing with the very difficult in a way that captures emotional poignancy with almost clinical precision.
    
12. G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday. Of course, Father Brown is great fun, as are Chesterton's essays and biographies, but The Man Who Was Friday is such great fun, like a great metaphysical riddle built on the Book of Job.
    
13. Albert Camus, The Plague. While I read The Stranger in both high school and college as assigned, only just a few years ago did I take up the recommendation of both daughters to read The Plague. I should have done so sooner, as I enjoyed this book in a way that one simply cannot enjoy The Stranger (too much metaphysical anxiety). The Plague, no walk in the park, mind you, provides a variety of characters and considerations that give it more depth and roundness, and a compelling story.
    
14. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, This, too, came relatively late to me via the joy of recorded books. Fitzgerald lives up to his hype in this novel. He captures time, place, and person in a perfect and unique manner. Thanks to C for this one.
    
15. Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men. To my mind: the best "political" novel. Warren captures a slice of American life and politics—a la Huey Long—in a magnificent work.
    
16. George Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm. 1984 is simply the hallmark of dystopian novels, while Animal Farm instructs in a way that only imaginative parody can do.
    
17. Walter Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960). This may be the least well-known book on my eclectic list, but this SF work mixed my apocalyptic side (and my Boomer fear and fascination with the Bomb) and my latent medievalist side. A fun read, yet thought provoking.
    
18. Ursula LeGuin. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness. These are two outstanding works by the queen of SF/Fantasy. LeGuin doesn't just make some fun assumptions and then play with them, she creates whole worlds, whole universes, and then she watches them unfold. Both of these books have a political side to them, but both also have deeply personal characterizations inside of these complex worlds. A great writer created great reading with these books.
    
19. William Golding, The Lord of the Flies. A high school read, but one that sticks with you (actually, a number of books from that era stuck with me). However, this book, which combines an apocalyptic setting with a world of boys—just boys—perhaps resonates most deeply with a teenage boy who will have had glances of how a world of just boys could go so astray.
    
20. John LeCarre. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. I read somewhere that LeCarre couldn't write about Smiley for some time after Alec Guinness brought him to life on the screen in the brilliant BBC productions of these two works. If you've seen these productions, you understand why. I read these two novels only after seeing the television productions. However, LeCarre brings you so completely into this world that your knowledge of plot doesn't distract you because you're so thoroughly engrossed in the world that he creates. If I had to choose, I'd go with the television productions (each several hours long) over the novels, but if you don't read these two novels because you've seen the television productions, then some LeCarre should go on your list. LeCarre is not a "spy novelist", not an Ian Fleming; Smiley is not James Bond. Oh, my, no.
    
21. Ward Just, The Ambassador's Son. Perhaps one should be older the read this book about a man whose son turns violently against him. A frightening book about a man, his wife, and their son caught in world that seems wrong, yet for no strong reason. This, and other Just books that I've read, catch contemporary dramas of American lives, which, however, may be played out anywhere around the globe.
    
22. Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian (Grace Flick, translator). My oldest daughter recommended this to me when we were perusing Kramer's Book Store near DuPont Circle in Washington, and I'm very glad I took her recommendation. I'm generally skeptical of historical novels, as a well-written history or biography sticks to the facts (sort of) and avoids wild conjecture. Yet, when I read this book, I felt as if she'd taken me inside this man via true memoires to register his feelings, his world, so perfectly, one cannot imagine that it is not the most accurate, as well as beautiful, portrait we could ever find.
    

I end my list here. No doubt, I'll think of something that I should have mentioned. I welcome suggestions for further readings; perhaps someone can find a pattern here. I don't know that I can.

Chalk One Up for the Rule of Law

This post that I found from the Progressive Realist provides the strong, brief case in favor the rule of law as illustrated by the case of the wanna-bomber of Times Square. As this article (or perhaps another one that I read) points out, giving a person in custody a statement of his rights doesn't mean that he'll stop talking or that he ever would have talked. Failure to provide those rights could, however, make a confession inadmissible. Three cheers for the rule of law! Sound police work, too.

Tyler Cowen and Kindle Highlights

Economist Tyler Cowen, economist @ George Mason U, blogs frequently at Marginal Revolution with often interesting, off-beat topics, including books. In this post, he takes note of the most frequently marked passages in non-fiction Kindle books. Very interesting. Read some of the passages that others are highlighting. I think the first cite, to Gladwell's Outliers, rings very true. The book that follows—completely new to me—also has some thought-provoking passages. Read the link there as well.

Lewis Mumford

In speaking a couple of weeks ago with 1HP, she related her terrific buys from the Seattle Public Library sale. Besides a haul of cookbooks (books the mom likes to hear about), she related her extensive buys in history, politics, and philosophy. One of the books that she mentioned was Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization (1934). When she mentioned Mumford's name, I realized that my earlier list of important books contained a serious omission—Lewis Mumford. The baker's dozen is now . . . fourteen (I can't think of a fancier term).

As I intended to write some about each author, I'll start with Mumford. Mumford (1895-1979) was an American humanist. I can't easily classify Mumford because of the breath of his work: literary critic, historian of civilization, historian of technology, urbanist, and philosopher (in the broadest sense of the term). Mumford surveyed human history and summarized what he learned about how our material conditions and ideas have changed. Mumford, more than any other 20^th century thinker that I can call to mind, provides a sense the possibilities of the human project.

Bibliographies from a couple of political theory classes first brought Mumford to my attention. His later work, especially The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power (1970), details a critique of contemporary life. However, Mumford would quickly note that his aim was not that of a Luddite, but machines, cities, laws— the whole human enterprise—should serve persons. Earlier Mumford addressed the American Renaissance of Emerson and Melville (he helped resurrect Melville from obscurity), the growth and development of cities, and the need for America to lead the fight—yes, fight when it came to that—for a better world. (Mumford lost his son Gettys in combat during WWII).

Works I'd recommend:

The Myth of the Machine: The Pentagon of Power for Mumford the prophet.

The City in History
(1961) for Mumford as a guide to civilization. (I read it during our family trip to Europe many years ago, and it provided a guide to some of the interesting sites we enjoyed.)

                

Stephen Walt on Political Institutions

Stephen Walt on the importance of political institutions for addressing pressing problems, and some suggestions on changes needed. California provides a compelling example of how poorly designed or antiquated political institutions can really cripple a state. I'm thinking of their super-majority required for budgeting and their damned referendum system that compels the government to spend like socialists and tax like libertarians.

Brooks on Government

I often agree with Dave Brooks when it comes to his observations about social science and society. In this column, I'm immediately sympathetic with his position as a "Burkean conservative". I, too, question radical social change. I usually agree that incremental changes are most likely to prove successful. For instance, the health care reform bill passed by Congress is incremental change (although some think it portends the end of the world). However, Brooks makes a couple of mistakes in this column: First, Obama didn't opt of "big government". The train-wreck of an economy that Bush left him gave him only one real option: massive stimulus spending. Second, special interests, inimical to the broader public interest (the rest of us), should suffer attack. If anything, Obama has been too tepid in dealing with the forces of the status quo. The opening skit on SNL tonight, with Obama asking Wall Street to please allow reform, hits a widely held perception (one that Garry Wills has expressed a number of times on his recent book tour) that Obama places too much hope on successfully placating opposing interests. Sometimes you need to knock heads. Brooks decries the knee-jerk polarization that the current debates on government have taken, and I join him in this, but he fails to acknowledge that the right has really gone much further right (hysterically anti-government in some cases) than that left has gone left with any pro-big government attitude. Brooks, like Obama, seems to believe that even-handedness must provide an answer. Sometimes it does, sometimes it's just; but sometimes it's merely unjust and ineffective.

The Secret of Kells: Movie Review

C & I saw The Secret of Kells tonight at the Bijou (it's not yet out on DVD), and it was a delight. This animated feature combined realistic drama—Irish monasteries under attack by Vikings in the 8^th century—with Irish myth. We've seen stories of Irish myth combined with realism filmed with enchanting results in The Secret of Roan Inish and Into the West, but never by an animated film. The visuals were spectacular, unlike anything produced by the American studios. The figures were highly stylized and geometrical. (It reminded me of the art of Tommie de Paola, but my date differs with me on this.) The music, all manner of Irish music, worked well with the film, and the mythic and realistic portions of the story meshed to create a seamless narrative. At one point we see the main character battling an ouroboros. A film for the Jung at heart! I must say that this film is not for young children. The Northmen (Norsemen, Vikings) are scary, and the film portrays vividly the fear and destruction that these marauding warrior wrought. If you have children who can deal with these haunting images (also attacking wolves), I highly recommend this film for them as well as the adults in the family. Having seen Up! and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, I can say that this film presents the best visual fare, truly incredible, and probably the best entire package of an animated film (although I must say that I did like Mr. Fox and friends). Highly recommended.

Taleb Meets Erwan Le Corre

Taleb hooked-up with Erwan Le Corre, and here (127—"Learning From Erwan Le Corre & Robust Exercise") Taleb writes about his encounter. Mr. Wild Fitness meets Mr. Mathematical/Skeptical/Literate/Philosopher, and the later (Taleb) sings the praises of Le Corre's regime. This should come as no surprise, as Taleb came onto the idea of evolutionary (or paleo) fitness from Art Devany, one of the founders of the movement. Check out this Youtube and this one of Le Corre to get a sense of what he's about. It looks fun and makes a lot of sense. It provides some food for thought for us gym rats and perhaps even yogis.

 

Some quick notes on Le Corre:

1. From the fact that one shot shows him running across an aqueduct, the seashore shots, and that he's French, I'll be those scenes were shot in the south of France, Provence, perhaps. In any event, the countryside looks beautiful to me, one of the places I'd definitely like to go and hang. We drove through Provence once, but at about 100 mph, which detracted from my ability to enjoy the scenery.
   
2. Le Corre's MovNat seems a lot like parkour, only in the wild. Both look like a great deal of fun.
   
3. All this makes me eager for summer to come & perhaps some time to put on my Five Fingers and go out hiking. The res isn't Provence, but it has some good hiking opportunities.

Krugman: The Emperor Has Few Clothes

In his column today, Krugman discusses financial reform, and he makes a point worth repeating: the financial sector has become a huge portion of the economy without adding a great deal of real value. Krugman argues that the financial sector doesn't do nearly as much as they claim. Indeed, of late, they've mostly just gambled with our money. As someone who does not make widgets, and whose "product" is relationships (legal), I understand that our contemporary economy might be dubbed "beyond widgets". Somewhere, however, you have to make and sell stuff. It's great and crucial to allocate capital and make investments, but these activities have to amount to more than Ponzi schemes. Krugman's article reinforces my belief that measuring economic well-being by dollar signs, or even by the sheer amount of stuff that one has, doesn't provide an accurate portrayal of well-being; in fact, it creates a deceptive measure of well-being.

Wills, Brooks & Ferguson Quick Takes

Garry Wills is interviewed about his background (he started with William Buckley & National Review), his thoughts on Obama (too much placation), and his new book Bomb Power (the undermining of Constitutional restraints on government because of prerogatives claimed by the National Security State). Great listening (no reason to watch, little to see).

Dave Brooks culls social science again for insights, this time challenging some earlier work by Obama friend, appointee, and potential SCOTUS nominee, Cass Sunstein. Brooks suggests that the internet isn't as polarizing as Sunstein originally feared. Sunstein has written some very interesting things about group polarization.

Niall Ferguson writing for the Financial Times "Too much Hitler and the Henrys'" argues that teaching history in the UK needs the same type of attention that Jamie Oliver brought to school lunches (Jamie did it first in the UK, and has since taken in West Virginia). Ferguson finds the curriculum disjunct, with no over-arching narrative to bring cohesion to the curriculum. Let me include a few quotes from his article:

    Why is this downgrading of history a bad thing? Well, for one thing, the current world population makes up only about 7 per cent of all the human beings who have ever lived. The dead outnumber the living, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril. Second, the Past is our only reliable guide to the Present and to the multiple futures that lie before us, only one of which will actually happen.

Ferguson, however, realizes that history has a bad rap as a school subject:

    Now, nobody wants a return to the kind of mind-numbing history that used to be taught a generation ago – those strings of facts and dates, one damned thing after another, half-memorised by comatose pupils and famously lampooned in WC Sellar and RJ Yeatman's 1930 classic, 1066 and All That.

It's no coincidence that the most boring teacher at Hogwarts in JKRowling's Harry Potter books is the history teacher, Mr Binns, whose lessons about the goblin wars are so tedious that he himself has died of boredom without noticing.

Ferguson goes on to comment on the smorgasbord courses in lower grades that are supposed to constitute the history curriculum:

    The excessive concentration of sixth-formers on learning about either Hitler or the Henrys – the Third Reich or the Tudors – was already a cause of concern when I was a college fellow and tutor in history at Oxford University in the 1990s. I shudder to think what it must be like to conduct Oxbridge admissions now.

What we urgently need in this country is a campaign for real history in schools, to match Jamie Oliver's campaign for healthy school dinners. Like junk food, junk history is bad for kids. It encourages snacking and the mental equivalent of obesity – a chronic lack of mental shape. So here's what I would propose to vary the historical diet in English education.

Here's the point where Ferguson may generate some controversy, but this should generate some thought. The remainder of his article follows below:

    I also believe there should be a compulsory chronological framework over the entire period from entering secondary school right through to sixth form. All students at GCSE and A-level should cover at least one medieval, one early modern and one modern paper. The crucial thing is to have an over-arching story – a meta-narrative, as academics pretentiously call it. The one I propose for my new-look history course is called "western ascendancy".

Why do I use the word "western"? Aside from cowboy films, is it not completely passé? And why have I used the word "ascendancy", implying as it does some politically incorrect superiority?

The answer is simple. Western predominance was a historical reality after around 1500, and certainly after 1800. In that year, Europe and its New World offshoots accounted for 12 per cent of the world's population and (already) around 27 per cent of its total income. By 1913, however, it was 20 per cent of the world's population and more than half – 51 per cent – of the income. Today the west's share is back down to 12 per cent of the population, but still around 45 per cent of the income. Like it or not, the fact is that after 1500 the world became more Eurocentric. And understanding why that happened is the modern historian's biggest challenge.

It was a surprising turn of events. Had you made a tour of the world in the early 1600s, you would have hesitated before betting a significant sum that western Europe would inherit the earth.

The Oriental challengers for world power were outwardly a great deal more impressive. Ottoman Turkey under Mehmed IV (1648-87) was able to send an army under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa to besiege – and very nearly conquer – Vienna in 1683. Mughal India in the reign of Shah Jahan 1627-58) was able to conquer the Deccan and to build the Taj Mahal and the Diwan-i-Am in Delhi. Qing China saw its golden age under the Kangxi Emperor (1662-1722). China had already invented the magnetic compass, paper, gunpowder, the spinning wheel, and the clock. The Muslim world had for many centuries led the west in the crucial field of mathematics. Indian astronomers had been far ahead of their medieval European counterparts.

So why did the states of western Europe – Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Britain – end up trouncing these eastern competitors, not only economically but also militarily and in some respects also culturally, so that by 1900 the world was dominated by western empires?

Anthropologist Jared Diamond's answer is essentially: geography, which determined two very different political orders. In the great plains of eastern Eurasia, monolithic Oriental empires evolved that had the fatal ability to stifle innovation. In mountainous, river-divided western Eurasia, by contrast, multiple monarchies and city-states engaged in competition and communication, and it was these processes that accelerated innovation sufficiently for an industrial revolution to take place.

His argument is almost irresistibly attractive, but for one difficulty. From the vantage point of the 1630s and 1640s, political fragmentation in Europe meant civil war and chaos.

Other hypotheses exist. One is that it was the acquisition of colonial "ghost acres" and the fortunate location of European coal deposits that gave the west the edge over the east. Or it may have been the cultural legacies of the Reformation.

If I were permitted to hazard some hypotheses they would go as follows. There were, in essence, six "killer applications" that allowed the west to establish dominance over the east: market capitalism, scientific method, representative government, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the Protestant work ethic.

The value of this approach to history at secondary level is threefold. First, it provides a narrative for around 500 years of world history. Second, it makes a comparative approach to history unavoidable, for clearly an interpretation of western success requires some complementary explanation of eastern stagnation. And, third, understanding western ascendancy encourages students to re-examine the present and the future, asking: are we approaching the end of western ascendancy? After all, most of these six elements have been more or less successfully replicated in some major non-western societies.

Let me not be misinterpreted. The point of studying western ascendancy is not to slip covert imperialist apologia into the curriculum. On the contrary, the great strength of this framework is that it allows students to study world history without falling into the trap of relativism, i.e. arguing as if the Ashanti Empire were in some way the equal of the British Empire.

Western ascendancy was not all good, any more than it was all bad. It was simply what happened and, of all the things that happened over the past five centuries, it was the thing that changed the world the most. That so few British schoolchildren are even aware of this is deplorable. Knowing the names of Henry VIII's six wives or the date of the Reichstag fire is no substitute for having a real historical education.

We have recently witnessed a successful campaign to improve the quality of lunches served in British schools. It is time for an equivalent campaign against junk history.

My comment: I think that Ferguson makes a strong argument here. He's talking "big history", which gives context to things like the Reichstag fire and other discrete events. To grasp history, the change wrought by time, one must have some sense of time and continuity, of change with some trajectory, even if caused for random, unanticipated events. For reasons I cannot explain, from a very early age I wanted to understand the sequence of events. I wanted to know who came first, Hitler or the Kaiser? (I kid you not about this, I remember puzzling over this at our house on Pioneer Avenue, and we had moved away from there before the beginning of the third grade.)

As to the importance of history, Ferguson makes a quick argument, but John Lukacs provides an event better and deeper appreciation of the importance of history. Put simply, everything is history. People, institutions, nature (think evolution as the keystone to modern biology), thinking itself, is always history (we can only think and imagine based on what we've experienced in the past). The late Neil Postman, NYU professor of "media ecology", argued that almost all subjects should be taught through their history. If you think about it, a lot of social science is history frozen in time to allow for more careful examination, much as a biologist takes a living organism out of history by killing and then dissecting it. Ferguson's argument should receive serious consideration both in the UK and in the US, the subject matter is too important to ignore.

Stiglitz on Skidelsky on Keynes

Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and a faculty member @ Columbia, writes a review of Skidelsky's Keynes: Return of the Master. I reviewed this book earlier, but for a consideration from a (I must say) better source, read this one. I think that Stiglitz raises many interesting issues here. Our recent financial meltdown remains a source of fascination for me, as I think that a lot of contemporary economics is built upon illusion.

Dan Pink on Motiviation

Listening to Dan Pink's new book, Drive, and found this short piece that will give you an executive summary of his points. I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm enjoying it very much. In less than 10', this News Hour report gives you the gist of his argument.

Lawyer Stuff: Who Is the Greatest Lawyer of the Century?

An interesting discussion of who should receive recognition as the greatest lawyer of the century. Clarance Darrow receives the nod over Thurgood Marshall & Edward Bennett Williams. http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v33-issue2/uelman.pdf.

Krugman Parodies McConnell

If you don't read Paul Krugman regularly, you should (including his blog). His cred is impressive, including a Nobel Prize in economics. However, he writes in his column for the NYT in a very accessible, and often quite humorous, manner. Here he makes a superb argument by analogy and parody. Oh, that all political discourse could prove so entertaining and enlightening! Instead, we tend to hear a lot of Tea Party rants. Am I wrong, or do some conservatives—certainly not all—go primarily with rants and taunts for political persuasion and "liberals" (hard to define, mind you) go more with humor and parody to make their points? Think The Daily Show and the Colbert Report.

The Classics Edition

Following up on the post from yesterday, the following list of "classics" that I've found most gratifying. Again, I go with authors rather than any one particular work (although the last entry, Max Weber, got on based on a single, relatively short work). Again, I list these in roughly chronological order:

1. The Old Testament (Hebrew Bible). We're talking selections, not the whole thing. Especially Genesis, Exodus, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
   
2. New Testament. (I read the entire NT straight through as a senior in high school, once I'd returned from the Dark Ages of pretty much not reading books after the 6^th grade.)
   
3. Plato (Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and Republic)
   
4. St. Augustine (Confessions, City of God (portions)).
   
5. Dante (Comedia. Perhaps the greatest single work in Western lit? )
   
6. Machiavelli (The Prince).
   
7. Montaigne (Essays)
   
8. Shakespeare (a long list: the four great tragedies, The Tempest, Henry V, etc.
   
9. Spinoza (Ethics).
   
10. Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essays, etc.).
    
11. Karl Marx (No, I am not a Marxist; however, he gets included because the early Marx was an interesting idealist and the later Marx was such a force that even if one disagrees with him, one must consider him and respond accordingly).
    
12. William James (essays, Talks to Teachers, and especially The Varieties of Religious Experience).
    
13. Max Weber (Politics as a Vocation).
    

A Baker’s Dozen of Influential Thinkers for Me

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution recently posted a list of his top 10 most influential books, and his site pointed the way to others who compiled such lists. I gave the matter some brief thought, but I found the project too intimidating. Only 10 books? I can't limit myself that that low a number for a year-end list, let alone a lifetime. However, perhaps more to the point, I tend to think in terms of authors and not single works (although there can be one hit wonders). Therefore, I decided upon a baker's dozen of thinkers whom I have found that have most affected my thinking, beliefs, and that have served in some way to inspire me. In a later post, I think I'll do a list of "classics", and then a list of Modern (since 1800) literature. For inclusion on this list, the person must have been alive during my lifetime, essentially, the 2^nd half of the 20^th century. I have read a number of works by each of the authors, so it's not a single work that I can easily point to. For each person, I'm considering a body of work that has had, and in some ways continues to have, an effect on my thinking and outlook. I will just name the list today (and honorable mentions), and I will try to comment on each member in later posts. In addition, I am attempting to compile the list (but not the honorable mentions) in roughly the order that I recall that I "discovered" each of them. Here goes:

1. Hannah Arendt
2. Garry Wills
3. Alan Watts
4. Robert Solomon
5. Ken Wilber
6. Reinhold Neibuhr
7. John Patrick Diggins
8. Northrup Frye
9. Jon Elster
10. Colin Wilson
11. John Lukacs
12. Pierre Hadot
13. Nassim Taleb

Receiving honorable mentions in no particular order at all except in the order that they popped into mind:

1. Jacob Needleman
2. Phillip Bobbitt
3. Niall Fergusson
4. James Hillman
5. Robert Anton Wilson
6. Buddhist writers (have to work on this, as a number could pop into mind)
7. Martha Nussbaum
8. Robert Kaplan
9. Charles Hartshorne
10. William Irwin Thompson
11. Gerry Spence

Enough for now. Food for thought.

Great Thought of the Day from Daniel Patrick Moynihan

"The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan liked to say that everyone is entitled to his own opinions but not his own facts."

From http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/no_way_to_treat_a_senator_20100413/, discussing how Tom Coburn (yes, that Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma senator) gets nailed for suggesting in public that Nancy Pelosi is a "nice lady" and that people won't be sent to jail by the health care reform bill. Wow.

Mark Johnston’s Saving God: Religion After Idolatry

Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (2009, 198 p.) is an extended essay by Princeton philosopher Mark Johnston. Johnston's book provides a well-written and tightly argued understanding of God in the Western monotheistic tradition. His conclusions are not orthodox, but his insights create a deeply satisfying and challenging work. While a small portion in the latter part of the book involves some rather dense (but not inaccessible) philosophical argument about the existence of God (reaching a panentheist conclusion), the better part of the book addresses the understanding of God in the three great monotheistic religions based on the Bible and their respective traditions. Because this book is so well written, insightful, and persuasive (to my mind), it's difficult to review it. In fact, I read it twice; once through initially, and almost right away again with my pencil handy, marking and annotating, like a 49'er who stops sifting through the dust and finds something that merits a pick-ax and a toothbrush.


The title of this book happened to grab me because of its reference to idolatry. I wondered for some time about this issue of idolatry, worshiping a false god or a false image of God. My own sense was that all religion consists of a form of idolatry, perhaps necessarily, as a part of human fallibility. This seems true despite the stark Biblical injunction against idolatry. Johnston argues that asking favors of God amounts to a form of idolatry. There is, however, in Christianity (and I think in Judaism and Islam, as well) a tradition of the via negativa, a tradition of not attempting to attribute qualities to God, or attempting to define God, because God is sui generis. Think Pseudo-Dionysus, The Cloud of Unknowing, Meister Eckhart, and more recently, Paul Tillich's conception of God as the Ground of Being. Johnston does not explore this tradition. However, I think that this tradition bolsters his argument. (I think a good deal of Johnston's perspective originates in Spinoza, the incredibly insightful 17th-century Dutch philosopher.)


To close, and to give you a better sense of Johnston's perspective and insight, I offer the following extended quote comparing the death and example of Jesus with that of Socrates. This follows in the book shortly after my recent posting of a Johnston quote to celebrate the Easter season. Johnston writes:

    And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. (Luke, 23:48)

    This is the sense in which Christ destroys the Kingdom of self-love and false righteousness. Of course, it is not that the psychological power of self-love and false righteousness is actually diminished by the Passion and Crucifixion. Instead, self-love and false righteousness—that is to say, the central elements of the characteristically human form of life—no longer make up a defensible realm.

    Contrast the death of Socrates. He also asks for it. He is a victim of those who would police the Athenian conception of respectability, an averaged-out conception of pious virtue. But Plato romanticizes the death of Socrates; his death is a fearless and noble suicide. Socrates talks philosophy until the very end; he is full of arguments, for the soul, and even when he is not relying on these (bad) arguments, he remains convinced that release from the body remains a very desirable thing, something that philosophy prepares us for. Socrates accepts the hemlock as a healing balm for the sickness that is life.

    But suppose instead that he had to anticipate being stripped, beaten, and hung from a tree; how would the pose of nobility and fearlessness have held up then? Is there not something decadently twee about the death of Socrates as Plato presents it? And is this not connected with the calming doctrine of the afterlife, and with the corresponding idea of this life as a sickness that death heals?

    Crucially, Plato's Socrates recognizes the legitimacy of the Athenian state; he accepts its claims upon him and does not flee even in the face of an unjust sentence. In this way the death of Socrates secretly valorizes the false righteousness of Athenian respectability, by showing that even someone who really understands virtue will bow to this false righteousness in the end. Human ways of going on are secretly redeemed by Plato's Socrates. The Kingdom of self-love and false righteousness remains legitimated.

    The ordeal of Christ's Passion and Crucifixion is not at all like this. There is nothing noble or "humanly redeeming" about it, beginning as it does with his desperation in the Garden and ending with his despair on the Cross. It is not a cathartic tragedy. It leaves us at a total loss. We can return to human ways of going on only if we forget what happened. If we do not forget, we need to find a way to live that is not some form of self-love and false righteousness. In addition, if we do not forget, we know that we cannot find this in ourselves. Then, and only then, are we prepared to take the two commandments, the salvation from without, seriously.

Wills on Remnick on Obama

New Yorker editor David Remnick's new biography of Obama, The Bridge: The Life & Rise of Barack Obama (2010) (just released) is reviewed in the NYT by Garry Wills. Remnick's Lenin's Tomb is an excellent book on the collapse of the Soviet Union that I enjoyed very much, and the New Yorker probably still has the best writers in its stable as any magazine—print or electronic—in the world, so all of that speaks well for Remnick's credentials. As for Wills, the author of Nixon Agonistes (a great book), Reagan's America, The Kennedy Imprisonment, as well as other biographical pieces, we have a writer who has considered and understood American political leaders in a way that very few can match. This combination makes for a very worthwhile review. Wills, in his typical way, finds the irony in Obama's traits that brought him to the top (such as conciliator) but which may prove his undoing (or at least great limitation) as president. Read it and come to your own conclusion. I see Wills' point, but I remain hopeful that Obama's capacity for change and adjustment may seem him through to further successes. If Obama can take himself beyond what got him there, he has the potential to become a great president.

Mark Johnston for Good Friday

I recently finished Mark Johnston's exceptional book, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry (2009, 198 p.). I could write a great deal about this book, and I hope to do so, but apropos for today, I think it best just to share this quote:

    Why did Christ have to suffer and die at the hands of legitimate religious and political authorities? Why wouldn't the viper [a fatal viper bite in the Garden of Gethsemane] have sufficed? Not, pace Girard, because only then could the suffering and death of Christ be a reductio ad absurdum of scapegoating sacrifice, but because only then could it expose the mechanisms in the heart of false righteousness, this secret love of self-love trying at all costs to put down the anxiety of how to live, even to the point of murder. The Crucifixion discloses how far we are prepared to go in order to defend our idolatrous attachment to one or another adventitious form of righteousness." [Emphasis in original.]

    Johnston, Saving God, p. 171.