Another Cri de Coeur from Stephen Walt

Stephen Walt's "Lessons from the Weimar Republic" is another post occasioned by the debate over Park51 ("the mosque at Ground Zero"), this time noting the extremism in politics that seems to be increasing with little or no resistance from political leaders, politicians and intellectuals, who should be championing religious toleration and reasoned debate. Walt reports that he made the choice for political science over a career in law when he heard Gordon Craig speak on the failure of intellectuals on in the Weimar Republic and how that contributed to its failure. He now discerns a similar problem here. Interesting.

More Movies

C, F & I started talking movies, and I came up with this list of significant films that I missed in my initial list. Here, in no special order, are other films that I really like:

My Father's Glory and My Mother's Castle

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Cinema Paradiso

Mediterraneo

The Three Musketeers (1973) & The Four Musketeers (1974)

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Gallipoli

Breaker Morant

Chariots of Fire

Three Days of the Condor

Saving Private Ryan

 

John Lukacs on George Kennan

I just posted a three-way celebration of Kennan, Lukacs, and Jacques Barzun; however, I want to devote a bit more to Lukac's George Kennan: A Study in Character (2004, 277 p.). Lukacs's admiration of Kennan (although not entirely uncritical) is manifest. While this is not a full-fledged biography of Kennan (one remains to be written; apparently John Lewis Gaddis has received "official biographer designation), Lukacs's work covers all 101 years of Kennan's life.

Rather than go on further with details from the book, let me offer some quotes that will provide a better insight into Kennan and give us some reason to consider in light of some present issues before our nation:

Lukacs quotes from a speech that Kennan delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 1953:

    There are forces at large in our society today. . . . The all march, in one way or another, under the banner of an alarmed and exercised anti-communism. . . . I have the deepest misgivings about the direction and effects of their efforts. . . . They impel us—in the name of our salvation from the dangers of communism—to many of the habits of the thought and action [of our Soviet adversaries]. . . . I tremble when I see this attempt to make a semi-religious cult our of emotional-political currents of the moment . . . designed to appeal only to men's capacity for hatred and fear, never to their capacity for forgiveness and charity and understanding. . . . Remember that the ultimate judgments of the good and evil are not ours to make: that the wrath of man against his fellow man must always be tempered by the recollection of his weakness and fallibility and by the example of forgiveness and redemption which is the essence of his Christian heritage.

p. 130 (Lukacs appends the entire speech at the end of the book).

This quote, still important to consider today, should give you a good sense of the man and his sensibilities.

Joshua Lerner & Richard Thaler on Leadership Characteristics

Joshua Lerner published this intriguing article recently in the Wall Street Journal that suggested that leaders change once they assume the highest rungs of power. Someone scholar ought to check out whether the social scientists' tests (of undergraduates?) mesh with political history. It seems plausible that this is the course of event most often—the hubris of power. An interesting article in the NYT by Richard Thaler, "The Overconfidence Problem in Forecasting" tells of business leaders who vastly overestimate their ability to make successful economics forecasts, and this serves as a stark reminder about the foibles of prediction. More interestingly, it tacks with Lerner's article on leadership hubris. Thaler concludes with an apropos quote from Mark Twain: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Oh, and one other thing, this overconfidence factor isn't limited to leaders—it applies to all of us. Think the Lake Wobegon effect.

Three Wise Men: Kennan, Barzun, & Lukacs

I just re-read John Lukacs's George Kennan: A Study in Character. More about this particular work in a later post. In re-reading this book, I reflected on these two men, who were friends and correspondents for over fifty years, and how they both intrigue me. I add to them the person of Jacques Barzun to complete a trio for my pantheon. What do they share and why do I find them so worthy of attention and admiration?

The three men share some surface attributes. Each is (or was) long-lived: Kennan, who died in 2003, lived to 101 years of age; Barzun is now 102, and Lukacs, the kid among the three, is now 86, and still writing. Kennan remained an active writer and traveler up to his 100^th year. Barzun published a tome on Western Civ well into his nineties. (I don't know about his current state of health). Lukacs, in the mean time, is still actively publishing; in fact, I just learned that he's published his correspondence with Kennan (Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs (2010) (this moved up immediately to the top of my buy list). In addition, each of these individuals is an American; however, Kennan is the only native-born American, having grown up in Wisconsin and having gone to college at Princeton. Barzun and Lukacs, on the other hand, grew-up in France and Hungary, respectively, and emigrated to the U.S. as young men. So while all three are Americans, they are also quite cosmopolitan (and multi-lingual). All three are historians; Barzun and Lukacs as academics, while Kennan became a historian after a distinguished career as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Each brings a wide-ranging and very literate sensibility to history. Barzun, in addition to writing on cultural history, also published on the topics of mysteries, baseball, musicology, writing style, research, and education, and he worked with Lionel Trilling on literary projects. Lukacs describes himself as a "writer" as much as a historian. His vignettes in A Thread of Years show the eye and ear of a novelist, while his style in almost all of his writings carries a distinctive mastery of his adopted tongue. Kennan, meanwhile, gained his fame as the author of the Long Telegram of 1946 and his Foreign Policy article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (1947) signed as "X" (an attempt to shield his identity given his State Department rank). After leaving the Foreign Service, Kennan moved the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton where he published histories of diplomacy and foreign relations, as well as commentary on current events. How well did he write? Lukacs praises his writing, which I consider an extremely high compliment.

The final attribute that I would attribute to the three wise men arises from the difficulty one would have attempting to pigeonhole any of them politically. Kennan receives credit for launching the Cold War strategy of containment, but he came to resist the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, over reliance on nuclear weapons, the U.S. war in Viet Nam, among other positions that could alienate partisans in American politics. Lukacs and Barzun, while not writing much on contemporary U.S. politics, certainly provide historical and cultural perspectives that challenge facile distinctions of liberals and conservatives. Lukacs, especially, emphasizes the distinction between patriotism and nationalism.

The more I read by and about these three individuals, the more I appreciate them. Flawless? No, of course not, but in the face of difficult issues and popular sentiments, these men stake out positions that demand our consideration and respect, and quite often, our emulation. Finally, for individuals who are growing older (like me), they represent a model of engaged and engaging thinkers who refused to go gently into that goodnight.

Stephen Walt on the “Ground Zero Mosque”*

Stephen Walt, Harvard IR professor and regular blogger @ Foreign Policy provides a trenchant analysis and critique of the positions taken over the so-called "ground zero mosque". Those who oppose it go against the grain of religious freedom and toleration that we should cherish, but many of those who don't oppose it show a degree of excessive—and disheartening—political expediency.

* I use the term "ground zero mosque" or "mosque at ground zero" even though, as Walt points out, it is neither a mosque nor is at ground zero. We have here a prime example of how a label can define reality, instead of reality requiring the label.

Peter Beinart on the Democrats & the “Ground Zero Mosque”

Peter Beinart criticizes Democrats and New Yorkers on the principles involved in this controversy. He provides all concerned with some serious reflection.

Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon

I recently finished reading The Maltese Falcon, having decided to go back and read some of the classics of the mystery and detective genre. I like the sparse, clean prose. In some ways, Hammett reads like Hemingway. Someone suggested the 1941 John Huston film production starring Bogie, Peter Lorie, and Sydney Greenstreet simply changed the margins in the novel to create the screenplay. An exaggeration certainly, but they do seem to track quite closely. One can't help imagining Bogie and the others as one reads it. Now I have to go back and watch the flick. Entertaining reading. An American classic.

Niall Ferguson on Decline and Fall

In the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs Niall Ferguson writes about the decline and fall of empires. What makes his perspective worth noting arises from his use of complexity theory as a guide to civilizations, as opposed to the more leisurely, cyclical view of older historians from Vico to Spengler to Toynbee. Ferguson, citing the work of the Santa Fe Institute and Nicholas Taleb, argues that complex entities, such as governments, societies, and economies, can change quite rapidly and unexpectedly. As examples, we can find the fall of the Bourbons in France (leading to the French Revolution), the fall of the Soviet Union (that few predicted), or the great economic crashes of 1929 or 2008 (which some, but only a few, predicted). Another example is the failure of bond markets to predict the outbreak of the Great War (this isn't mentioned in the article, but Taleb mentions Ferguson in The Black Swan on this point). After the fact, Ferguson notes, citing Taleb, we usually fall into the "narrative fallacy"; that is, the idea that the course of events as they unfolded makes perfect sense. But in fact, as the future, the course of events was essentially unpredictable. This view of history, I think, holds a great deal of merit. To borrow a phrase, hindsight is always 20-20. However, we don't live life backwards (although history is intriguing); we live life forward and must see as into a glass darkly.

Ferguson concludes his article with the suggestion that financial collapse is often connected with sudden changes in governments or political regimes, and that the U.S. public debt could provide such a trigger. Maybe. For the moment, interest rates remain low, and Krugman's argument that we need stimulus seems right. We are, nonetheless, in a bad way, and we as a nation—and as individuals—need to make sure that we have the necessary resiliency to withstand the shocks that might await us.

Nick Morgan’s Four Steps to Charismatic Communication

Morgan provides a short video explaining his four points:

1. Openness
   
2. Connection
   
3. Passion
   
4. Listening
   

Four easy steps to anything might seem inherently untrustworthy, but in a few short minutes, I think that Morgan is on to something. I subscribe to his blog because he offers a lot of short but pithy guidance about public speaking.

More Imaginative Literature Picks

Back here, I posted a list of favorite imaginative literature. Since then, some major omissions have haunted me, so I will post them now. How did I forget them: I can only blame it on old age!

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig. This is a great book. It's a "literary chautauqua" that is truly unique. It's the story of a man and his son taking a motorcycle trip from western Minnesota to Oregon. It's the story of a man on the edge of mental collapse. It's reflection on motorcycles. It's a reflection o the Western intellectual tradition. And so I could go on. Entertaining and enlightening, it's as interesting an American work as I can think of in the last 40 years (although I'm no expert).
   
2. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. A detective thriller set in the Middle Ages? Yes, and more. I loved this book, and (like Zen above), I've re-read it. Eco uses his extensive knowledge of the Middle Ages to tell a great story with intriguing ideas behind it. A great fun read.
   
3. A River Runs Through It, by Norman Mclean. I suppose that this book struck me because of the Presbyterian father who loved fishing, two marks of my father. The story is elegiac. Maclean, in a relatively few pages, captures a sense of his youth in Montana and the enigma of a brother. In the mean time, he reflects on the beauty of fly-fishing.
   
4. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I must admit that this is a sentimental pick because I think that it's that last work that I read aloud to 1HP. And, of course, one finds it in the "YA" section of the bookstore. On the other hand, it's for the YA at heart. Only fools would scoff at a good story and instructive lesson rolled into one, and this book does it: combination mystery and history of philosophy. I think we both had fun with it.
   

I can't think of more right now, but if I do, I'll post. Someday I might get around to posting favorite read- alouds to kids. I could generate a very long list of those! Happy reading!

Peter Beinart on the “Ground Zero Mosque”

In The Daily Beast today Beinart provides a lament over the resistance to the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. His fear about our losing our tradition of religious pluralism and tolerance is one that I share. Beinart notes the loss of perspective toward Islam that the Bush administration promoted. I also understand that Mayor Bloomberg gave a strong statement in favor of religious toleration, but I haven't read it yet.

Nassim Taleb Interview with Christopher Leyden

 

 

Taleb on BP, the Iceland volcano, and other Black Swans: an interview by Christopher Leyden. The unexpected, the high impact, and the contrived narrative of explanation are aspects of the Black Swan. Fragility, and the fact that we're error prone are discussed. This is a extended explication of Taleb's ideas. My notes: The Net increases unpredictability. Too much debt. Unpredictability and debt are not friends. Government has transformed private debt into public debt. Governments can't go bankrupt. The government has bailed those who took the risks and placed the burden on our grandchildren. We are now more dependent on expert mistakes. Distrust of predictions. Debt is a spreading cancer. It's more than an issue of economic swings. I know Keynes well, and he understood uncertainty well. Keynes lived in a different environment. What worked in the Great Depression won't work so well now. We need to clean up the system now. Instead, we just Paul Krugman doesn't understand extreme events; his models don't work into the world today. If Krugman is wrong, the costs are monstrous. Given predictions have been wrong in the past, why would we trust them now. The stimulus packages are bets. Unfortunately, we've run chronic deficits, so we don't have the cushion to risk stimulus. We can get into a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme.

Black Swans can be very consequential. 5-20 novels make up the bulk of sales of novels in English. Black Swans involves surprise. Someone is a turkey. 2^nd, after the fact you think that you've figured out what really happened. 20-20 hindsight.

Black Swans started with agricultural and the increasing complexity of society. Who saw the magnitude and effect of the Great War? The internet now takes things global, such as the universality of the Harry Potter phenomena. The internet causes scaling on a new level. Taleb's greatest fear is now on the natural level, not the economic level.

Networks should be more stable, but not if there is a dominant mode. Networks often increase vulnerability. The global economy is such a complex network, it's difficult to determine where trends come from or what effect they will have.

News makes us stupid. The media skews. Taleb prefers face-to-face contact. He doesn't spend too much time on the web because the net can take a life on its own. Taleb likes to meet people and speak with them.

Taleb likes history as it consists of facts and take emphasis away from theory. But history comes to us as a backwards narrative. It can also provide an overly deterministic view, that is was bound to happen the way it did. History lacks counter-factuals. This is learning too narrowly from history. History and newspapers tend to focus on the last cause, the anecdote, rather than the complex system. Aristotle realized the difference between causes. Learn the facts, avoid theoretical history. Newspapers offer theories and explanations, which we like, but which can deceive us.

We are now in an age of fragility. The island effect in biology: more species per area on an island. We no longer have the island effect of culture. Where will we hide from the next antibiotic resistant germs? The whole planet will be affected about that which travels by plane than by foot. We are more mollified by air conditioning, lack of hunger, and therefore weaker, more vulnerable. Leyden talks about the problem of monoculture in agriculture. For instance, Taleb found the same apple where ever he goes around the world. Example: the Irish dependent on potatoes.

So must we disconnect? Taleb likes city-states > nation-states. Nature is very connected, but nothing is too great in its system. Taleb doubts regulators because they hide weakness. Taleb says protect the small guy by not protecting the big guy.

Two lungs aren't "efficient", but they are redundant. But because of this, we're safer. We need this redundancy to counter-act fragility. The four quadrants involve two environments: Mediocrastan and Extremistan. In the former the Black Swan is inconsequential, in the latter, it's consequential. Then he measures exposure the Black Swan.

Roubini Interview

Nouriel Roubini giving an interview to The Economist. A succinct consideration of current macro-economic issues, such as the damned if we do, damned if we don't issue of austerity and stimulus. Also, an assessment of China's economic prospects.

Dave R. Loy: A Buddhist History of the West

Today I finished Dave R. Loy's A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack (2002, 228p). I purchased this book when 1HP & I visited The Ark, a book and gift store, in Santa Fe during our visit last month. The purchase proved itself quite worthwhile. Loy now teaches at Xavier University in Cincinnati, but he received much of his education and spent much of his early career in Japan and other parts of Asia. He brings a Western mind to Buddhism, and his efforts are quite fruitful. This was quite an—dare I say it?—enlightening book.

Loy argues that much of the cultural-religious heritage in the Christian West comes from a sense of "lack". Although I don't think he says so directly, I think we can posit that in Western mythology, this sense of lack arises from the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the subsequent development of the concept of original sin. (Loy, however, does spend time on the Classical Greeks, who developed their own mythology accounting for this sense of lack.) Loy discusses other turning points in Western culture in light of how they dealt with their sense of lack. His discussion of the great changes of medieval church after 1000 A.D. is quite interesting. Loy writes about the effect of the separation of Church and State in the High Middle Ages, and to this separation and its cultural effects he attributes the development of the Western legal system and a new concept of time. He writes:

The dynamism of the West and the authority of its law may both be traced back to the Papal reformation that occurred in Europe in the late eleventh century. This was not a reformation but a true revolution, in fact, arguably the most important revolution the West ever experienced. Significantly, it was not primarily a secular revolution, as we might expect, but a spiritual one: not only in the sense that it transformed the Papacy, and from there the whole structure of medieval society, but even more because it involved a radically new understanding of our human condition and its salvation. It was based upon a new theological doctrine about what sin is and show we can be redeemed—in other words, a new explanation of our human lack and how that is to be resolved. Berman concludes his massive study of the legal revolution that accompanied this change by claiming, "Without the fear of Purgatory and the hope of the Last Judgment, the Western legal tradition could not have come into being" (558). Even that extraordinary claim is still too modest. This spiritual revolution led to a bifurcation of the world into the scared and the secular spheres, whose disengagement led to "a release of energy and creativity analogous to the process of nuclear fission" (Berman 88).

Loy, A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack, 42.

Loy also then directs his discussion to the unique sense of time that developed in the West, something that I might note Lewis Mumford identified many years ago as a unique historical development.

However, Loy's discussion of the onset of modernity is equally intriguing. He draws extensively on the work of Christopher Hill about the English Puritans, who attempted to deal with issues of sin and guilt in the midst of the Scientific Revolution. Loy then examines the Enlightenment, and he concludes is historical survey by examining modernity through a consideration of perspectives of Max Weber and Gerog Simmel, among others.

I really learned a lot about early modern thinking by reading this book, an area where my knowledge is sorely deficient. The 17^th century saw the likes of Hobbes, Locke, the English Revolution, the Puritans, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton, among others. It also marked the beginning of the nation-state system. Loy's discussion of this era really gave me some new insights, and his conceit about culture as addressing a sense of lack helped shape a coherent perspective for his book.

Loy also discusses contemporary market economics, and he makes an interesting point by considering market economics as a religious phenomena, with values of its own, a theology (written by market economists), and with critics (like Karl Polyani & R.H. Tawney). This perspective, with its critique of market economics, draws in large measure from Daly and Cobb's For the Common Good (1994). Loy raises interesting points. I have come to think of market economics more and more as a genie that we've loosed from a bottle. The genie has provided us with unimaginable riches, but can we control the genie, or does the genie control us? Loy argues, with some justification, that we're first and foremost consumers who suffer an imperative to "grow" the economy and produce more and more. In the Buddhist perspective, this seems to reflect desire, one of the three poisons, along with hatred and delusion.

Loy doesn't speak much in this book about Buddhist doctrine, of which he's written a great deal elsewhere, but his use of the three poisons (greed, aversion, and delusion) as a guide to culture and thought, and as keys to dealing with our sense of lack in the Buddhist tradition, makes this a very compelling book.

Favorite Movies

C & I were talking about favorite movies, and so I had to come up with a list. But before getting into the list (and a long one it is), three movies deserve a shout-out as precursors to later viewing preferences. These three movies I remember seeing at the "old" Page Theatre, before it so spectacularly burned down. These are:
South Pacific (1958). I remember my mother taking me to see this. It combines WWII and the musical. While I'm not at C's level as a musical lover, nonetheless, I am a life-long fan. And, of course, WWII has been an interest that I've kept my whole life. Maybe trying to understand that phenomena is what got my so interested in history. Or maybe I was just googly-eyed for Mitzi Gaynor.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).This starred James Mason, whose brooding presence has always intrigued me. Also, this is my first cinematic encounter with SF and fantasy. (I don't remember seeing the Disney films at this age.). Now, the special effects look crude and the script cheesy, but I loved it.
Sink the Bismarck!. (1960).This was such a treat to see. Not only seeing the film, but my parents bought me a copy of the 45 rpm record of Johnny Horton's "Sink the Bismarck". The movie, in black and white, stars Kenneth Moore and the lovely Dana Wynter, who was very pretty in my seven year-old eyes. Part of the story is told from the headquarters of the Royal Navy where they tracked the Bismarck and then battle footage. A very cool movie—well to my seven-year old mind.
Okay, now the real list. I will put them in no special order of preference, although perhaps some very favorites and earliest seen toward the top.

1. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). I saw this in high school on television, and the image of Slim Pickens riding the Bomb down, waving his cowboy hat, struck me right away: this movie is out there. The craziness and relevance of it? 1HP was assigned to watch it as a part of her international relations class about 30 years after I first saw it.
2. Fail- Safe (1964). This movie came out around the same time as Strangelove, but Fail-Safe was grittier, grimmer film. Henry Fonda, of course, makes an excellent president. A chilling film—I think that I went into shock when I heard the high whistle the first time that I saw it, and it still gives me a chill on seeing it again. Directed by Sidney Lumet.
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). What can you say about this, except Newman & Redford are so good in this, plus I like Katherine Ross, too. Redford's drollness is too good, and Newman provides the perfect foil.
4. Dr. Zhivago. This is the only "epic" film on my list, but I have a certain sentimental rationale here. C & I went to see it in March 1970, on what I believe was our third date. She flattered me by asking questions about the personages and events of the Russian Revolution. What a great start for us! David Lean directed and Robert Bold (A Man for All Seasons) wrote the screenplay.
5. The Graduate (1967). C & I went to this in Hamburg, Iowa (yes, you read that correctly) after our freshman year in college. The film arrived in Hamburg a bit later than in other venues, it seems; however, I was ripe for seeing it. I think that I've seen it more times than any other movie. As social satire and commentary goes, it's hard to beat. Dustin Hoffman is great. Again, the lovely Katherine Ross, plus other great character actors. Directed by Mike Nichols.
6. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). You may ask why Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi is not on the list, and I must say that it seems to me not quite as compelling as the first two. However, the difference may lie with the company I kept for the first two. For Star Wars, as it was first known, I took my young nephew Andy as an excuse to go; for The Empire Strikes Back, my nephews Eron & Jake came along with C & R to the movie theatre in the Quad Cities to see it. This company enhanced the viewing experience; however, who could not fall for the combination of Saturday matinee serial thriller with hero myth, romance, and an American tough-guy character?
7. The Third Man (1949). A shout-out here to the Bijou Theatre at the University of Iowa. Before VHS and CDs, if you wanted to see an older movie, other than the potluck of television, you went to the Bijou. At was at the Bijou that I saw The Third Man for the first time, a great film directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Wells. The screenplay is by Graham Greene. The chase scene through the sewers of Vienna—great stuff. Also, a wonderful soundtrack based on the zither. (Very popular in the Amana Colonies!) A compelling story and a very well made film. If you like this, try the Greene-Reed collaboration in "A Fallen Idol".
8. Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980). While living in Champagne and before the birth of 1HP, Con and I took a chance on this movie, and we were blown away. The action, the colors, the staging, the story—this film seemed to us a masterpiece, and our first introduction to the great Akira Kurasowa.
9. Sanjuro. I am embarrassed to say that while in college, and even after C and I discovered foreign flicks, I shied away from the Japanese films. I'd seen Rodan and Godzilla—no thanks. How foolish I was! Kurasowa's chopstick westerns are a real treat. I picked this film over the more well-known and highly acclaimed Seven Samurai and almost equally well-known Roshomon, both great films. I picked this one because is combines a whimsical mirth and the action film.
10. North by Northwest (1959 ). First impressions can so deceive us. My earliest encounter with Hitchcock was to get up the courage to watch Psycho. Then The Birds on network TV, but I think that I had to wait to see this one. Gary Grant and Hitchcock (and James Mason!) and others make this a great film, I think my favorite among Hitchcock films (and he made many great ones).
11. Death in Venice (1971). This film by Italian Luchino Visconti was gorgeous: gorgeous filming and gorgeous music (Mahler's 5^th Symphony adagio movement). Dirk Bogarde plays the lead in this terrific adaptation of Thomas Mann's short novel.
12. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). I think that this will be the only documentary on my list, but we can almost view it as a tragedy. Errol Morris's documentary on Robert McNamara, including extensive interview footage of McNamara, displays to me an almost tragic sense of the man. He was not evil, he wanted to do well for his country, his family, and himself, yet Viet Nam, and all that it entailed, dragged him down. The film, I think, treats these issues fairly.
13. Henry V (1989). This is my favorite Shakespeare on film. One reason, perhaps, is that I borrowed my nephews Eron and Jake to come with me to Omaha to watch it with me. (Thanks, fellas, as you may have thought me nuts to drag you out to such a movie.) Branagh's version was just right, with a great supporting cast, including Emma Thompson as the French princess. Their scene together at the end was just right. I'd seen Olivier's version before seeing Branagh's, and it's certainly wonderful, but Branagh's young king comes closer to getting it right. For fun, compare Olivier's and Branagh's St. Crispin Day speeches—so different!
14. The Philadelphia Story (1940 ). It's a Cary Grant movie. It's a Kathryn Hepburn movie. It's a Jimmy Stewart movie. It's all three in one! Quick, witty, insightful. It's just a great movie. George Cukor directed.
15. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). Okay, C already complained that these are not movies. True, they were made for TV; however, because of the quality of the script, acting, and production design, I have to treat them as films. These are to me what the Godfather films are to C. I'm not sure that I can quote as well as her from the script (a frightening ability that she possesses when she quotes Vito or Michael to me), but still, if you want more, I'll give you an earful. Alec Guinness is superb as Smiley. The supporting cast consists of great actors.
16. The Shop Around the Corner (1940). This is a late discovery for C & I, but it's a gem. It stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in what served a prototype of the more recent You've Got Mail, which is good, but not as charming as the original. Also, great character actors support the two stars.
17. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). The first of some trial movies, this is one that I can't imagine everyone wouldn't find a favorite. What more can be said about this film?
18. Anatomy of a Murder (1959). This film is a grittier look at the world of criminal trials, and with Jimmy Stewart in the first chair, we get a pretty good account. The trial scenes are realistic enough to please me, but punchy enough for a general audience. One of the best trial movies.
19. The Winslow Boy (1999). This is another late find by C & I, and it's a gem. Directed by David Mamet (whose other films are quite good) and based on an older play, Mamet brings to life a delicate situation involving a young man accused of theft in Edwardian Britain, a barrister, and the boy's sister. The sexual tension and repartee between the barrister played by Jeremy Northam and the sister played by Rebecca Pidgeon works very well. A delightful film.
20. Twelve Angry Men (1957). Sidney Lumet puts Henry Fonda and eleven other outstanding actors in a small jury room, and he comes out with a truly compelling drama about a jury deciding a criminal case. Not having been privy to the inside of a jury deliberation, but having sought a lot of reports about what goes on, this strikes me as pretty realistic, as well as providing an outstanding drama. You have to really appreciate that the director and the actors could make such a confined space work in a movie.
21. The Black Stallion (1979). Thank goodness for your own children and my nephews because they give you an excuse to see some great flicks. This one is beautiful. It's a boy and his horse movie, very well done. A fine film score as well.
22. Into the West (1992). Our whole family saw this at the local mall. What a great blend of current Ireland, Irish mythology, and a nod the American Western. A fine soundtrack, too.
23. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Early SF film, but really fine. It sticks with you. Michael Rennie and his robot friend lay down the smack to planet earth. Not to be missed, and don't forget the crucial words!
24. The Matrix (1999). SF taken up a notch. Great actions and XF, plus a compelling and fascinating story.
25. Love and Death (1975). Woody Allen had to get on my list, of course, but which one? While most would say Annie Hall, I have to go with this one as my sentimental favorite. From nods to Russian literature to slapstick, this has it all. "You must be Don Francisco's sister!"
26. Ferris Beuller's Day Off (1986). This is a family favorite. Pure fun.
27. The Shooting Party (1985). This is a little known film starring James Mason as the host at a hunting party at an English estate in 1913, before the outbreak of the Great War. It evokes England and Europe as it was on the eve of the cataclysm, with its class structure, petty concerns, and sense of foreboding. Mason's brief scene with John Gielgud is worth any price of admission. Also with Edward Fox and Gordon Jackson.
28. Joyeux Noel (2005). This is one of the most recent films on the list. It's the story of the spontaneous truce on the front in WWI. It provides a glimpse into the horror of the Great War and the humanity that continued to exist despite it. Beautifully done.
29. Paths of Glory (1957). Stanley Kubrick directs Kirk Douglas in this indictment of injustice set during the Great War. It's a war movie and a trial movie. Its trial scenes are among the best. It's a really compelling drama, which, like Joyeux Noel, finds some hope amongst all of the barbarity.
30. The Awful Truth (1937). The screwball comedy with Gary Grant and Irene Dunn is a favorite in this genre, and it's a great genre. Irene Dunn is a treat to watch.
31. The Thin Man (1934). This film, and the sequels, are great with William Powell and Myrna Loy—and of course, Asta! Pure enjoyment.
32. Chinatown (1974). This is at the opposite of The Thin Man in the detective/mystery category. It's noir done in color, with a great script and compelling performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston.
33. It's a Wonderful Life (1946). One can't get too much Jimmy Stewart, and we need to have some Capra-corn for our viewing menu. This is classic, classic.
34. Harvey (1950). This play turned movie is great because of Elwood P. Dowd and his friend, the pooka, Harvey. If you want some laughs, this is a great choice. Of course, Elwood wouldn't be Elwood if Jimmy Stewart hadn't played him.
35. Waking Ned Devine
    (1998). The best of Irish blarney with veteran actors Ian Bannen and David Kelly giving hilarious and touching performances.
    
36. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
    (1980). This Ang Lee film goes where no martial arts film had gone before it: a sophisticated plot and characterization, beautiful cinematography, and—oh yes—great martial arts scenes. It was a "wow!" when C and Berna and I first saw it on a volleyball trip in the Chicago burbs, and it still is today.
    
37. Hero
    (2002). I couldn't leave it at Crouching Tiger, and Hero, by director Zhang Yimou, is a great piece of work. Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi star in this beautiful martial arts epic. The Tan Dun soundtrack is quite fine, also.
    
38. Last of the Mohicans (1992). Thinking of epics, and noting that I don't have any Westerns down, I do especially like this version of the great American novel. One wouldn't think a British actor (Daniel Day-Lewis) could pass for an American Indian, but he does. A well-done tale of the frontier.

I'm going to stop now, although I know that I'll think of more. Your comments invited. Thanks to all of those who went with me (most named herein)—many of my memories associate with whom I was with. And to borrow from Roger Ebert: see you at the movies!

John Gray Reviews Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist

John Gray puts his finger on many of the misgivings I had about Ridley's book, The Rational Optimist (upon which I commented earlier). Gray's review in the New Statesman makes an interesting point about distinguishing evolution, progress, and actual human history. In addition, Gray points out that Ridley was chairman of Northern Rock, a major failed British bank. One would think that he would not be such a Pollyanna after that experience. Ridley seems to be indifferent to the risks of climate change, while not exactly becoming a climate skeptic. "We'll get used to it" seems to be his answer. I fear Mother Nature, and I don't suggest that we're wise to poke her unnecessarily. While I recommend Ridley's book because he does have an interesting and well-argued perspective, in the end, I come down much closer to Gray's analysis.

Garry Wills: Dinner with Obama & Afghanistan

Garry Wills ends his silence about the dinner that he and other well known American historians held with President Obama near the beginning of Obama's term. Wills reports that about one-half of the historians present expressed their concern about Afghanistan as a trap for the administration. Wills certainly shares this concern. This venture, which seemed so right to begin with, now presents us with a major problem. The crucial question: when will we know (if ever) that we have accomplished our mission?

Bamboo

Our back yard has abundant bamboo. Or, to state it more accurately, our backyard is nearly overrun with bamboo. However, this post from a great site, Presentation Zen, uses bamboo as a metaphor for seven important traits. So, maybe I'll now have more appreciation for all our bamboo.

Reading NYT Today: Sunday July 25, 2010

Several interesting pieces in the paper today, so for a bit of a pourpouri (and you thought only Jepordy! Used that word), here goes:

1. A fun but worthwhile piece by UC economist Richard Thaler comparing soccer officiating to financial regulation. A fine demonstration of the use of economic logic and thinking that applies well to two completely different fields.
   
2. Pankraj Mishra, whose book on the Buddha, Buddhism, and his own life provides an outstanding read, reviews two new books on the history of yoga. For yogi readers, the review is a must, and the books look promising as well.
   
3. Also for yogis, a very interesting article in the NYT Magazine profiling yoga practitioner John Friend, the developer of Anusara yoga. For our crew in Santa Fe, who attended two Anusara classes, it should prove especially interesting. I really enjoyed the yoga, so I looked forward to the article. I found the article well written and informative. The issue that always arises with yoga, and most any religion (not to say that yoga, as practiced by most, is a religion!), is whether the practice should remain pure and connected to its roots (the traditionalists) or whether it should adopt to new times and cultures (the adaptationists). In fact, I'd argue that the adaptationists always win. Christianity, whenever we say it began (with Jesus? with Paul?) has been repeatedly altered through the centuries, first and foremost by Greek philosophy, to mention only one example. Buddhism came to China and immediately changed, and then it moved to Japan, where one manifestation became Zen Buddhism. Going back to the question of yoga, it's hard to say in a prima facie way what is a bastardization and what is an adaptation. Certainly, yoga is intended, or we may say allows, more than just exercise. In the end, like most things, it's what we want and make of it. Friend's enterprise seems genuine and not too carried away with guru worship, which he apparently eschews. Anyway, worth a read. (I wish they'd said more about he altered his predecessors, such as Iyengar, but that's probably too technical.)
   
4. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert reviews Kathryn Schulz's Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (2010). The book looks promising, and I include it because of professional interests (either my client or the other party was somehow "wrong"). The issue arises everywhere, so it certainly must address the issue of human foibles, which provides an endlessly fascinating subject.
   
5. Tom Friedman writes today that Senate Democrats are dropping any effort to pass a climate and energy bill this session. I agree with Friedman: foolish and disheartening, if not downright depressing. However, beyond that, he wrote about China, and I'll quote what he wrote:
   

   Just as the U.S. Senate was abandoning plans for a U.S. cap-and-trade system, this article ran in The China Daily: "BEIJING — The country is set to begin domestic carbon trading programs during its 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) to help it meet its 2020 carbon intensity target. The decision was made at a closed-door meeting chaired by Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission ... Putting a price on carbon is a crucial step for the country to employ the market to reduce its carbon emissions and genuinely shift to a low-carbon economy, industry analysts said."
   

    Here we have China, hell bent on development and a "communist" country, out in front of us on using the market to control carbon emissions and showing some recognition of the need to limit carbon output. Now, I understand that there may be a yawning chasm between the word and the deed; but still, how can this be? It certainly makes the U.S. political system seem further out of sync with current realities.

1. I haven't read the front page yet, but the cover story appears to be that the Roberts court is very conservative. Duh. I thought that this was a newspaper!
   
2. On the online edition that I've just read headlines suggesting that the war in Afghanistan isn't going as well as officially portrayed. Perhaps a hint of the Pentagon Papers for the Afghanistan war? As one who has listened to original tapes of Lyndon Johnson speaking about the war to his advisors and friends, as well as having seen The Fog of War, none of this comes at a surprise. Perhaps paragraph 4 above could provide us some insights. Bummer.

Matt Ridley: Rational—or Irrational?--Optimist

I normally like to wait until I've completed a book before writing a review of it; however, in this case, I feel compelled to make an exception. The book, Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (2010 448p.) is at once convincing and irritating. On the convincing side, Ridley provides a convincing summary of the gains of humankind over the centuries, a tale of economic progress when we view humanity as a whole. His premise is relatively simple: that exchange, of goods and ideas has benefited humans over the millennia. Indeed, ideas, intangible but crucial knowledge about how things work or can be done, are like the flame of a candle: they can be shared without diminishing the value held by the original holder. (Ridley, however, does talk about patents and licensing of ideas, so take that last statement with a great big asterisk.) Nonetheless, in his cute term, "ideas have sex"; that is, the interchange of ideas, mixing and matching, much like the pool of genes in sexual reproduction, generates new and novel outcomes. Ingenuity and innovation become the drivers of progress. In all of this, I find Ridley's examples persuasive and well taken. I agree with him, and he provides a sound summary. But then he goes too far.

The aspect of Ridley's book that I find disconcerting comes from those portions of the book where he thinks like a turkey. Not any turkey mind you, a Nassim Taleb turkey (and before him, Bertrand Russell's chicken). While Taleb is most readily identified with the Black Swan, the intriguing fowl and metaphor, he's also written extensively and with great persuasion about turkeys. Taleb writes about the turkey that grows up in the habit of receiving food each day from the kind man, believing that this routine will continue without end—until the day before Thanksgiving. The turkey surrendered to the fallacy of induction.

Ridley writes a great deal about pessimists who have doubted the human future—how wrong they've been. And within certain parameters, he's right; many a prediction of woe and disaster has come and gone, and nothing happened. Thus, Ridley ridicules (with only a minor nod to the contrary) those who predict problems in the human future. "We've been fed and watered by the nice man every day so far, so certainly it will continue tomorrow", he seems to be saying. Well, maybe. We haven't suffered a nuclear holocaust; we haven't seen starvation for lack of adequate food supplies (worldwide); we haven't seen the polar ice melt, and so on. But if you're like me, to take the last example as a point of consideration, how do we know that we won't soon see the melting of the polar ice caps? How do we know that we can feed another couple of billion people, the current population projection even considering the continuing drop in human fertility rates? How can we be sure, even given the end of the Cold War, that we won't see some type of nuclear exchange in the future? In fact, we don't know, and we'd be wise indeed to take affirmative steps to avoid such catastrophes.

What Ridley fails to distinguish is the difference between prophecy and prediction. Predictions are often wrong. As Yogi said, "the future just ain't what it used to be". The farther out we try to look in the crystal ball, the hazier it all becomes. This is true for predictions of utopia as well as predictions of doom. Ridley provides numerous examples of predictions of gloom and pessimism that have not born out; he curiously ignores the batting average of predictions of utopia. Contrary to some predictions, we are not living the lives of the Jetsons. (Sorry, younger readers, ask your parents or Google it.) As opposed to prediction, prophecy includes an implicit "if . . . then" clause. If we do not change our ways, then something bad will happen. Although I cannot speak with certainty, I think that this was the mode of the Old Testament prophets: "if you don't shape-up Israel, then you will suffer bad consequences". (Israel seemed to have regularly ignored these warnings.) Prophecies, in my definition, don't try to predict a deus ex machina (Black Swan) for good or ill, but they do follow the path straight into the future. Thus, when warnings of chlorofluorocarbons did not continue to burn a whole in the Earth's ozone layer, should we say that such predictions were mistaken, or should we say more accurately that we heeded the prophecy? I think the latter. The same goes for limiting the possibility of a nuclear exchange: were such predictions mere doom and gloom, or were we lucky in part and wise in part. As someone who witnessed the Cuban missile crisis (from my grandmother and her television) and has since read and seen a good deal about it, I think we were lucky and wise, and with a little less of either, we might not be here now. Prophecies of gloom have an important role to play if they move us toward repentance or a change of course. Ridley really undervalues this, almost ridicules it, and I think that he really misses some subtle but crucial distinctions.

I also must comment that Babylonians, Jews, Athenians, Romans, Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, Chinese (in the past), and on and on and on, have experienced catastrophic decline. Humanity has progressed over the ages, but not all persons in all places and in all times. Ridley is correct in singing the praises of the improvements in the world since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. He is right in describing even the "dark Satanic mills" as a better life than rural poverty and destitution. I make no bones about the fact that I was born at a time and place and into a family that gave me a life that billions of humans before me would have envied beyond their wildest dreams, and I'm nothing special in my cohort. However, it can all go to hell in a hand basket, quickly. Caboose's article citing the perils of a solar electrical storm is a threat that I've never heard of before, while on the other hand, global climate change or economic disaster (too much debt or too much austerity) are well known threats. We cannot, as Ridley seems to suggest, simply innovate our way out of every problem. If we're so great at innovation, why did we allow millions of gallons of oil spew into the Gulf this summer, causing untold damage? No, we are in some ways smart creatures, but we're not living in an Indiana Jones universe where every peril is resolved by the hero's pluck and ingenuity. We'd do better to avoid as many perils as possible, and to this end, a prudent and considered caution—not fatalistic pessimism—should govern.

I'd like to suggest two works by Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon to you and Matt Ridley: First, The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictably Future (2002). I think that the long title gives you a pretty good sense of the author's take. Complexity, especially, allows small changes of input into a system to create unpredictable and quite variable outcomes. We live in a world that is more complex, like the weather, and less predictable, as opposed the linear world of a car engine. The other Homer-Dixon book to consult is The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2008). Again, the title tells you a lot; Homer-Dixon isn't a wild-eyed Cassandra, but an MIT-trained political scientist who carefully considers the many possibilities and challenges. Finally, I recommend Taleb's The Black Swan, about how collapse can come suddenly and unexpectedly—the negative Black Swan.

I recommend this book because it contains a lot that is good and accurate, and even where I find it irritating, at least it's quite thought provoking.

Austerity vs. Stimulus: Another Round

Well, a great weekend for economic debate:

1. In an almost head-to-head matchup, both Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson appeared on Fareed Zakaria's Global GPS (the best public affairs show on TV for my money). They appeared separately, but Zakaria is a capable questioner and understands the issues, so I think that the issues were well joined. I haven't seen it to the end, so I don't know where Zakaria comes down between the two (and perhaps it really is between them).
   
2. Dave Brooks weighed in today, and Paul Krugman promptly blogged a response (he's quick with that blog!). It seems to me that all of Brooks' doubts could be laid on the austerity folks, so his uncertainty about theories on one side (the demand side/Keynesians) applies equally, if not more so, to the austerity crowd. Brooks quotes Keynes, but I find that a bit ironic, for the Demand Side theorists (as he refers to the Krugman crowd) are really looking to Keynes and the problem of a liquidity trap that monetary policy can't address. By the end, Brooks does make some concessions, such as unemployment benefits and the need for the states to receive some help in providing basic services.
   
3. Robert Frank weighed in yesterday in the NYT with his usual good sense, recommending targeted fiscal policies to stimulate the economy. We don't want something like WWII, which helped pull us out of the Depression, and long-term debt is a bad thing, but Frank recognizes the need for further stimulus, which if wisely appropriated, will provide many benefits, including long-term debt reduction. Of course, the likelihood of Congress acting appropriately is slim. Here's what Frank writes:
   

   [A]s the nation struggles to emerge from the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, such cuts are the last thing we need. There is no conflict — absolutely none — between our twin goals of putting the economy back on its feet and reducing long-term deficits. On the contrary, government could take many steps that would serve both goals simultaneously.
   

4. Someone out to be shouting off the rooftops, screaming bloody murder, about cuts to education. My personal connections with many educators aside, isn't it as clear as the hand in front of your face we need to spend more money on education?. Why are we laying off teachers? Because we don't have enough money? No! We don't want to spend the money. It's a choice; it's not something forced upon us. It's shameful and stupid.

For the Fourth: Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome

It's my custom to read a work of American history in celebration of Independence Day. Normally, I pick up a classic work or something relating directly to the founding of the Republic. However, this year I chose a recent publication, Peter Beinart's The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris (2010, 465p.). I normally wait to write about a book until after I've completed it, but I'm enthusiastic about this book, and I have a lot to share already, so I'll set aside precedent for this occasion. In this book Beinart, smarting from his early support of the Iraq War, meditates on three occasions on the 20^th century where he finds that American policy makers reached too far based upon hubris. The first occasion comes from Woodrow Wilson's actions in taking the U.S. into the First World War. Beinart doesn't argue that the U.S. shouldn't have joined the effort on the side of the Allies, only that Wilson provided the wrong motives for prosecuting the war and the wrong principles for establishing a post-war peace. Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt (who died before the armistice) provided a realist, balance-of-power rationale for American involvement, and Lodge, in the Senate, offered terms of the League of Nations that would have represented a more realist basis for that institution, and thereby, American membership. Another interesting aspect of this conflict came from the effect that it had on the American intellectual elite. John Dewey, Charles Beard, and Walter Lippmann began as supporters of the war, but by the end, and even as WWII approached, they became pacifist, isolationist, and realist, respectively. Randolph Bourne saw the tragedies that the war would bring the American polity, but he died young and rejected by the end of the war.

Beinart continues his narrative through the interwar years, including discussions of diplomatic history (France, much more that Germany, was seen as a belligerent power in the 1920's). He also keeps abreast of foreign policy thinking, for instance, he notes the rise of Reinhold Niebuhr as a critic (not always fairly so) of Dewey's approach, which still posited some degree of human perfectibility. Of course, Wilson comes into contrast with FDR, who, while using some Wilsonian rhetoric, nevertheless maintained a quiet realpolitik perspective on the postwar world.

After the WWII, American policy makers faced new threats. In dealing with this era, Beinart discusses the work and perspective of George Kennan, among others. Beinart provides an informative and insightful introduction to Kennan the man, a mixed bag of knowledge, insight, hypochondria, and prickliness, as well as Kennan's influential work at the beginning of the Cold War. Beinart relates a history of Kennan's work and influence that I find similar to the perspective provided by Garry Wills in Bomb Power earlier this year. Kennan, perhaps wanting a bit too much to curry favor with his patron, James Forrestal, failed to adequately define and limit his idea of containment in his famous "X" article in Foreign Affairs, thereby creating a military monster when in fact Kennan intended a much more political, diplomatic, and economic perspective for the concept. Kennan, when he tried to get the genie back into the bottle, was marginalized and quickly shunted aside. After Wilson's the "hubris of reason", the U.S. moved into the "hubris of toughness". Ike kept a lid on this through his low key style (shall we say "no drama Ike"?), but with the election of JFK, the cult of toughness hit full stride—and marched us right into Viet Nam.

This is as far as I've gotten in the book, but I think you get the gist of Beinart's thesis. To give a bit away, part three, which addresses the Iraq War, becomes the "hubris of dominance". Beinart is writing history in the manner of Garry Wills' Bomb Power and the works of John Patrick Diggins: as a reflection and assessment through which we can view the present. It's not original historiography, but a historical essay from which we can greatly benefit.

For those of you who might like a fuller review, George Packer has provided a very useful and well-considered review in the New Yorker. You can also get a sense of Beinart's work in a part of the book that I haven't gotten to yet: an essay on Ronald Reagan in Foreign Policy. In this essay (adopted from the book), Beinart takes a position on Reagan very similar the description that I received from reading Jack Matlock's Superpower Illusions, with its extensive discussion of the end of the Cold War under Reagan. Both authors provide an account of Reagan that differs from both conservative and liberal myths of the man. Finally, Leslie Gelb reviewed the book in the NYT. (Packer's review, however, is the more useful.)

Matlock on Superpower Illusions

I just finished Superpower Illusions: How Myths and False Ideologies Led America Astray—And How to Return to Reality by Jack Matlock (2010, 368 p.). Ambassador Matlock served a number of years in the U.S. Foreign Service, including a stint as ambassador the Soviet Union at the time of Gorbachev, Reagan, and the end of the Cold War. Matlock has written almost two books here: one on the history of the Cold War, or rather, the end of the Cold War, which he emphasizes occurred before the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The second part of the book addresses the foolish hubris reflected in U.S. policy that followed the end of the Cold War and Soviet Union. Matlock makes clear that we did not "win" the Cold War; it stopped by mutual agreement. Matlock has almost unstinting praise for Ronald Reagan and the attitude he took toward Gorbachev and change in Soviet leadership that Gorbachev represented. Unfortunately, so Matlock thinks, we took our supposed victory too far in extending NATO into former Warsaw Pact nations and thereby threatening Russia. We also have gotten ourselves into some very difficult situations since then. Matlock has plenty to say that is critical of Clinton administration attitudes and actions, although his harshest criticisms go toward the George W. Bush administration.

After Matlock retired from the Foreign Service he has taught, including a stint at Princeton in the George Kennan chair, and I certainly get the impression from this book that Matlock merited such a prestigious honor (or at least I think that it should a very prestigious honor!). I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the perspectives of a person who has represented the U.S. in the front lines of diplomatic engagement and who has learned a great deal from his experiences. An excellent book.

Feguson: An Evolutionary Approach to Financial History

I watched a very interesting presentation made this spring @ Grisham College in London by Niall Ferguson. Entitled "An Evolutionary Approach to Financial History", it proved quite interesting. Financial history is where Ferguson cut his teeth, including a study of the House of Rothschild (in two volumes) and most recently, a biography of German-born, London-based financier Siegmund Warburg. In this talk, Ferguson compares the financial world to the natural world, invoking impressive precedents from the likes of Thorstein Veblen and Joseph Schumpeter, among others. I think his argument and comparisons quite sound; in fact, I've seen more and more comparisons of economic life to the world of evolutionary nature. Ferguson notes that there certainly are differences, such as (the effort, at least) of intelligent design of financial systems and the existence of Lamarckian (inherited traits) evolution (thanks to culture), between the natural world and the man-made world of finances. However, the similarities are even greater. In all, an excellent and thoughtful consideration of a model for considering finance and financial history. I think that Ferguson is on the something here.

Stimulus v. Austerity & Debt Reduction

We have a really interesting public policy debate ongoing about stimulus vs. debt reduction. One part of me thinks debt reduction very good (score Taleb, Ferguson, Sachs, Merkel, and Cameron), but maybe not now (score Keynes, Krugman, DeLong, and the Obama Administration). Following are a number of sites that have discussed the issue and reported about the positions of the various parties. It's really an intelligent policy debate, and one that can have real consequences for our daily lives.

1. http://www.emerginvest.com/Source/EconomicForecastsOpinions/2010/6/30/ferguson-roubini-vs-krugman-slowdown-or-depression-for-the-u.s.html
   
2. http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-europe-banks-2010-6?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterstock+%28ClusterStock%29
   
3. http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-sovereign-debt-2010-5#-1
   
4. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2010/06/nassim-taleb-answers-viewer-qu.html. Here I must say that Taleb, going with his enigmatic persona, is too brief and really dodges a good, direct question challenging his position vis a vis Krugman's arguments. It seems to me that a lack of growth can create instability: consider the the Depression era politics of Europe, and more specifically, Germany.
   
5. http://www.businessinsider.com/if-youre-not-bored-youre-not-paying-attention-to-the-stimulus-vs-austerity-debate-2010-6. I think that this writer has a valid point: it's probably not an all-or-nothing perspective that we should take on the austerity vs. stimulus argument, and many other factors should receive consideration as well.
   
6. http://www.businessinsider.com/my-question-for-paul-krugman-and-brad-delong-2010-6. Another good perspective considering both arguments. The real problem: we (the U.S. specifically) carried way too much debt coming into this crisis. Without this prior debt load, the Keynesian perspective makes sense without question (freshwater economists not withstanding). But that's not where we're at. Are we in damned if we do and damned if we don't?
   
7. http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/06/the-historian-vs-the-economist. From Tom Ashbrook's radio program "On Point".
   
8. http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/06/niall-ferguson-a-checkup-on-global-financial. Here you can listen to the program and see the great video of rapping Keynes vs. rapping Hayek. Great economics teaching tool!
   

   
    

   Okay, this has been quite a collection. It does show that economic policy decisions are not an easy matter, yet they can greatly affect our daily lives. Thanks for reading.

Nussbaum on Education in China & Singapore

UC philosopher Martha Nussbaum criticizes the Chinese and Singapore education systems that some—including President Obama—have praised. As she's on a most favored writer list, her article in TNR is worth sharing. Also, she thinks that pluralistic democracy is a good thing, and so do I.

Jeff Rosen On Kagan Hearing

Jeff Rosen, the very perceptive (means that I often agree with him) legal commentator for TNR offers this assessment of some of the perceptive questions asked by senators (a couple anyway) at the confirmation hearings. I haven't watched these hearings, but some I've watched have made me want to scream at the idiocy and preening that went on. Well, at least we know that some intelligent questions have been asked, which provides some mild reassurance.

Wills on McChrystal & Obama

Garry Wills enters the conversation to reiterate a point that he made very firmly last December: it's time to get out of Afghanistan. I gave the benefit of the doubt to Obama's decision, but it doesn't look very promising to me, regardless of the McChrystal issue. Can Petraeus do better? Lots of bodies and reputations have been buried in Afghanistan.

Move!

Everyone who works in an office ought to read this. Sometimes my staff must think that I have St. Vitus Dance because I move around a lot, taking out papers, getting drinks, etc. that I could leave until later. I use the downstairs rather than upstairs can. "Is All That Sitting Really Killing Us?" addresses these issues. Interesting.

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.