Thoughts After the Election

The following are random thoughts on the election yesterday, which, for the most part, reflects my disappointment and despair, although not much in the way of surprise.

Iowa is a conservative state. Not a Republican state, but a conservative state. We don’t go easily for change. Only one incumbent, Democrat or Republican on the statewide or federal ticket, was defeated. The defeated incumbent, Chet Culver, was replaced by a man who previously served sixteen years in the job! Also, note that both U.S. senators, one an old school Republican and the other a liberal Democrat, have both held office nearly forever. The great exception to this, of course, is the defeat of our three Supreme Court justices who were selected at random to be (figuratively) executed as an example to other judges not to drag Iowans into the 21st century. They dragged Iowa into the future when they ruled that our fundamental law requires the state to extend the benefits of marriage to gays. I don’t take these results as especially homophobic (although in some measure this is certainly true), but it does reflect a deep-seated conservatism and resentment. The resentment is seen by comparing results from Johnson and other larger Iowa counties with the more rural and poorer western counties, where voters more likely supported the summary executions for their audacity.

The electorate, taken as a whole, seems more and more like a petulant child that stomps its foot when it doesn’t get what it wants when it wants it. In 2008 it went center-left (Obama is nothing if not a centrist), and now it wants to veer sharply to the right. This makes no sense. Clotaire Rapaille in The Culture Code suggests that the U.S. is an adolescent country, and I bristled a bit at that, but I think this election demonstrates the truth of his contention. People are unhappy because Obama and the Congress couldn’t deliver a miracle, because that’s what it would have taken to undo the Bush mess. Of course, this may be endemic to democracy. Look at the French, unhappy that they can’t keep early retirement. Sorry, folks, we’re living too long and have too many bills! So maybe this crazy inconsistency is attributable to democracy anywhere and not just in the U.S.

Democracy, as we practice it today, isn’t so great. I happened to read about Socrates and his death at the hands of an Athenian jury again this morning. It struck me: a democracy put to death a good man (and one we’d label a great man) because he questioned the local pieties and prejudices. Next to Jesus and perhaps St. Paul, Socrates holds the greatest sway over Western culture, yet he died at the hands of a democracy, at the direction of the popular will. There are much worse systems of government out there, all worse in some way, but let’s not think that our contemporary U.S. democracy is so great. It gets by. It does so despite degrading the level of public discourse. Consider many of the television commercials aired: they insult the intelligence; they either lie outright or seek to deceive. This goes for both parties, although I honestly think that Republicans are better at it and more comfortable with it. Are unflattering images and less than complete sentences what we should base our decisions upon?

The bad news is, in some view, good news. The fickle electorate will change likely. Remember 1994. Maureen Dowd’s column today serves as a reminder of how the more things change the more that they stay the same. One can only hope that Republicans will remain as foolish. Obama should not be finished. He just needs to play the game adeptly and aggressively. Clinton did and won despite his personal shortcomings. I just hope that not too much damage gets done in the mean time.

Garry Wills Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Outsider

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been a big fan of Garry Wills since 1976, when in one summer I read Bare Ruined Choirs (aloud with C) and Nixon Agonistes. Since then I have continued to enjoy a steady stream of books from Wills on a wide variety of topics: St. Augustine, Shakespeare's MacBeth, Jefferson, Henry Adams, John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Lincoln, Venice, and so on. However, in this book, Wills, similar to a part of his earlier Confessions of a Conservative, brings himself directly into view. But not as the sole figure in a frame, but always with someone else. In some cases, we meet rather scheming and deluded preachers, in others, the opera star Beverly Sills and her family, and in others contemporary politicians like Hillary Clinton (whom Wills speaks fondly of). Wills has met this quite varied and interesting collection of persons by starting out as a "book worm". His father paid him not to read for a week and Wills took his winnings out and bought a new book. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Wills is that while he received a Jesuit education topped off by a Yale doctorate in classics, he got his real start writing for magazines, first National Review (he was "discovered" by William F. Buckley), and then Esquire. Mixing these two callings, academic and journalistic, made Wills a compelling writer and not just a brainy writer.

Wills's portraits of his friends Beverly Sills, Studs Terkel, and others can be quite touching. He is quite fair to Richard Nixon, whom he credits as the politician who provided the most interesting answer to his question about favorite books. But the two most interesting subjects are Bill Buckley and Wills’s wife Natalie. Buckley and Wills had a long falling out over the Viet Nam war, but they eventually reconciled through the good offices of one of Buckley’s sisters. Wills provides a respectful and fascinating portrait of Buckley. As for his wife Natalie, Wills struck up a conversation over a nerdy book he was reading (Bergson) on a flight to NYC to meet Buckley and on which she worked a stewardess. They have been together since then, with her serving as his first draft reader—lucky her. No, really, lucky her!

For me this was fun glance into the behind-the-scenes world of one of my favorite writers. For me, it was like hearing a special guest tell tales from an interesting life, and an interesting life it has been, and I hope will continue to be for some time, for this book worm Garry Wills.

Iowa Judicial System Under Attack

The following is a piece that I wrote for our local paper. They haven't seen fit to print it (yet?), but, hey, what's a blog for but to serve as our electronic street corner (and perhaps as effective, but if you've read this far . . . .). Anyway, my thoughts written earlier this month:

Failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats has turned his attention this fall from running for governor to leading a campaign to radically change our judicial system. In doing so, he’s enlisted the aid of Newt Gingrich and a couple of hundred thousand dollars in out-of-state money. The motive behind the movement spearheaded by Vander Plaats is the Iowa Supreme court’s unanimous decision in Varnum v. Brien. Varnum rules that denying the right of marriage to gays and lesbians in Iowa violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution. Vander Plaats and his supporters want to express their dissatisfaction and to intimidate any future court decisions that fail to support their agenda. The intend to accomplish this by voting against retaining the three Iowa Supreme Court justices who happen to be up for a retention vote this year.
Even if one disagrees with extending constitutional rights to gays and lesbians and wants to join Vander Plaats and his supporters in seeking to overturn the decision, there is a political remedy. Those seeking to overturn this right can work to convince the Iowa legislature and Iowa voters to amend our Constitution and adopt a provision that exempts gays and lesbians from equal protection of the laws governing marriage. To date, the Iowa legislature has refused to tamper with provisions governing this fundamental right.
If a majority votes against retaining the three Supreme Court justices on the ballot this fall, it will be the first time since our current system of judicial selection began in 1962 that a Supreme Court justice is removed from office by a vote. If voted out, the three up for a retention votes, Chief Justice Ternus and Justices Streit and Baker, will have been chosen at random for retribution, since all of the members of the Court joined in the Varnum v. Brien decision. These three justices just happen to be the ones on the ballot this fall by way of a regular rotation.
What will it mean for justice in Iowa if a majority of voters remove any of these justices from office? The first conclusion certain to be drawn is that social conservatives dominate Iowa politics. However, more worrisome will be the conclusion that out-of-state money can come to Iowa to buy elections and judges. Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad, who appointed two of the justices that voted in favor of the Varnum decision during his earlier tenure as governor, proposes a different fundamental change to our current system. Branstad now wants the power to appoint all judges directly with the approval of the state senate. Branstad’s proposal would take the initial screening of candidates out of the hands of the non-partisan judicial nominating committees that provide the governor with two or three names from which to choose to fill a judgeship. Whether a Republican or a Democrat sits in the governor’s office, under the Branstad plan, judicial appointments will more often reflect repayment of political favors and adherence to party doctrine, something that our current systems tends to avoid.
Having practiced in Iowa from 1979 (with a brief stint in Illinois), I can report that taken as a whole, our judicial system and judicial selection system works about as well as one can hope in our democracy. In this assessment I’m not alone, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce rates Iowa as the fifth best judicial system in the Union. The system is not perfect, nor are our judges infallible (the proof being that they sometimes rule against me and my clients), but taken as a whole, the voters of Iowa would be making a terrible decision and setting a terrible precedent if they vote to remove the three Supreme Court justices who are up for retention this fall. The real issue isn’t the propriety of a single ruling, but the ability of the judicial system to stand outside the political tides and to make decisions that may not prove popular. We alter such a system only to the peril of our liberties.

Maurenn Dowd on Ignorance Chic

In her column today, Maureen Dowd, queen of reading the zeitgeist, goes after the cult of ignorance--yes, you read that correctly--exhibited by some running for office today. She juxtaposes this current attitude with that exhibited by none other than Marilyn Monroe, the blonde bombshell, the "dumb blonde". In fact, MM had aspirations and an apparent sense of depth that could lead her to despair. Do we see that today with some public figures? To say that some running for office today are vacuous seems kind. Anyway, as usual, Dowd's take on the culture of the day seems quite on point to me.

Winston's War by Max Hastings

I’ve completed listening to Winston’s War: Churchill 1940 to 1946 by Max Hastings (2010, 576 p.). I hesitated to start another book on Churchill, as I’ve read a great deal about him already. He is, I think, the most written-about figure in the 20th century. Indeed, when we cleaned out my mom’s house we found a montage of Churchill that I’d done in 6th grade. Can there be anything new under the sun? Well, in this case, yes.
Hastings has written a fascinating book. Indeed, there is a lot that I learned that I either never knew or appreciated. Hastings does all this with a very judicious eye about what is near craziness (WSC was impulsive) and what amounts to heroic leadership. Churchill faced a number of challenges upon taking the premiership in May 1940 through the time he was deposed by voters in July 1945. Dealing with the English people, dealing with the mutual suspicions of Americans and Brits toward one another, wooing FDR (only to have FDR later shun him so that FDR could woo Stalin), having meetings and decisions reported to Stalin by Soviet agents before meetings could even begin—these are just a few of the matters considered by Hastings. Add in the use of area bombing (of civilian centers such as Hamburg and Dresden), the use of local resistance fighters (probably not worth the toll on civilians), and various military misadventures, and you get a sense of all the complicated decisions that WSC faced (or chose not to face) during his time. The complicated history of WWII is seen through the actions of this one man and considered by this gifted historian makes for a terrific read. The brevity of my post here belies the terrific enthusiasm that I have for this book. Highly recommended.

Despair?

I read the following in Maureen Dowd's NYT column:

As Barack Obama struggles to rekindle the magic, one of the most pathetic headlines was the one on a CNN poll last week: “Was Bush Better President Than Obama?”

“Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House,” the CNN article said.

This is one of the most distressing items that I've read in a long time. I can laugh (sometimes) at the likes of Glen Beck and crazy Tea Party types, hoping--really hoping--that they can't be serious, or taken seriously in any event. However, these poll numbers make me cringe to think about our electorate. Are they nuts? Incredibly short-sighted? Stupid? Harsh words, I know (and now you know that I'm never running for office). I have little doubt that Bush will go down as one of the worst presidents in our history. Obama should receive acclaim for not letting Bush's bus go off the cliff. Now, people complain because the trip is taking longer. Incredible. FDR had an advantage in that when he took over from Hoover the bus had gone off the cliff. In Obama's case, he got to the wheel in time to avoid the worst, but people now blame him for the detour. Incredible.

The Iowa Judicial System

The following is an email that I sent to the Iowa Justice Association list serve. This is the organization of plaintiff's lawyers in Iowa. The subject is the effort by Bob VanderPlats and lots of outside money to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices this year on the retention vote because they joined in the unanimous Varnum decision that held the Iowa ban on gay marriage violated the equal protection clause. My thoughts in general on this issue and our method of judicial selection in Iowa.

Readers,
In thinking about our upcoming retention vote and the implicit--and perhaps explicit--decision that we have to make about our current judicial system, I think that we need to keep in mind some important points:
1. Judges, human beings that they are (well, for the most part), make mistakes and have numerous foibles, and I'm talking about the better ones. Yet, we must look at our judicial selection and retention system as Churchill looked at democracy: the worst form of government, except when compared to all of the others. Compared to others, we coming out looking very good.
2. Judges, like jurors, walk into their positions with loads of pre-existing ideas, political, legal, philosophical, etc. We try to persuade them, but that can be mighty tough sometimes if they walk in with an attitude on an issue. That's why, I think, that this group tends to rejoice more when someone with a plaintiff's background gets appointed to the bench than when experienced defense counsel goes up. Not always, but usually. So, yes, judges do have imperfections, idiosyncrasies, and beliefs that create a great variety of perspectives. Given this, one of the amazing aspects of Varnum was the unanimity of the decision.
3. Those who claim that decision like Varnum should have been made in the political sphere have a strong argument. As a supporter of the conclusion of Varnum, I would have preferred that it would have been made by the legislature and not the courts. However, sometimes the courts have to go against the tide; maybe you like it (desegregation, one man [sic], one vote, abortion rights) or sometimes you don't (due process cases, striking down the New Deal legislation, striking down campaign finance legislation)—all depending on your political point of view, of course. Whether one likes an "activist" court seems to go along with whether one likes the outcome. It's gone both ways over time, sometimes left, sometimes right. But the courts have to do what they have to do--if really forced to. (I have a hard time believing all of the Iowa Supreme Court wanted to get out front on an issue like Varnum, as I don't think that they're naive about the potential public response.)
4. If any of the current Supreme Court justices are voted out, it will have a chilling effect on all future court decisions and allow electoral politics--often at its most base--to infect our judicial system. Those who disapprove of the Varnum decision do have political remedies, and these they should pursue.
5. This really isn't about individual justices (as it should be), but it's about attempting to control the judiciary in a new & very harmful way. It's like picking three soldiers at random to be shot in order booster the morale of the troops. This motivational tool isn't one that we should take up. It's a crude tool even with politicians, but they know that it comes with the job; it shouldn't be so for judges.

Enough for now. I think that this is an important issue for all lawyers and all citizens in Iowa. Thanks for allowing me to share. And vote.

Richard Evans: In Defense of History

I completed Richard Evans's In Defense of History (1999, 272 p.). Evans writes on the topics that historians must always deal with, either up front and in the back of their minds: issues of causation, facts, sources, choice of topics, and the like. Much of this can seem mundane, but it can also become quite controversial. Evans treats it all with an even hand. His most significant contribution comes from his critique of more radical notions of post-modernism. He welcomes new ideas of perspective and topics, but he rejects the extreme relativism that some promote as a part of this movement. As does Ken Wilber, among others, he points to the performative contradiction at the heart of extreme relativism. Evans is persuasive about this, and I think he take history to a very solid philosophical (in the broadest sense) footing. A find book well considered, and a pleasure to read.

Friedman, Shiller, etc. Miscellaney

Tom Friedman provides a persuasive and succinct description of the Tea Party Movement as a political phenomena. The Tea Party strikes me as having no coherent set of ideas or platform, just a populist outpouring against the world as it is. I think that Obama has the ability and aspirations to reach out and accomplish what Friedman wants, and what he sees as the real problems behind the Tea Kettle party phenomena, but the body politic does seem to be really mired in limited--if not downright stupid--thinking.

In the NYT today, Friedman opens with a quote from Lewis Mumford. This alone merits a shout-out, as Mumford was a great American humanist (for lack of a more specific term), and long-time favorite of mine. In Friedman's article a quote from Mumford is taken from his impressionistic account of history, and more specifically, that of the declining Roman empire. I think that we have to be careful of the "we're the new Rome" stuff, but still, it's a thought-provoking piece, and it allows Friedman to trumpet an important message. Friedman floats the idea of a third-party, a tried and true perspective in American politics (and one that can influence events, but not since the Republican Lincoln, have none have gained power at the presidential level). The problem, as I see it, is that Obama gets criticized for acting too conciliatory and non-partisan. What perspectives or attitudes could a, for instance, Bloomberg add to the national dialogue? If anything, maybe Obama and the Democrats need to act more boldly and move more to the left. Anyway, thanks for quoting Mumford, Tom.

Robert Shiller in the NYT today takes about "animal spirits" (again) in describing how attitudes effect economic outlooks and performance. Yea, Keynes, who wrote in English (although he spoke mathematics very fluently) seems to have his pulse on our situation. Another instance of human behavior not following the guidelines that mainstream economics says that we should.

Finally, a quick note: an article in the NYT about an upcoming series on PBS on religion in America. You cannot understand America if you don't have some grasp of its religious history and its current manifestations in their incredible variety. Sounds promising.

Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan & John Lukacs

Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan & John Lukacs (2010, 276p.) proved a delight to read. The relationship began when Lukacs, then a nobody, wrote to Kennan, then ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of the "X" article, was a definite somebody (but soon to fall from favor). Their relationship grew over the years from a mutual interest in 19th and 20th century diplomatic history to a genuine affection for one another. In addition, we begin to get comments on some current events, different peoples, and insights into their writing projects (after leaving the Foreign Service, Kennan established a second career as a historian of diplomacy). Kennan, for instance, shares my concern that sometimes Lukacs allows his prose to become too dense, while at the same time, each sees in the other examples of fine writing and highly developed descriptive powers that enhances the work of both men. In sum, reading their letters to one another is like listening in to a very urbane and frank discussion between two highly literate and articulate men, who, because of their knowledge of history, have acute sensibilities of times and places that most of us don't perceive. From the quotidian to the grand, we get glimpses over a course of many years. As this is raw history, some of their judgments may seem harsh or ill-considered, but part of the charm of letters like this comes from their frankness and intimacy.

Of course, I think that the best testament that I can provide comes from quoting here and there, as I have in a couple of posts already, from their own words. Quite a joy, I must say. So I offer two quote for today, one on the more profound side, one on the lighter side:

Kennan:

We know that we cannot look at the sun with direct and naked eyes. It blinds us if we try it. Just so, there are things about the nature of God which we should not, and cannot, attempt to envisage and understand. To suppose that we would be capable of such a thing would resemble in itself a form of blasphemy. (253 11 February 2002)

Lukacs:

This president's (George W. Bush's) mind (and character) is that of a 15 year old American teenager who wants to remain the class president, a position the had got through mere luck. Commentators are wrong when they speculate that he wants to revenge what Saddam H. had planned for his father. No: George W. never liked is father; he wants to show that he can do even better then his father. We know the immortal warning of John Quincy Adams: "we do not go abroad in search for monsters to destroy." This puerile president is worse than that: he proclaims and pinpoints one monster for the sake of consolidating his and his party's popularity . . . ." (260, 5 March 2003).

New Start Treaty: Letter to Sen. Grassley

I recently heard Tad Daley, author of Apocalypse Never, speak about the continuing danger of nuclear weapons and the need for us to rid the world of them. I don't buy into quite that radical a project. I believe that the genie is out of the bottle, and that we can't force the genie back in. We have to contain the genie. As in the land of the blind, where the one-eyed man is king; so with nukes, in a world almost without them, the sole possessor would be in a very powerful position. Of course, the only nuclear attacks have been by the U.S., and for a few years, the U.S. did hold a nuclear monopoly. To say that our use of nuclear weapons was justified raises a difficult and perplexing moral issue. To argue that a permanent U.S. nuclear monopoly would have enhanced peace argues a point that can be challenged based on the analysis of strategy and the experience of history. For now, I favor a reduction of nuclear arms (we could probably get by with about 350 such weapons) as well as an aggressive non-proliferation policy. 

Daley mentioned the START treaty, which he believed a good move, although wholly inadequate. Accordingly, I wrote and mailed the following letter to Senator Grassley (believing Harkin doesn't need the prod--words with him if he does). I wrote:

September 28, 2010

Hon. Charles Grassley

United States Senate

135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Re: New START Treaty

Dear Senator Grassley,

I urge you to support Senate ratification of the new START treaty with Russia that the Senate Foreign Relations committee recently referred to the full Senate. This treaty furthers the security of the U.S. and of the world by reducing the risk of nuclear war. Reducing arsenals, limiting proliferation, and demonstrating our commitment to reducing nuclear tensions are extremely important goals that we should pursue with the utmost urgency. I was heartened to see that Senator Lugar and two of his Republican colleagues voted in favor of the treaty. I hope that you will help lead your Republican colleagues in pursuit of Senate approval. You know, and I hope that your colleagues realize, that we are already modernizing our arsenal, which appears to be a concern to some senators. You should also note that as a government, we can no more support excessive and unneeded nuclear weapons that we can justify any other wasteful government spending. We have a history of irrational and reckless spending and building when it comes to nuclear arms. Now is the time to stop this attitude. As a matter of fiscal sanity as well as defense policy, we have to get our house in order.

I hope that you will share this perspective with all of your fellow Senators. Thank you for your consideration of my letter, and I look forward to your support of the treaty.

Sincerely yours,

Stephen N. Greenleaf

Join me in supporting this effort if you agree.

Kennan on Life as Tragedy

Tragedy lies in the unavoidable conflict between man's animalistic, instinctive, primitively emotional and partially subconscious nature, on the one hand, and his capacity, on the other, for higher, more generous, less self-serving motives and impulses: for true love and friendship and charity--for a real nobility of spirit, in short. In this--in man's endlessly torn, self-conflicting nature, which the monastic orders have tried (but rarely succeeded, I suspect) to overcome, lies the first and probably the greatest sources of the tragedy. But another lies in the abundant injustice and frustration with which man is confronted at the hands of his natural environment, of the laws of chance, and of his own physical vulnerability, helplessness, and mortality. I am thinking here for example of the fact of bereavement--the fact that we do not normally die when those we love die, so that either we are left to mourn for them or they, as we know in advance, are left to struggle along without whatever help and support we might, if permitted to live, have given them. There is, again, the fact of our own mortality: not only the sadness and sometimes the agony of dying, but also the recognition that life, however successful, has never been more than partially fulfilled. And finally, if one has seen much of the human affairs, and particularly if one has been a historian, there is the recognition of the fleetingness, the impermanence, of all human undertakings and achievements.

 Kennan letter to Lukacs, July 8, 1984, from Through the Cold War.

For Teachers: Kennan to Lukacs

"The real rewards of the teacher always lie in the developments remote from the present and confused with a host of other origins, but that should not detract from the dignity of the profession or the satisfaction to be gained from it."

George Kennan to John Lukacs, November 18, 1953

I'm currently reading Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs, ed. by John Lukacs (2010). The quote above comes from Kennan to Lukacs, as Lukacs, an immigrant to America from Hungary, seeks guidance from Kennan about his career choice. Expect more quotes from this wonderful book to appear in the near future.

Chris Anderson: How web video powers global innovation

This TED talk by curator Chris Anderson that Presentation Zen alerted me about provides a view into what TED hopes to accomplish. The participation by slum dwellers in Kenya (toward to end) shows how innovation through shared information by internet video can improve the lot of people throughout the globe. As a wordy guy, I’m skeptical of some aspects of video. Too often it can merely serve as a toy, a narcissistic tool, but this is true of words as well. An awfully lot of junk now fills the internet, but hidden in the midst of all of the junk, as Anderson points out, are some real diamonds.

Thoughtful Conservatism

Some who follow this blog or who know me might describe me as a liberal. In a broad sense, this is correct. However, I remain very reluctant to limit myself, and I flatter myself that I cannot be easily pigeon-holed politically. Nevertheless, in order to be fair to “conservatives”, I recommend that collective reading list from the great site, FiveBooks. Here they aggregate voting to come up with the 47 (?) best books on conservatism. Unlike the nonsense that we’re hearing out on the stump today, if you read these books, you will receive a very useful education. Hayek, the Federalist, Burke, Toqueville, Garry Wills (a heretic makes the list!), Mancur Olsen, Leo Strauss, and others represent some very serious and worthwhile thinking.

Krugman & Brooks on Great Britain

Here’s a blog post by Krugman referring to a Brooks column. Krugman’s addresses the issue of Great Britain’s relative decline by a reference to a remark by Robert Solow, but the Brooks article considers a more explicit hypothesis. Nothing too special, but for Anglophiles, they raise interesting questions. Also, I’m now listening to Winston’s War: Churchill 1940-1945 by Max Hastings, which addresses Great Britain’s situation as a great power during the war. (This is a really interesting and insightful book, of which I must write more later).

Paul Krugman & Manhattan Transfer

In this blog entry, Paul Krugman provides a reminder of why I really enjoy his blog: here he includes a clip from Manhattan Transfer performing “Boy from New York City”. No particular reason, other than Krugman was in the City for the weekend. In previous posts, he’s included Monty Python clips, clips from “Dr. Strangelove” and this clip from a 70’s pop hit. Now I ask you, what economist can match this sense of humor while remaining our best Cassandra?

A Great Year to Be Spanish!

This NYT article about Rafael Nadal winning the U.S. Open and thereby obtaining a career Grand Slam comments toward the end of the article about the year in sports for Spain. This year includes the World Cup championship, as well as Gausol for the Lakers and Cantatdor in the Tour de France. The article notes that Raffa went straight from Wimbledon to South Africa and was allowed into the Spanish locker room after the championship match, along with members of the Spanish royal family. He even got to bite the trophy! Well, anyway: Que bueno Raffa y Espana! (Or something like that.)

Newt Gingrich, Fox News, Dinesh D’Souza: Shockingly Outrageous

I don't know how I came across this report, but I hope that it's all wrong. I hope that I've fallen into the trap of believing some outrageous stuff from the internet, so outrageous I shouldn't even read it. Please, help me, tell me it ain't so! Gingrich, per this account, says that we understand Obama by understanding that he has a "Kenyan, anti-colonialist outlook". (Newt, the "thinker" and "intellectual" apparently having forgotten the U.S. has a long history of anti-colonialism. Hm, Newt, wonder why? My ancestors (well, some of them) were anti-colonialists, then called "patriots". But of course, all of this has nothing to do with Obama. Really, who buys this kind of slipshod B.S.? BTW, D'Souza is cited as the source of this "insight" in an article published in National Review. Really, can't we have some thoughtful, honest conservatives in this country?

This kind of nonsense, along with anti-Muslim attitudes and other growing attitudes, suggests a new era of McCarthyism? I wish—I hope—that such a thought is too extreme, but some of this stuff is genuinely shameful.

Stephen Walt on Obama’s Failures—Or Are They?

Stephen Walt sounds off in his Foreign Policy blog about the many complaints about Obama that come from various locations on the political spectrum. He argues that many forces are simply beyond Obama's—and implicitly—any president's control. A bloated military, foreign policy inertia, vested interests of elites, client states, and so on, make changing policy very difficult. The electorate wants to change policy and outcomes as quickly as a motor boat wheels around on a large quiet lake, while in reality, changing American policy is more like trying to guide the Titanic through North Atlantic waters—you just can't often make turns quickly enough.

The more I read Walt, the more that I like him. He seems to have his head on straight.

The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille

I finished this book recently. I read it on the recommendation of Karl Rove. Karl Rove! Well, yes, in a sense. I attended a seminar for plaintiffs' lawyers recently, and the speaker told how an Atlanta attorney discovered that his beach house neighbor was none other than the prince of darkness. Discussing tradecraft (did Rove know that he was talking to the enemy, a trial lawyer?), Rove revealed his admiration for the work of Rapaille. The trial lawyer looked at Rapaille's work, specifically, The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do
(2007, 224 p.). Rapaille has two main ideas that he works from:

1. The theory of the triune brain developed by Yale neuroscientist Paul Maclean, which postulates that humans have, in effect, three brains. The survival-oriented brain of the reptiles (eat, sleep, fight or flight, and sex); a limbic brain for emotions that we share with other mammals, and the neo-cortex, which provides our distinguishing reason. Rapaille believes that when fear is in the air, the reptile brain, motivated by fear, takes over and guides our actions, reason be damned.
   
2. Rapaille, who trained as an anthropologist and psychiatrist, has done a sophisticated form of group testing to discover deeply held attitudes toward food, sex, doctors, nurses, hospitals, health, cars, the nation, and so on. These are the "culture codes" that he says predominate in a society and that differ from one society to another.
   

The book makes a lot of sense and provides what I believe to be very insightful perspectives on group attitudes here in the U.S. (especially important for jury work), as well as differences between the cultures of different nations. This was a fun and interesting read. If you want to know more about the attitudes of your fellow citizens, as well as obtaining a sense of how we differ from others, I highly recommend this book.

Economist v. Historian

I found an interesting exchange in the Financial Times (London) about the role of economists vs. historians. I dissent from the argument to the extent that I see social science as frozen history. It may have some predictive value, but nature (including us) is always changing, sometimes imperceptively slowly, sometimes with obvious and dizzying speed. So economists can make models and test them against history (the past) and in the future. They are useful tools, but like all tools, limited by our own fallibility. History doesn't repeat itself (in any certain sense) and we can't predict the future (with a high degree of certainty in anything other than the trivial). We have to muddle through.

U.S. Senate Iowa 2010: Conlin vs. Grassley

If you're in doubt about who to support in the U.S. Senate contest in Iowa, you can get a good sense of the candidate's abilities, perspectives, and positions on issues from this joint appearance on Iowa Press. In case you don't' have time to watch it, I'll give you my take: my money (and Iowa Guru's) money and votes are going with great enthusiasm to Conlin. Senator Grassley is showing his age, but its worst manifestation is that he's become more of a right-wing Republican, sacrificing a sometimes pleasantly surprising independence that he used to show in the past (and his past goes back a long way!).

Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order, by Charles Hill

This book has quite a title, and amazingly, it lives up the grandness of its title. Hill, a former Foreign Service officer, now teaches a course at Yale with John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy entitled "Grand Strategy". Based on this book, and the biography of Hill that I'm currently reading, that would be one heck of a course.

Simply put, this book tours the world, in time and place, and considers regimes, society, and international relations through the lens of great literature. In the Prologue he considers Cao Zueqin's The Dream of the Red Chamber, Dante's Comedia, and Conrad's The Rescue. From there, Hill takes us through the Classics (Homer, Thucydides, and on to Virgil, among others), and then into medieval, Renaissance, early modern, and Enlightenment authors. Nearer to our own time, he discusses Rushdie, Liu E, Ma Jian, and others. A truly amazing tour. (I throw in the Chinese authors of the benefit of 1HP, as I have only heard of them here.) Each of these works of literature, philosophy, and history reflects and molds the order of the society in which it was written. Hill makes the case for considering these works by relating a tale about Chairman Mao, who kept a copy of The Dream of the Red Chamber (among many other literary works) and claims to have read it five times. As Hill notes, this doesn't make Mao a humanitarian (far from it!), but it shows that he was a student. Hill also worked with long-time American diplomat Paul Nitze, and he reports that Nitze would be found reading Shakespeare on long flights across the Atlantic, where he traveled to negotiate arms control agreements with the Soviets.

Hill discusses these numerous texts, explicating their perspectives on society and statecraft. The scope and depth of his erudition is impressive. However, I'd say that this book isn't just for those interested in international relations. Indeed, I'd argue that relations between nations isn't so different than relations between individuals. (No agency problem—or is there?) In any event, even if you took this book as a reading list, you'd have years of great literature to read.

I'll write more about Hill after I've finished his biography, but if he's representative of the caliber of the men and women of the USFS, the we have some very capable persons there. A highly recommended book for anyone interested in literature or international relations.

Icarus Syndrome Review

An interesting review of Peter Beinert's The Icarus Syndrome, which I enjoyed very much. This is a thoughtful review by Yale political scientist Jim Sleeper. I think that Beinert, despite his youthful exuberance and errors, does the right thing by re-considering his position.

Ian Rankin: Naming the Dead

I finished listening to Ian Rankin's The Naming of the Dead, courtesy of ICPL. This is a one of a series about Edinburgh's police detective John Rebus. It's set during the G-8 summit of 2005 and at the time of the London train bombings, which play in the background. Like any good cop, Rebus is dedicated and hard-working, and like many a (fictional?) cop, tough and hard-drinking. Interestingly, like many a cop portrayed in fiction, for someone who must exude and represent authority ("the Man"), he tends to be very anti-authoritarian when it comes to his superiors. The performance was fine. It benefited especially from the Scottish brogue that the performer used (something that, say, a Steig Larrson book performance would not do well with—it would end up sounding like the Swedish chef on the Muppet Show). If you enjoy police procedurals mixed with a new and unique setting, this would prove an excellent selection. I have the sense that I'll meet up with DCI Rebus again.

John Lewis Gaddis: The Landscape of History

I today finished The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (2003, 183 p.) by John Lewis Gaddis, professor of history at Yale. Gaddis wrote this in the tradition, and very much considering, the precedents of E. H. Carr's What is History?
and Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft. Gaddis certainly does very well by himself while standing in the shadow of these and other illustrious predecessors. Gaddis updates our understanding of history by using complexity theory to help us appreciate how causes merge and meld into the unfolding of reality. Causes are like tributaries leading to the present, where they pause but for an instant, and then recede into the distance, from which point we try to map their course. Gaddis likens history to mapmaking or painting, which must of necessity attempt to make sense out of a present by abstracting those features that grab our attention and give meaning to us. Gaddis spends a good deal of time contrasting the aims of historians from those of social scientists. Social scientists, he says, hope to isolate variables with the ultimate intention of forecasting the future (something that I expect more and more social scientists have become more wary of attempting). Thus, whereas historians want to consider all of the causes worth noting that lead to an event or situation, social scientists want to isolate and abstract with the hope of obtaining structural knowledge, if not forecasting ability. Another interesting facet of Lewis's work is his consideration of history in comparison with the so-called "hard sciences". Lewis, who quotes and cites Stephen Gould almost as much as any historian, notes that the sciences have become more and more historical in their outlook. Some, like evolutionary biology, must perforce due so; however, this might also prove relevant to physics and chemistry, which do deal with change over time, although it's often on such a scale that it doesn't affect outcomes or actions. Historians, Gaddis argues, can't run lab tests to gauge the accuracy of their theories, but they can provide plausible explanations subject to peer review and criticism. He argues that the lab for historians lies in their minds and imaginations, much like geologists and paleontologists. Of course, both these scientists and historians diligently hunt and weigh the evidence of the past that they can identify, whether fossils or archive documents, but neither can, strictly speaking, re-run the past in order to test the accuracy of their understanding. Thus, replicability is replaced by virtual replicability as the standard of reference. Gaddis writes: "Imagination in history then, as in science, must be tethered to and disciplined by sources: that's what distinguishes it from the arts and all other methods of representing reality." (43).

I hope that the above offers some sense of Gaddis's take on these subjects, although this book is much richer than I can give it credit for in this brief report. In closing, I find that Gaddis seems to track with my thinking (greatly influenced by John Lukacs) that history is the master science in some sense. As Lukacs argues, all knowledge comes from the past. How it got here, like the path of evolution, determines what arrived. Like biological evolution, this path of travel may be so slow that we ignore that it represents change over time, nevertheless, this is how it all happens. Understanding and appreciating the interdependence of variables and complexity (and therefore uncertainty) of our world is a huge challenge; yet, understanding history through this lens will prove very fruitful, and it will continue the quest interminably into the future.

P.S. How does the "interdependency of variables" (the title of one of Gaddis's chapters) fit in with the Buddhist concept of co-origination and the like?

    

Stephen Walt on Jared Diamond & Decline

In his most recent FP post, "What I Learned from Jared Diamond", Stephen Walt considers the elements of decline that Diamond discusses in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail. Walt gives a succinct account of the factors that Diamond catalogues in his book, and Walt considers current U.S. problems in light of those factors, such as groupthink, tragedy of the commons, failure to anticipate, failure to detect (e.g., climate change amidst fluctuations in the weather), etc. Walt's points are well taken. In summary, both as individuals and as societies, we have to have our crap-detectors on full blast 24-7. (Thanks, Neil Postman.)

David Loy: Money, Sex, War, Karma

I finished David R. Loy's Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (2008, 152p.). Loy's perspective, which I've remarked upon in an earlier post, issues forth from a few simple but profound tenets of Buddhist thought: the concept of lack and an appreciation of the three poisons (greed, ill will, & delusion) and the need to transform the three poisons by generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom. Add to this his understanding and explanation of dukka (suffering or dis-ease), annata (not-self), shunyata (emptiness), and other Buddhist concepts, and you have a sense of his range. However, if all of this strikes you as intimidating, don't let it. In fact, Loy's consideration of these topics is easy to follow. He writes about current topics so that his deep understanding of Buddhist concepts becomes well illustrated by current concerns, giving us a better understanding of Buddhist perspectives and contemporary concerns (such as the morality of sex, money, war, and so on). In fact, if someone wanted to explore Buddhism in the context of our contemporary culture and concerns, I can't think of a better book to use for this purpose. Even if one isn't a Buddhist, I think that the consideration of these issues is so profound and insightful, that anyone from any background would benefit from the read. I highly recommend this book.

Thomas Homer-Dixon on Climate Change

Canadian political science Thomas Homer-Dixon wrote yesterday in the NYT about preparing for global climate change in his article "Disaster at the Top of the World". In his most recent two books, Homer-Dixon has ventured forth from the cloister of academia to travel to places where changes and challenges are occurring to report first-hand what he seeing happening  (without, I should note, diminishing the theoretical sophistication of his work). In this article, he's traveling in the Arctic and finding an open sea instead of the vast expanse of ice that used to be there not long ago. Homer-Dixon, like many others, seems to have arrived at the conclusion that we won't do anything about climate change until a very stark, undeniable catastrophe arises (Pakistani & Chinese floods, Russian forest fires, and the like just don't cut it in U.S. politics—ask the U.S. Senate). Homer-Dixon, therefore, argues that we'd better prepare ourselves to respond to catastrophes, such as insufficient water supplies in the American South. He argues that "protective cognition," manipulated by powerful economic interests invested in the status quo, has prevented us from acting so far. However, while I agree with Homer-Dixon that need such catastrophe planning, the same myopic outlook will probably prevent any action in preparation, just as our current myopia has discouraged us from directly addressing the causes of climate change.

One other comment on climate change: we're going to have to change a great deal as a society. I, for one, admit that I'm dependent on my car way too much of the time. However, until we offer alternatives, governed by market pricing, we won' see real change. We don't really pay for the energy we use: we off-load most of the cost into the environment and on to future generations, only "future generations" has come to mean now. Homer-Dixon has thought a great deal about all of this, and he deserves our careful consideration.

Edited & updated 12.03.20 sng

David Brooks on Mental Courage

David Brooks in the NYT today, "A Case of Mental Courage", once again uses contemporary cognitive science, mixed with older ideas of character, to ask us to step away from our tendency to have great faith in our personal opinions. In contemporary terms, he asks us to use "metacognition". Be forewarned, Brooks relates a horrific tale at the beginning of the piece to demonstrate the commitment to truth and honesty held by at least some of our forbearers. His point, properly tempered by reference to what's good in our contemporary culture, is valid, especially in politics (and one might add about any other field of human knowledge). Compare this article, by the way, with my recent cites to Lerner & Thaler. Also, note how his line of thinking melds into virtue ethics (see Haidt "The New Science of Morality", which deserves its own post), as well as Buddhist and ancient Western thought (Stoics, Epicureans, and early Christian ascetics). Some gold there.

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!