A Call for a Profile in Courage

I sent the following email to Senator Grassley today. I think that it's pretty self-explanatory. The grudging respect that I used to have for him has declined, but I keep hoping that he'll go out with a renewed sense of independence and courage. 

Dear Senator Grassley,

I urge you to support the proposed assault weapons ban. I was disheartened by this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/us/politics/senate-gun-bill-will-exclude-assault-weapons-ban.html?hp&_r=0), but with your support--and you really have no electoral consequences to fear, do you?--you could make a difference. You can make Iowans proud and (most importantly) safer. Everyone knows the feared power of the NRA, but please don't let it control you. I shouldn't think that caving into the threats of the NRA is the legacy that you want to leave.

Thank you for your consideration.

Steve Greenleaf

Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan

A young man takes up meditation. He’s an engineer. He has a zany sense of humor. (We’re getting into some weird combinations here!). He works at Google. He met the Dalai Lama, while his photo with President Obama and Lady Gaga adorn the back cover of his book. And, last but not least, he wants to bring world peace. There are some details that I’ve left out, but this should give you a sense of what makes SearchInside Yourself a truly enjoyable and beneficial read. 

What Tan has done is to translate the wisdom of Buddhist mediation practice and insights from Western psychology, such as Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence and contemporary neuroscience research, and packaged it for the contemporary workplace. In his case, and as the example that motivates the book, he developed and offered this program at his work place, Google. The fact that Google president Eric Schmidt’s endorsement sits on the front cover suggests that the program went well, and not surprisingly so. 

What Tan has done has been done by a number of others, including the Dalai Lama: taking the essence of Buddhist wisdom and practice (which is in large measure compatible with other religious and philosophical traditions), confirming its usefulness with science, and offering it up to the contemporary workplace and wider world. Moreover, I think, Tan succeeds in this enterprise. Tan succeeds not because he’s unique in his quest or insights. He doesn’t break any new theoretical grounds. Indeed, he draws heavily on the work of others and freely acknowledges those sources. Instead, through his personal charm and zaniness, he seeks to disarm those who are skeptical of his ways and means. I believe that he succeeds in this very well by using cartoons and humorous, sometimes even corny, asides. The man is on a mission—he’s a missionary—but he’s not peddling a missionary position or some dour set of restrictions; instead, through humor and careful review of the evidence, he’s suggesting practical, rather easy, ways to make life and work better. 

I suppose that the criticism that some might make of this book is that it is “Buddhism lite”. In one sense, that’s true. But Tan isn’t out to peddle Buddhism, he’s out to peddle world peace (starting with personal and workplace peace), so I don’t know if he’s care about such a charge. I don’t. In fact, the list of persons whom he’s worked with or cited is an honor role of Buddhist practitioners (Alan Wallace, Joan Halifax, Mathieu Ricard), academics and scientists (Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Richard Davidson), a Benedictine monk (David Steindhl-Rast), a Jewish Zen master (Norman Fischer) and—oh, yes—the Dalai Lama, among others. Not bad company, I’d say. 

So, only read this book if you think that you can live a better life, enjoy those around you more (even work colleagues!), and you’re willing to enjoy some good chuckles while doing so.

Movie Reviews

Samsara: This is a visual feast, simply put. With no speech, only a sound track and stunning visuals, it presents views of the world, views of birth, life, and death. Some of the images are gorgeous, some awesome, some grisly and mildly disturbing (nothing that would shock any American television viewer). The film is shot in 70 mm, which gives it a high-definition worthy of its topics. The film gives us our contemporary world, really full of wonders, some good, some not so good, but it gives us a wide glimpse of this world of birth and death, the world of samsara. Here's Iowa Guru's review.

Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewis deserved his Oscar, and although it didn't win for best picture, perhaps it should have. Yes, the film was not one that left you with a strong feeling at the end--we all know Lincoln's end and his immortality in American history. Perhaps Lincoln is too complex a figure to allow a single film to capture him. The film does a good job of portraying the politically treacherous world in which Lincoln operated. It also performs a service of demonstrating the trade-offs and pressures that he had to face. One can see how the presidency ages every man who occupies the position, but Lincoln's change in visage is perhaps one of the most stark. A melancholy man at times to begin with, the weight of the horrible war bore down upon him. In the end, I think that the film provides us with a sense of the man and some insight into his world. Like almost every  bio pic, I think that it has limits because it focuses on a man and not events, as such, but it's still a great lesson. 

Argo.  I enjoyed this film and thought it well done. However, I didn't find that it broke any new ground, that it told an especially tricky story, or that it left me with new insight. As Stanley Fish wrote, correctly, I think, it was essentially a caper movie well done, but it doesn't take us anywhere new. I agree. I just don't think that it was of Best Picture material, although I didn't see much of the competition. 

Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by Tim Parks

I first encountered The Prince in the spring of 1972, a time when we might say an archetypical Machiavellian figure occupied the White House. I read it as an assignment in my introduction to political theory course. I don't remember a great deal about the book (although I do remember the "C" I took in the course!) Anyway, the topic of political theory took with me anyway, and I've returned to Machiavelli again by assignment and of my own volition. Why? He is (perhaps along with Thucydides) the supreme political realist. As James Burnham made clear in The Machiavellians, a keen understanding of how politics really works, as opposed to how we would like it to work, provides us with a knowledge that we can ignore only at our peril. Not that we shouldn't think or work for a better political system, but that we had better understand how it really is working.

For a paper for a course in Renaissance history, I wrote about the mirror of princes literature that preceded Machiavelli. These were medieval tracts that advised rulers to act according to the Church and Aristotelian standards. In other words, to act like goody-two-shoes. Then comes Machiavelli like a Tammany Hall ward captain at Girls State, pulling the would-be leader aside and telling her, "Hey, kid, listen up. If you wanna get ahead here, here's whatcha' gotta' do". The intuitive ruler always knew these things, or at least some of them, but never before had anyone of any notoriety ever stated the real practices so blatantly. (And, by the way, while Machiavelli didn't offer his advice to young ladies, he did write The Prince to try to woo the Medici family into retaining his services. It didn't work.)
  
I'd seen that #JLF speaker Tim Parks had recently completed a translation of The Prince and that Jared Diamond (who looks quite mellow) had given The Prince a shout out in an interview asking what he'd recommend to the president to read, so I took up Parks's translation. Parks, a Brit who lives and writes in Italy, and whose book Teach Us to Sit Still I greatly enjoyed, has performed a great service and provided us with a very useful translation. I don't have any expertise on translations, but Parks explains his intent in the introduction--to give a sense of the "handbook" style that Machiavelli wanted to use to convey his practical wisdom--and it works very well. For instance, Machiavelli's famous description of fortune (Fortuna) as a woman was not written--nay, was intentionally not written--to be politically correct. Parks recognizes this and translates the passage with the machismo that Machiavelli no doubt intended to convey. This everyday, contemporary English gives this translation a feel that matches its practical usefulness for today.

I was going to go on to discuss Machiavelli, who still intrigues and puzzles me. However, such an undertaking isn't easy, as he has perplexed and challenged thinkers since he published The Prince. But good luck rode to the rescue, and I happened upon this piece by Isaiah Berlin, the British political philosopher and historian of ideas, in which he thoroughly reviews the literature on Machiavelli and arrives at his own assessment. I can't do better and won't try, except to say that the "evil Machiavel" is worth the read to challenge and inform you. Here's a teaser snippet from Berlin's article that I'll close with: 

But the question that his writings have dramatized, if not for himself, then for others in the centuries that followed, is this: what reason have we for supposing that justice and mercy, humility and virtù, happiness and knowledge, glory and liberty, magnificence and sanctity will always coincide, or indeed be compatible at all? Poetic justice is, after all, so called not because it does, but because it does not, as a rule, occur in the prose of ordinary life, where, ex hypothesi, a very different kind of justice operates.

The Legacy of Keynes

Jeff Sachs writing with "Morning Joe" Scarborough in WAPO argues that we do have a deficit problem and that the Obama administration's red ink has gone for naught. Of course, arguing to the contrary is Paul Krugman, seconded by, among others, Robert Reich. So what's a person to do? 

It seems to me that Keynes and later disciples like Krugman (and Sachs?) are right that fiscal stimulus, with appropriate monetary policy, is appropriate when we enter into a deep recession or depression. The economic system gets out of whack (the boom and the bust), and we have to jump start it with an infusion of cash via debt. The problem with this, Sachs (surely the senior partner in this article) identifies is that this is powerful medicine, addictive, and that we've already had too much of it. 

My take: I think that the stimulus package of 2009, imperfect as it surely was, was crucial as an "I'm more like FDR than Herbert Hoover" statement by Obama. (I don't like piling on Hoover, but I think you should know what I mean.) We needed to do something, and while something can be worse than nothing (and often is), sometimes the placebo effect in public policy kicks in. It is about the "animal spirits" (Keynes). 

However,  we know that politicians like to spend money, give everyone a job, and keep the voters in material prosperity. None of this bad per se, of course, but it does create a tremendous temptation to over prescribe the medicine of government spending to "boost the economy and create jobs". Thus, I think Sachs is right that in principle we should be using Keynesian pump priming only in limited cases, but instead we're using it excessively over decades. Think of all those Reagan and W. Bush deficits. We using too much of our "fuel" priming the pump, leaving too little available when we need it in the future; or we might say that it's like overuse of an antibiotic: used carelessly and excessively, it loses its effectiveness. My understanding of the incentives to deficit spend under "normal" circumstances comes to me from public choice economics (e.g., the recently deceased James Buchanan). I think that while Keynes and his progeny were correct in their assessment, its too potent a medicine to leave in hands of children or elected officials.

So sometimes we have to take the medicine, but usually, unless we're really bad off, we shouldn't, we should suffer through our colds and sniffles. And what should we do now? I'm not sure, but the meat ax of the sequester strikes me as a really stupid way to go. We do have government waste, but we do have programs that should be fully funded or increased. Each program should be judged on its own merits. And then again, pigs should fly. I'm going to fudge between the economic big boys and say a slow decrease in deficit spending should ensue along with an increase in taxes (yes, even for us "poor folk" earning less than $200 K; the effectiveness of taxes is more important than their absolute level to me). 

There, you have it. Of course, for a more fun consideration of these issues, go to Econ Stories and their two programs on "Fear the Boom and the Bust" and "The Fight of the Century". Terrific fun.  

Update 3/10/13: This important consideration between progressive Krugman and Sachs gets joined further by this explicit comparison by Sachs. Sachs argues for longer-term view that emphasizes long-term investment and structural changes. He doubts the value of stimulus debt. He refers to Krugman as practicing "crude Keynesianism". Krugman replies here, taking a shot at Sachs for serving as Joe Scarborough's "wingman". Sachs's article is the more carefully considered. In the long view, as more stimulus isn't in the offing, if for no other reason than the Republican ideology, we should be concentrating on the Sachs path. On the other hand, Krugman is certainly correct that we shouldn't be going all austerity, budget-slashing either. We don't want to be Britain or Europe. This is a fight between progressives and economic heavyweights. It's okay and worthwhile if it doesn't distract progressives from getting behind a sound agenda. 

How to Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Religion by Reza Aslan

In February we took a trip to the neighboring city of Ajmer, less than two hours by car from Jaipur. We went there to see the tomb (shrine) of Moinuddin Chishtī, the medieval Sufi saint.

We entered Ajmer, and it didn't look much different than any of the other cities and towns in Rajasthan. We pulled into a parking lot and called our contact, who was to guide us the site. In about ten minutes a man dressed in white with a white cap appeared. He bid us to follow him and we did. After walking about a block, cars were barred and even the ubiquitous motorcycles thinned. The street narrowed and become busy, almost crowded, and marked by men in white with caps, like our guide. I had not encountered such a concentration of Muslims since coming to India (although I had visited C's madrasa teacher training program in Delhi). Walking the narrow street crowded with Muslims, young and old, I felt as if I was in a movie, Bourne movie or Syriana. Not that I felt threatened (I didn't), but it reminded me of the significance of the Muslim presence in India and the world, a very considerable presence.  

As we approached the gates, our guide verred right, and we headed up a narrower lane, entering into a labyrinth of by-ways. We reached a small storefront where we left our shoes and cameras (with not small ttrepidation). We entered into the enclosure of the tomb area following our guide and eventually we came into the room of the tomb. Strewn with flowers and crowded with supplicants, our guide held a cloth over us and offered a blessing. We emerged and then we were shown the great pots where feasts were prepared for the needy. 

After leaving the shrine and the hospitality of our guide, who became our host by inviting us to his home and sharing tea and fried chicken with us, we went on a Pushkar and its Hindu temples (a story for another time). 

We in the U.S. know of religion, but we rarely see it displayed and practiced in the manner that one sees it in India. In India, Moslems are a minority, but a very large minority, and one that, at least within the country,  remains relatively peaceful. But then, that's true of Muslims everywhere. And Christians and Jews. Almost all are peaceful, but a few, a frightening few, become caught up on what Reza Aslan calls a "cosmic war". 

I read Aslan's book How to Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Religion (2009, 176p.) as a follow-up to Atran's book that I reviewed in my previous post. If you were to read them both yourself, I would recommend reversing the order. Aslan's book--as one would expect from a veteran of the Iowa Writer's Workshop--reads easily and gives a quicker, more succinct overview of what has been happening in the current Muslim world, and well as in the world of the Old Testament and Bush's America. Aslan details a fact of life that we can too easily ignore: some people are drawn to cosmic wars, battles of good versus evil, us versus them. The early Jewish scriptures display a wrathful warrior God. Christians of a fundementalist persuasion, ignoring great themes of the New Testament, take up these ancient cries of righteouness and blood lust to make contemporary appeals to vanquish the heathens. Contemporary Judaism, especially within Israel and the West Bank, contains some of the same types of holy warriors. In all, these small but incredibly vocal band of holy warriors in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam make a scary lot. Only a few, of course, opt for terrorism as a means of realizing their holy orders, but even without such overt acts, they create a climate where tolerance and alternative faiths find it hard to get a footing. Alsan points, however, that out that many of the Muslim groups that we hear about, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others, have very limited, particular concerns (like the rights of Palestinians), and we Americans lump them all together at our peril.Not all are cosmic warriors.

One can't help leaving a book such as Aslan's without some sense of fear and despair, but we know that these are a minority of a minority who threaten violence. Most of us are more humble about divine intentions through either reasoned caution or courtesy of the demands of daily life. In any event, writers like Aslan help us to understand this wider world, and we should thank him for it. 

N.B. Besides his Iowa City/UI connection and his notoriety as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Aslan was a speaker at JLF, and I thought one of the pithier commentators on American politics. I hope that he keeps writing, as his voice adds a great deal to our understanding and the conversation that we must have.