The Return of Holy Russia by Gary Lachman

When I think about Russia, two thoughts immediately pop into my mind. The first is Winston Churchill's observation (made in 1939) that Russia is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." The second thought is a visual image of Russian nesting dolls shown in the 1979 BBC production of John LeCare's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Alex Guinness. As the opening credits roll*, one doll after another is removed until the final, innermost doll is revealed--and this doll has no face. Of course, in the context of the story, this final, faceless doll no doubt references the mole inside the Circus. But for me, it also represents the seeming inscrutability of the Russian mind and its culture. One needn't be an expert on Russian history and culture (and I'm not), to hold this sense of perplexity, at least those of us living to the "West" of Russia. 

But if you, like me, don't wish to remain in confused ignorance about this rich culture and the nation-state that it supports, then Gary Lachman's The Return of Holy Russia: Apocalyptic History, Mystical Awakening, and the Struggle for the Soul of the World (2020) can provide you a comprehensive and accessible tour of Russian history and culture that shines a light into the events, ideas, and attitudes that mark this complicated (and often perplexing) behemoth of a culture and nation. In this book, Lachman looks backward in time to unpack the nesting dolls of Russian culture that he broached in his Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump (2018). In that book, Lachman explored the many tributaries outside of mainstream cultures that altered (and continue to alter) political reality in the U.S., Europe, and Russia in this current time of troubles. In Dark Star Rising, Lachman ranges from Trump's New Thought heritage (via Norman Vincent Peale) to an extended consideration of the culture of Putin's contemporary Russia, a witch's brew of resuscitated czarist aspirations for empire and Slavic glory, Stalinism, Orthodoxy, and "Eurasianism," all overseen by a criminal syndicate posing as a national government. I suspect that as Lachman looked at the tangled mass of threads that run through the Putin regime, he must have wondered (or at least I did), where did all these threads come from? What among the many justifications (and lies) that this particular regime promotes to retain its control could resonate with enough ordinary Russians to maintain the legitimacy of the regime at a level sufficient to allow it to remain in power? The Return of Holy Russia is an attempt to identify those threads from near their beginning and then follow them through to the present. In undertaking this project, Lachman, in his typically thorough, well-paced, and accessible prose, has completed a comprehensive history of Russian thought and culture centered on its religious, philosophical, and high-cultural aspirations. So does this book answer the riddle, solve the mystery, and de-code the enigma? No, but it helps. In this book, Lachman serves as a tour guide in a massive museum of Russian history and culture, providing a grand tour that touches upon the significant exhibits without lingering on any one exhibit too long. By doing so, many readers will emerge from their reading experience wanting to further explore those exhibits that they found most intriguing. I recently read an interview of Lachman where he observed that reading the works of Colin Wilson was like receiving a liberal arts education. The same can be said for reading Lachman. 

In the Introduction and first two chapters, Lachman provides an overview of his subject and a sense of his undertaking, which is an exploration of the Russian "soul" or "character" through time, the result of accretions laid down over hundreds of years of history that lead us the ever-elusive present. Lachman, in these initial pages, identifies some of those who've looked deeply into Russian culture in attempts to arrive at an understanding of the Russian mind. (Lachman notes up-front that he doesn't read or speak the Russian language.) This undertaking by Lachman and his sources is by nature the equivalent of an impressionist painting as opposed to, for instance, an engineering blueprint. In an impressionist work, the colors are bright but often blended into one another and the lines are often blurred. We see the big picture but we remain relaxed toward the details, foregoing (or postponing) concerns with details of structure and causal relationships. In this extended metaphor, the Russian "mind," "soul," or "character" is the impressionist vision as a whole, taken-in while knowing that such entities consist of many individual minds that, like flowers, share many common, identifiable attributes, but that reveal individual markers upon close inspection. Lachman addresses the challenge in a footnote (p. 24): 

I apologize to readers who may find these comments about “the Russian character” or "soul” offensive and outdated, given our current concern with avoiding racial or national stereotypes. I personally do not find this danger so serious, and my outline of the characteristics of “Russian man”—and “Russian woman” too—are based on wide reading and multiple sources.

Anyone writing a history of ideas (or more broadly, of culture) must deal with negotiating between the Scylla of over or unjustified generalizations and the Charybdis of extreme skepticism about identifying shared traits among groups, be those groups as large and diverse as a nation or as small as a family. Of course, any observer must be careful to avoid convenient and popular stereotypes and lazy generalizations. And groups have outliers, those who don't fit the prevailing pattern of group norms and characteristics and who march to the beat of different drummers. In short, we have to use sound judgment and discernment before arriving at any conclusions. I find that Lachman negotiates these narrows artfully, not only in addressing generalizations or the ubiquity of cultural traits but in addressing all of the ideas that he identifies over the course of Russian history. Lachman maintains a light touch, not allowing his judgments to intrude into his subject matter. Indeed, one of the features that I enjoy when reading Lachman is to watch for those fleeting moments when he tips his hand--often ever so slightly--to reveal judgments he holds about his subject matter. In his introduction and conclusions, in this book and others, Lachman allows himself to emerge from behind the author's screen to share some more explicit judgments with readers, although I've never found that he proselytizes. Indeed, Lachman does a fine job of following the adage of the great British philosopher R. G. Collingwood that the historian should "re-enact" the thought of his historical subjects.** Only when one has, in a sense, gotten inside the head of one's historical subject can the historian place himself in a position to reach conclusions and pass judgments. 

Early in the book, Lachman ties three key figures from the Silver Age of Russian thought and culture to the present regime of Vladimir Putin. Putin recommended that his regional governors read specific works from three Silver Age thinkers: Vladimir Solovyev (d. 1900), an Orthodox mystic and labeled "Russia's greatest philosopher" by the American scholar of Russian thought, James P. Scanlan; Nicholas Berdyaev (d. 1948), the Orthodox philosopher and theologian exiled by Lenin who became one of the foremost "Christian existentialists" and whose ideas about freedom and creativity remain important;  and Ivan Ilyin (d. 1950), a philosopher also exiled by Lenin who became a proponent of fascism, although he and the Mussolini and Nazi regimes parted with differences. He ended his days living in Switzerland. Of the three, Ilych is the least surprising person among the three on Putin's reading list, while Solovyev and Berdyaev are perplexing. (Lachman wisely avoids offering an opinion about whether Putin himself has read any of these thinkers; it would be a safe "no" vote if Trump recommended reading certain books, but Putin? Who knows? So mysterious he is.) All three of these figures were products of Russia's "Silver Age" of 1890 until 1920, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks ended any meaningful philosophy or theology in Russia, although Berdyaev and Ilyin made their most significant contributions after they were exiled. In fact, the Silver Age may be seen as the fulcrum of Russian thought and spirituality, and Lachman's book is an account of the advance of Russian thought to this point and then its abrupt disbursal after 1920, with several Silver Age thinkers being recycled of late, which may--or may not--presage a genuine renewal and invigoration of Russian thought and spirituality. I'd wager that it is the Silver Age and some of its thinkers that most intrigue Lachman, as they attempt to forge a way that transcends the opposition between Western science, rationality, and material well-being, and the collective energy, passion, and spirituality of the Russian heritage. These thinkers were looking for a "third-way" that took Russia beyond political and economic servitude without buying the ethos of Western modernity in full. (If I were to hedge my bet, I'd put some money on Lachman saying "Just Dostoyevsky" as the most telling point in his survey.)

The book takes the reader back to the early days of Russia and patiently recounts the development of Russian culture as influenced by Byzantium, Orthodox Christianity, pagan traditions, and the continuing influx of horsemen from Central Asia with the Mongols (Tartars) as the final and perhaps most formative set of invaders from the east. Lachman also touches upon the struggle for control among the elites to claim dominion over the territories that eventually grew into Russia. This chronicle of elite struggles can become a bit repetitive, as chronicles are want to do unless you're into the type of raw data that gives rise to Robert Graves's Claudius books, the History Plays of Shakespeare, or George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones***. These works provide a sense of the futility and carnage that these repetitive struggles for power entail.  But while the early stages of the chronology of rulers and would-be rulers are noted, Lachman's main focus remains on the various influences of thought and practice that formed the Russian Orthodox tradition. While religious disputes remain on the whole less brutal than struggles for political control (to the extent the two arenas remain separate), the trends in Russian Orthodoxy are dynamic and contribute mightily--for good and ill--to the formation of modern Russia. Russian political history, too, eventually gets to the point where Peter the Great (the late 1600s) and Catherine the Great (the mid-late 1700s) come on the scene. Lachman addresses the efforts of these rulers to change Russian culture based on the innovations of Western Europe, especially in the fields of science and technology. By the 1600s, the West had begun the Scientific Revolution, which was also a revolution in the ability of societies and nations to gain control over nature through technology. And while Galileo, Bacon, Hooker, and Newton were the most significant names in science, Russians were also exposed to Western thought flowing from the Rennaissance and occult traditions (e.g., Freemasonry) and liberal political thought (e.g., Locke, Voltaire). It's at this point where ideas associated with Western modernity begin to clash with Russia's Orthodox Christian, Asian, and traditionalist heritages. Earlier in the book Lachman addresses the differences between Orthodox and Western (Catholic) Christianity, which seem subtle to the point of trivial at first glance--just try grasping the significance of the filioque clause on a first pass--but the sometimes perplexing differences that often seem over-emphasized by elite churchmen and theologians prompt quite different attitudes and practices in the religious life of the faithful (and sort-of faithful). 

When Lachman's narrative arrives at the nineteenth century, he moves into an era in which many of the names become familiar, especially in literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and, most importantly, Dostoyevsky. In addition to the rich insights into Russian thought and life provided by these authors and their literary works, Russian thought blossomed in many other fields as well. And despite the efforts at the Congress of Vienna and the failures of the revolutionary movements of 1848 throughout Europe, pressure for political change and the political writing promoting change grew in importance. One might think given the eventual success of the Bolsheviks that Marxist thought dominated the political conversation, but this seems not to have been the case. Many members of the intelligentsia went through a youthful infatuation with Marxism before moving on. (Alas, Lenin and his ilk didn't move on.) This is also the era of Slavic and Russian nationalism, with writers of the magnitude of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, among many others, who promoted ideas about the importance of Christianity and Pan-Slavism. 

As I suggested earlier in this review, the Silver Age from 1890 to 1920 can be seen as a high point in Russian culture and thought. Vladimir Solovyev, as a philosopher and theologian, comes across as the most important thinker of that era. During this period, which involved significant social and political unrest, members of the intelligentsia were seeking ways to organize a new Russia, with or without the czar. Thinkers like Solovyev, Bulgakov, Berdyaev, and others wanted to bridge the gap between Russia's unique and deeply felt Orthodox Christian culture and the rationality of the West, to find, as it were, a "third way" (a term it seems as popular the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning). But, as Lachman recounts, the few thinkers and searchers lucky enough to have survived the initial stages of the Bolshevik seizure of control were shipped abroad by Lenin, including Berdyaev and Ilyin. 

Lachman takes his account to the present, bringing it up to where he first recounted it in Dark Star Rising. We learn of Putin's reading list of Silver Age thinkers and of his use of technology, propaganda, and political machinations (apologies to the misunderstood Machiavelli) to maintain his regime. Lachman describes what seems to be the attitude of Putin and many of those who buy into his narrative: what is the liberal West's dream is Russia's nightmare; indeed, there is a strain of the Russian character that sees history only as a nightmare. The horrors of the twentieth century in Russia certainly contribute to this dour outlook. But interestingly, Putin, in speaking of his self-described "conservative position" and defense of "traditional values," quotes Berdyaev. Lachman, channeling Putin, writes: 

The point of conservatism, Berdyaev, the spiritual anarchist, said was that it did not prevent movement “forward and upward,” but was a safeguard against a movement “backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.”  (384)

As a Western liberal, albeit one living in a time of troubles, I can endorse Berdyaev's adage. Change is change: it may be for the better or for the worse. Some changes, such as many liberations, have been for the good. Changes that foster and enhance human dignity are highlights of the Western tradition. But not everything branded as "progress" has resulted in change for the better. No engine of change has been more pronounced than contemporary consumer capitalism and the material and technological worldview upon which it is based. This system, which has led us to untold material wealth, has also led us to frightening environmental degradation, disruptive economic inequality and dysfunction, and political and social incoherence--to provide only the short-list. And, of course, we quite often don't know in which direction change will take us. The best we can do is apply our reason and imagination to create our future. Lachman captures the dilemma for Russia and for the rest of us in this footnote that draws upon the insight of the British historian Arnold Toynbee: 

In some ways we can see the return of ancient pagan beliefs and the revival of futurist visions in post-Soviet Russia as an example of the historian Arnold Toynbee’s dictum that when faced with a “time of troubles,” a people respond in two stereotypical ways: by retreating into the past or leaping into the future. That examples of “archaism” and “futurism” can be found in the West as well, suggests that our current “time of troubles” is a global phenomenon.

We cannot live in the past; there is no past to return to. But we can benefit from it by exploring the wisdom and perspective that it provides us if we approach it with a spirit of reverence and truth. We can't leap into the future; the future only arrives one moment at a time. The future is shaped moment-to-moment by the forces of nature's inertia and the dynamics of human thought and action. We can't take a rocket ship to the future or upload a simulation to replace the reality of the present. The future is built moment-to-moment by humans making plans and choices, or by following the blind inertia of habit and instinct.

A history book like this one provides value by granting the reader access to information that the reader may not have held before. And this book does that quite well. But the mark of an even better book of this sort--one that addresses history, thought, and culture--is that it prompts the reader to want to learn even more about the topic. And Lachman's book does that. He's provided a wide-angle view of the course of Russian history and culture. With the encouragement and direction that Lachman has provided, I'm eager to explore further this terrain with other guides to explore a finer-grained resolution of the images that Lachman has identified, from the beauty of the great Russian writers to the "third way" of the Silver Age thinkers to the tangled-web of influences visible today in the era of Putin and his disruption-restoration. Or to return it to the beginning of this review, I'm encouraged to further seek to answer the riddle, solve the mystery, de-code the enigma, and keep removing the nesting dolls in an attempt to arrive at the essential core--if one can be found. 

*The opening credits of Tinker, Tailor begin to roll at about 2:12 into the video of the first episode. BTW, this is an extraordinarily fine production, very much worth watching. 

**Collingwood's use of the term "re-enact" has caused some commentators consternation. He at times used the term "reconstruct," which I find more felicitous, but the intended impetus remains the same: to get inside the head of historical actors to think and understand what they thought and understood before passing any judgments about them and their actions. 

*** Of course, each of these works comes in video as well as literary format. Anyone living probably knows of the Game of Thrones series. And there are many productions of the various History plays, with the recent BBC production of The Hollow Crown that includes Richard II, Henry IV (Parts 1 & 2), Henry V, and Richard III. But the gem that many may not be aware of is the I, Claudius series from 1976 with a superb cast, that included some (then) young and upcoming actors Derek Jacobi (Claudius), John Hurt (Caligula), and Patrick Stewart (Sejanus). Suetonius for television (with plenty of gore & sex). I'm sure that there are Russian dynastic rivalry plays or operas to match these and similar accounts. 

Part 1: Collingwood on "Yahoos" from his New Leviathan

A treatise on many things, including Yahoos

This is the first of a series wherein Collingwood writes about Yahoos. He borrows the term from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). All quotes are from Collingwood's The New Leviathan (1942).

The first dose:

30. 52. Let there be what we will call a Yahoo herd: a community whose members are hardly, if at all, distinguishable in bodily structure from human beings, at any rate to the superficial glance of the observer whose anatomical and physiological knowledge is small; but let them lack the intelligence we are accustomed to expect in human beings. To be precise, let their mental development have been arrested at the point . . . just short of free will.  

30. 53. This herd might have a sort of leader, dominant over the rest in virtue of his strength, his cunning, and the violence of his emotions.  

30. 54. He would in a sense know what he was doing; he would be conscious of the situation in which he was acting, and his actions would be to him second-order objects of consciousness; but they could not be objects of his will, for he would have no will. Purpose would be impossible to him. But he would exercise, though not voluntarily, a certain control over the rest of the herd; biting and beating them or making as if to bite and beat them whenever they did anything he disliked, and so forcing them into the mould of a communal life pleasing to himself. 

Collingwood, R. G.. The New Leviathan. Read Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Does this remind anyone of any current movements or persons?

Iain McGilchrist & John Vervaeke in Dialogue on Rebel Wisdom

A collaborative dialogue. 

Tired of hearing and thinking about the pandemic? Want to listen in on an enlightening conversation? Then here's a good alternative. Rebel Wisdom is a relatively new Youtube/podcast site that conducts and facilitates quite thoughtful and provocative conversations and interviews. In this particular instance, they bring together Professor John Vervaeke, a cognitive psychologist and philosopher at the University of Toronto with Dr. Iain McGilchrist, a literary scholar-turned-psychiatrist (M.D.) who wrote The Master & His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and they compare their respective projects. Vervaeke is best known for a series of lectures entitled "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" that he's posted (free) on Youtube. 

This conversation is not for those not willing to go down deep into the operations of the human mind. The conversation references Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, Plato, Aristotle, the New-Platonists, and John Scotus Eriugena, among others. But this is not a contest in name-dropping; it's a genuine dialogue between two thinkers whose heretofore independent works are found to be headed in very similar directions. (Vervaeke was still in the process of reading The Master & His Emissary  at the time of the conversation.) The respective projects of both of these thinkers are to drill down into  (primarily) Western ways of thinking and perceiving the world to find out where it's causing us some of our deepest problems. Much of our current ways of perceiving and thinking about the world short-circuit our full potential and have led us to a place of deep crisis. This manner of dialogue is a rewarding exercise that we all need to engage in now more than ever. 

By the way, McGilchrist mentioned in passing that just that week (shortly before the pandemic came onto the front-burner) he'd finished his next book, which took him almost ten years to write. Some very good news! 

Iain McGilchrist is the celebrated author of the revolutionary work, The Master and His Emissary, all about how the structure of our brains and perception cr...

@Daniel Schmachtenberger (Facebook) came up on my radar a couple of years ago. Recently I shared a couple of Facebook posts from him. (I think that he just came onto Facebook.) I'm not sure exactly where or when I first encountered him, but certainly via some Youtube interview or podcast. Schmachtenberger (hereinafter DS) describes himself as "from Fairfield, Iowa" on his Facebook homepage, and he claims no special academic credentials. But he's impressed me greatly since I first heard him speak. He's a free-range (non-academic), free-thinker, as well as undertaking business and cultural ventures. Not having to worry about academic qualifications or positions, he's free to delve where his curiosity and passion lead him. In the time I've been following his work, he's been thinking deeply about threats to our civilization, our truly global civilization. He believes that humanity is in a real pickle and we need to seriously consider how to extricate ourselves from it.

DS is a conceptual and systematic thinker. He analyzes our human predicament from a high altitude; he sees the big picture, the workings of our systems: ecological, economic, social, and political. He's like a human spy satellite orbiting our global civilization. He issues high-concept reports based on his observations and analysis. Because much of his work hs highly conceptual and systematic, its also often abstract, although in the interview linked below, he gets into the weeds of the current pandemic quickly and then pulls back his focus near the end. When you listen to DS, you need to fasten your seatbelt because of the challenge of his technical vocabulary and because his extemporaneous presentations come in the equivalent of book chapters; i.e., his answers aren't short but they are comprehensive.

I highly recommend him for his project and the quality of his analysis. For those who might want to explore his message further, I'll share this post on my blog (sngthoughts.blogspot.com) and there I'll link to some other interviews and some of his writing.

Some more links for Daniel Schmachtenberger: 

1. His Civilization Emerging blog. 

2. About Daniel from his website, including these as his "intellectual inspirations": 

Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Fresco, Ken Wilber, Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, Krishnamurti, Bill Mollison, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Ilya Prigogine, Stuart Kauffman, Ervin Laszlo, James Carse, Arthur Koestler, Vedanta, Lao Tzu, Carl Sagan, Roger Penrose, Mahatma Gandhi, Victor Frankl, Buddha, Anthony De Mello, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, Alfred North Whitehead, Stanslov Grof, Hafiz [I've read or are familiar with all about 3 or 4 of these names; an eclectic list but full of important, innovative thinkers.]

3. Also, he lists these topics addressed on his blog [link above] and, by having heard him on podcasts & Youtube, that he discusses in interviews and talks:

Macroeconomics, governance, sense-making, collective intelligence, biomimicry, complexity, systems theory, forecasting, existential and catastrophic risks, infrastructure, philosophy, ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, resilience, anti-fragility, evolutionary theory, science, memetics, information theory, cybernetics, game theory, whole system design, emergence, synergetics, jurisprudence, technology, existential risk, choice, coherence, meaning, self-organization, autopoiesis, psychology, psychopathology, conditioning, ontological design, language, culture, semiotics, hermeneutics, coordination, intelligence, sentience, sovereignty, well-being, medicine, education, therapy, relationships, communication [A delightfully diverse set of topics.]

4.  Here is a list of appearances DS makes on Youtube. BTW, the Rebel Wisdom site (and podcast) is a quite a good source of thoughtful interviews and commentary.

In this fast changing and overwhelming pandemic crisis, what is really going on, and what should individuals and governments do? Daniel Schmachtenberger work...

YOUTUBE.COM

Covid 19 Situational Assessment, Risk Landscape & Possible Solutions, Daniel Schmachtenberger

In this fast changing and overwhelming pandemic crisis, what is really going on, and what should individuals and governments do? Daniel Schmachtenberger work...

Code Red: How Progressives & Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

Maybe this book is as important as when I started reading it

Will progressives and moderates feud while America burns? 

Or will these natural allies take advantage of a historic opportunity to strengthen American democracy and defeat an increasingly radical form of conservatism? 

 The choice in our politics is that stark. This book is offered in a spirit of hope, but with a sense of alarm.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., Code Red: How Progressives & Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

As I write this review on 11 March 2020, it appears that perhaps the battle royal that seemed to be brewing in the Democrat Party will be put on hold, at least until after the defeat of Donald Trump. Perhaps. But things have certainly changed even from when I began to read this book at the beginning of March when Sanders appeared to have a lead in the race for the nomination, and Biden had only a win (albeit big) in South Carolina. Today, after results from yesterday in the five states that voted, including Michigan, where Biden scored a very impressive win, and Washington, where Biden trails by a whisker with about two-thirds of precincts reporting, Biden is now has changed his position. Biden now is on track to receive the nomination (but in this world, trains can come off the track). So can we signal the all-clear sirens? Not quite yet.

Sanders isn't prepared to jump on the Joe bandwagon yet, but I've heard conjecture that he will come on board at a reasonable time and not try to damage Joe in his remaining campaign. Supporters? Well, we hope. But back to Dionne.

Even if the nomination is all but over, the message Dionne preaches is one that all Democrats need to heed through the election and beyond. In short, so-called progressives and so-called moderates need each other. Indeed, all Democrats who seriously contended for the nomination this year were progressives, all of them to the left of even Barack Obama. But Democrats, like almost any group, love to bicker about the smallest differences. When the goal is affordable health care for all, then "Medicare-for-All" versus upgraded Obamacare is a difference in the path, not the goal. Ditto with reducing inequality, climate change, access to education, treatment of immigrants and minorities, and so on. All Democrats stand in stark contrast the Party of Trump (no more "GOP"). We might use the analogy of an athletic team: the coach (voters in the primaries and caucuses) seem to have decided on the starting line-up (Biden), but Sanders and his supporters can still be a part of the team. (Although it would be nice if Sanders became a full-time Democrat, wouldn't it?)  One hopes (and I believe) that Bernie won't quit the team out of anger and frustration and that most of his supporters won't either. Bernie, if trends continue, will have been licked fair and square, so any claim of a fix or unfair fight (which seemed to have lingered after Clinton defeated him) will clearly prove to be nothing more than sour grapes.

But there will be--we hope--a Democrat president and a Democrat Congress after the election. And we will need moderates, or as I prefer to say, the "the pragmatists," to work with "the visionaries," those who want to go beyond where the American electorate is prepared to go. Indeed, I agree that great changes in our political and economic systems. And I don't differ much in my diagnosis from those wanting politically-mandated change. But I believe that most of the change will need to come from the bottom up and not imposed from the top down. It will be a combination of both. But pushing too hard from the top (politically) down onto the electorate would likely cause a severe backlash. And Dionne, who's an astute student of American political history, recognizes the necessary synergy needed between the visionaries and the pragmatists to foster change. FDR, for instance, was a political leader who walked this tight-rope successfully. Did FDR accomplish everything he and his visionary supporters would have liked? No. But he did enact change that shaped American life and politics for more than a half-century? Yes. Would the civil rights movement (visionary) have prevailed without the ultimate pragmatic politician, Lyndon Johnson? Likely not, or at least not when they did make great gains in the late 50s through the mid-60s. Like the positive and negative poles of a battery, the visionaries and the pragmatists need each other. Or as great American democratic socialist, Michael Harrington, quoted by Dionne, put it, "the left-wing of the possible" needs to practice "visionary gradualism."

Much of what I've written above channels what Dionne writes about in his book. I've long been a fan of his work: he's a student of high-brow political thought (Francis Fukuyama, Mark Lilla, and Michael Harrington get mentioned and discussed), he pays attention to the insights from contemporary electoral research, and he performs shoe-leather reporting that tries to access what non-elites are thinking, all of which makes for first-rate reporting and analysis. Also--and this should probably be first on my list--Dionne holds a set of values and perspective that I find myself in close agreement with, one that seeks that perfect balance between vision and pragmatism. (Of course, maybe just a little of my high regard for Dionne is based on the fact that he had the tremendous insight to quote our older daughter and her friend in a column he wrote way back in 2000. Our daughter had introduced Bill Bradley at a campaign event. Of course, almost every politically active Iowan should expect some political reporter to quote them at some point during the caucus season.) Anyway, once again I find myself in agreement with Dionne and appreciative of his insights. So while the game isn't over, we should soon expect to have our starting line-up. I hope that everybody who cares about defeating our opponent gets involved and helps us pull together toward a resounding win. 

Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World by Robert D. Kaplan

The books and articles by Robert D. Kaplan that I've read before (and there have been quite a few of them) have usually dealt with far-away lands. But in this book, published in 2017, Kaplan came home. In this book, he again combines his journalist's eye with a background of deep reading.

Taking his lead from trips made with his father when Kaplan was a boy in the 1960s (he was born in 1952), Kaplan acknowledges the effect that these journeys had on this boy from Queens, in addition to the stories his father told of his travels during the Depression that covered most of the "lower 48" states. Those trips must have helped plant some of the wanderlust that Kaplan has exhibited as an adult, with travels to over 100 countries throughout the world. But in this book, beginning on Long Island, and proceeding through Pennsylvania. Ohio, and Indiana and on through the Midwest and the Great Plans, Kaplan begins his drive toward San Diego. But unlike other journeys, Kaplans doesn't conduct interviews along the way; instead, he observes and eavesdrops. He undertook this journey in 2015, so he gained some premonition of the political upheaval to come (he heard little discussion of politics). As he travels and listens, he notices places thriving and places struggling: Wheeling, West Virginia and another city in Ohio are shrinking and obviously struggling, while the small city of Marietta, Ohio, seems to be doing well, apparently because it has a well-regarded liberal arts college there that draws students (and dollars) from around the world. And so it goes. All along the way, Kaplan describes a landscape familiar to anyone from the Midwest: some cities thriving (like Des Moines, Iowa) and other cities and towns struggling and in an acute decline. I can attest to the many small cities and towns in Iowa that have suffered declines in population and standards of living.

In addition to his travels and his first-hand conversations and observations, Kaplan stands-out for his deep reading. Through his reading of Herodotus and Thucydides to contemporary political thinkers like Francis Fukuyama and John Mearsheimer and fellow writers like Patrick Leigh Fermor and Claude Magris in Europe, Kaplan reads deeply about the past to bring perspective to his observations about the places and times that he inhabits. I should note that when Kaplan references a noted author, he's not just checking a box, he proves himself a deep and careful reader. For this trip, Kaplan consults three great authors in the mid-20th century who wrote about the American West and the conquest of the continent, Bernard DeVoto, Wallace Stegner, and Walter Prescott Webb (with a hat tip to William Faulkner as Kaplan by-passes by the South). Each of these writers provides a melody upon which Kaplan plays a riff, noting as he does, that their melodies may not sound completely dulcet to our contemporary ears. But despite some differences from contemporary sensibilities, none of these authors were merely triumphalist in their appraisals of the American project. Kaplan, as he peruses the history of westward expansion while drives across the continent, notes the irreconcilable moral judgments involving the creation of a great nation that led the fight against totalitarian nations in the 20th-century but that arrived at its great power status through the terrible genocide against the American Indians. Part of what attracts me to Kaplan's work is his appreciation and nuance in addressing the moral ambiguities and moral tragedies that politics often entails. (He has repeatedly repented his support of the Iraq War for some time now.) 

Kaplan also makes an important point--and this is perhaps his main point--that our experience as an expanding, continental power in the fertile, relatively underpopulated area of temperate North America, played into our thinking as an international power that began with Theodore Roosevelt and that reached its apex in my lifetime. He also appreciates the distinction between the myth of the Marlboro man (the lone cowboy) and the reality of communal regulation in a land where water is scarce. He describes the success of the Mormon venture (chronicled, at least for purposes of this book, by Wallace Stegner) by noting that the Mormon trek and settlement of the Salt Lake area was very much a communal venture. Not lonely cowboys or gunslingers, but a tightly organized, hierarchical venture, fostered the material success that remains apparent to this day.

Kaplan concludes his journey at the San Diego naval base, where American ships look out toward "Cathy"--China. In his appreciation of the importance of our Pacific shore and outlook, Kaplan seems to capture an outlook forwarded by William Irwin Thompson in the mid-1980s. Thompson described a shift in the center of power and culture from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and, in the late 20th-century, to the Pacific. While one might contest such a construal of historical dynamics, I suspect that Thompson, writing in the 1980s (Pacific Shift (1986)), and Kaplan would likely agree.  I suspect that in part because of his deep reading and extensive travel, Kaplan is correct in his perception of a shift in the center of power (and thus our attention) toward the Pacific and Asia (to include the Indian Ocean area and India). These areas have been topics of his earlier books and with more than half of the current population of the world located in a circle that encompasses an area centered in the South China Sea. This area has gone an immense cycle of economic growth, and no doubt this part of the world will become increasingly important to the Americas as a whole, the people of the United States, and their government.

The Valeriepieris circle: more than half the current world population lives inside this circle

Taking this brief but instructive trip with Kaplan across the United States is well worth the brief time required, and it provides us a perspective upon the future by a deep appreciation of our past. 

My Farewell Salute to Pete Buttigieg

After the suspension of his campaign last night, you might think that Pete Buttigieg will vanish in the rear-view mirror. I don't think so; anyway, I hope not. Of the candidates remaining in the Democrat contest after South Carolina, I thought him the best choice. But in contests of this nature, the "best" (however one may define that) only prevails by something akin to mere chance. What we end up with is normally some version of the acceptable. So it is. But if you want to know why me and a whole lot of others 

supported this candidate (with a special shout-out to IOWA DEMOCRATS who saw the future of the party), watch this speech. If you want to cut to the highlights of an inspiring speech, go to the 13:30 mark. In about three & a half minutes you should be moved by someone who stuck to the end of this trail with a hopeful, inclusive vision of what his party and our nation should be about. Really an inspiring guy.

Pete Buttigieg suspended his 2020 campaign during a speech in South Bend, Ind.

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Watch Pete Buttigieg’s Full Speech After Quitting 2020 Race

Pete Buttigieg suspended his 2020 campaign during a speech in South Bend, Ind.

The Principles of History & Other Writings in the Philosophy of History by R. G. Collingwood, ed. & intro. by W.H. Dray & W. J. van der Dussen

In 1939, R. G. Collingwood took passage on a freighter bound for the Dutch East Indies (now
Indonesia).  He undertook this voyage because--at least in part--he was attempting to deal with his chronically high blood pressure, which would eventually take his life in January 1943 after a series of strokes. Medical science had no effective treatment for high blood pressure other than to recommend the rest cure. Collingwood, an amateur sailor, undertook the journey. Did he rest? While we may assume that he undertook no strenuous activity, he did write two books, one of which is The Principles of History. But he gave attention to the other book he wrote on that trip (An Essay on Metaphysics) and then turned immediately to writing The New Leviathan, which became the last book he published in his lifetime. After his death, literary executor, T.M. Knox, brought together several of Collingwood’s writings on history, including lecture notes and three chapters from The Principles of History, and published them through Oxford University Press as The Idea of History. And as I mentioned, it proved quite a success (at least according to the standards of its peer group.) Knox left out some papers, but the source was considered exhausted. Except it wasn’t.

In 1995, archivists at Oxford University Press discovered the (uncompleted) manuscript of The Principles of History that Collingwood has written during his 1939 cruise to Indonesia. The new materials didn’t reveal any startling new positions or arguments made by Collingwood, but they helped to complete his positions and to reveal his overall plan. He'd intended to publish two volumes on the subject of history. The Idea of History covered much of this area, but not all of it, nor in the manner that Collingwood had intended. The Principles of History helps to fill the gaps. Given the depth and significance of Collingwood’s thought, this book provides us with even deeper insights into his unique and compelling ways of thinking about history. In addition, Collingwood's widow Kate, in 1978, deposited thousands of pages of Collingwood manuscripts with the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which proved to be another treasure trove of Collingwood's work. Selections from those manuscripts pertinent to the philosophy of history are included in this volume. Indeed, some of the most interesting and revelatory parts of the present book come from these manuscripts.

Knox included less than one-half of The Principles manuscript in the text of The Idea of History (1946) for reasons not entirely known, but the editors speculate that Knox thought this material either unimportant or of insufficient quality--a mistake from either perspective. A great deal of the material included in The Idea of History came from writing that Collingwood undertook for lectures around 1935-36, while The Principles of History was written entirely in 1939. And while certainly the two works and two sets of writing are largely congruent, they do differ or address different topics in ways that reveal new aspects of Collingwood's thinking (which seemed always in flux). The editors of this work, Dray and van der Dussen, identify several important topics that The Principles elucidate: 

There are no parallels in his other writings,for example, to his stress in this manuscript on the idea of evidence as language; on the alleged analogy between the historical and the aesthetic imagination; on the different relations to human action of essential and inessential emotions; or on the radical unlikeness of history and biography. . . . [T]he new manuscript also contains valuable clarifications and extensions of his case against historical naturalism; his conception tion of the autonomy of history; his view of the specifically historical past; his idea of rationality; and his understanding of the concept of probability in its application to history as well as to other fields. 

R. G. Collingwood. The Principles of History: And Other Writings in Philosophy of History (pp. liv-lv). Kindle Edition. 

But this quote neglects one of the most puzzling (or tantalizing) differences between the two texts: The Principles does not mention "re-enactment," a term and manner of conducting historical thought that is central to the argument in The Idea of History (and Collingwood's Autobiography), a term that distinguishes Collingwood and one that, for some commentators, provides grounds for derision of this thought. Instead, Collingwood at one point uses the term "reconstruct" rather than "re-enact," which, at least to my ear seems a more felicitous term, perhaps (quite arbitrarily and unfairly)  because "re-enactment" rings of American Civil War re-enactment hobbyists or Monty Python's "Townswomens' Guild of Sheffield Re-enactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbor." I'm confident that Collingwood had neither of these examples of "re-enactment" in mind when he settled on this phrase, but the term "reconstruct" seems not to lend itself to quite so literal an interpretation, and it would seem to fit better the overall description of his project, which is, as it were, to get inside the heads of actors in history, with events and actions the expression of thoughts (broadly understood).

However, there are basic concepts from which Collingwood doesn't vary in The Principles,  The Idea, or An Autobiography. For example, his contention that "all history is the history of thought," and his contention that res gestae--human actions or "deeds"--are the embodiment of thought and therefore the subject-matter of history, properly considered.  The variations between the newly discovered materials and the publications of his works up through 1946 (with The Idea of Nature) do not fundamentally alter our understanding of Collingwood's ideas about history, but they do provide more nuance and a just enough variety to suggest different paths of development that he might have traversed had his life not been cut off at the age of 53. 

This book also reinforces an important lesson: read the entire title of the work. In this book,  it's nothing quite so dramatic as a counter to the most widely discussed main themes of the book, but the details that are expanded upon that make the additional manuscripts quite important. As I alluded to above, these manuscripts reveal Collingwood's mind at work in ways that are quite suggestive and even provocative.

The most interesting of these pathways revealed are contained in the final section, "Conclusions to Lectures to Mind and Nature." These conclusions were discovered in 1995 along with The Principles of History manuscript. On their face, these writings belong more The Idea of Nature than the topic of history (although none of these made the cut by Knox for The Idea of Nature), but regardless, these "conclusions" show a train of thought that Collingwood touches upon in both The Idea of History and The Idea of Nature: that of process philosophy as exhibited in the work of fellow Brits Samuel Alexander (1859-1938) and Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). These older contemporaries, along with Henri Bergson (1859-1941) brought time, events, and process into philosophy from the new physics of Einstein and the quantum thinkers. Although careful to maintain a line between nature and history (with history as the realm of human action), Collingwood very much admired and seems to adopt their line of thinking. Reading the last section, Collingwood reminded me of his younger American contemporary, Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000), who studied under Whitehead and who carried process philosophy into the post-World War II era. Had Collingwood lived long enough to have expanded upon his work, one avenue he might have pursued would have been to more explicitly blend his thinking about history with the process philosophy of nature put forth by Alexander, Whitehead, and (later) Hartshorne. (For another "what if" conjecture about Collingwood, I recommend Ray Monk's piece from 2019, "How the Untimely Death of R.G. Collingwood Changed the Course of Philosophy Forever.")

This is my second review of this book. My first review was written after my first reading of it in 2015, and I copy a bit of the introduction of this review from that one. But because of the depth and extent of this book, it has greatly rewarded my re-reading, and it certainly merits further consideration, which I hope to undertake with further study. But you may be sure that I could write a great deal more about this book and its implications than what I've merely touched upon here (and much more that I've not mentioned).