tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73665617646478410952024-03-19T00:32:18.205-04:00Tertulia ModernaTERTULIA: Spanish term for a group gathering regularly to discuss issues of interest, often cultural or literary topics. <br>
Here I mostly review and discuss books (find links to my 'bookshelves' below), but also include occasional commentary on what I've been reading or listening to.Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.comBlogger311125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-16917872367437487892024-02-28T19:35:00.004-05:002024-02-28T19:35:54.168-05:00Book Review: "The Mysteries" by Bill Watterson and John Kascht<h3><u>The Mysteries</u> (2023)
<br />Bill Watterson and John Kascht<br /><span style="font-size: small;">72 pages</span></h3>
Scientists and science writers face a particular challenge when communicating to the public about the risks of environmental degradation and devastation: a reader’s everyday lived experience tends to unconsciously trump any data and descriptions of a problem. Global climate change, toxins in drinking water, a massive plastic garbage patch in the ocean – these and other such disasters seem distant and somehow inconsequential if they don’t affect our lives directly, aren’t impacting our immediate health or what we see outside our door from one day to the next.
<p></p><p>
Fiction, however, has the power to break through such failures of our imagination. By carrying us beyond our immediate experience and inducing a visceral reaction, a well-told story can make evident what even a well-explained set of data does not.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi454uy8eCilyOMz9g8JMV48z91gfWswaBo_OISs0Xl5GQONHmy9TA75xbtrve5i9pZBduYtnPL-r4Hcx3E7OWBJVnwUGuhAAFzB6IwkqBBMyjAblerjjVTSwIAkY-rmhfOHO_qH6kA-0PGm_Ze0P0f4q7DCFlRSg_bh5Ps-Io7h19t9R1o_RlcStKwneU/s900/TheMysteries_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="897" data-original-width="900" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi454uy8eCilyOMz9g8JMV48z91gfWswaBo_OISs0Xl5GQONHmy9TA75xbtrve5i9pZBduYtnPL-r4Hcx3E7OWBJVnwUGuhAAFzB6IwkqBBMyjAblerjjVTSwIAkY-rmhfOHO_qH6kA-0PGm_Ze0P0f4q7DCFlRSg_bh5Ps-Io7h19t9R1o_RlcStKwneU/w200-h199/TheMysteries_Cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>Bill Watterson – of <i>Calvin and Hobbes</i> fame – provides such an experience in his slender tale <u>The Mysteries</u>, created in collaboration with the artist John Kascht. Through a parable of human fear of the unknown within the natural world, the pair explore not only how such fearfulness can constrain our lives, but also the human drive to overcome it, to uncover and explain what we do not understand. And, crucially for our present-day world, they reflect on what happens when we do finally come to resolve such mysteries. Does humankind only properly respect that before which it trembles in ignorance?</p><p></p><p>
The story has a poetic flow to it, with just a sentence or two per page. Each facing page contains an extraordinary illustration; and, while the words give sense to the accompanying illustrations, these exquisite images created by Watterson and Kascht generate the profound emotional power of the tale. They have an eerie quality – scenes that are at once familiar and yet alien, captivating yet frightening in their intensity.
</p><p></p><p>
Watterson and Kascht’s work in <u>The Mysteries</u> forces us to confront the separation from the natural world, whether through fearful ignorance or familiar contempt, that we have allowed to corrupt our world, and our lives.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br /><br />A New York Times article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/books/review/the-mysteries-bill-watterson-john-kascht.html?smid=nytcore-android-share" target="_blank">here</a>, provides fascinating background into what was apparently the fraught collaboration between Watterson and Kascht in developing the artwork.<br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-overstory-by-richard-powers.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUjMYVmrl2CDStwIlpp8ZvtwhYLaXzxVP6ON3v4sMm6d8J7Z0vPeFDduXbo1FM_6xWH_JYhFgS4COXJujM8XuVBgror8QQ6MkalZXZS3BHvSFH3dEGY953TUKfc5vD3w9UxsKsYYxvp6gdh8PYqX0LHBlRWpvAtDdpinBUZRlzciSJzzTgZweTd88mBg/w133-h200/TheOverstory_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div><br /></div><div>For a brilliant prose reflection on the impact our separation from nature has on “our world, and our lives,” I strongly recommend Richard Powers’ <u>The Overstory</u>, my review linked to at right.<br /><div></div><div><br /></div>
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br /></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-82019543601112520982024-02-21T21:53:00.001-05:002024-02-22T21:49:46.138-05:00Book Review: "Twilight of Democracy" by Anne Applebaum<h3><u>Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism</u> (2020)
<br />Anne Applebaum (1964)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">206 pages</span></h3><blockquote>Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all of our societies eventually will. (14)
</blockquote><p></p><p>
Such a statement would have seemed outlandish in the early 1990’s, with the West celebrating victory in the Cold War as an end of history moment, certain that liberal democracy had demonstrated itself to be the final word in civilization’s political, economic, and social evolution. Since the mid-to-late 2000’s, however, those earlier, halcyon days have given way to first concern, and then despair, as increasing polarization and partisanship have fractured public discourse and come to weaken support for democratic principles. In this environment, extreme political movements on both the right and left have exhibited strong tendencies toward autocratic rule, even in many long-established Western democracies.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9W2Fek62Gnc-5R9CVb4xqs6_MI7rSe_DkBx425-DaWLY3K0bnMLqdbTshA0fFUmXfiumU8YA_LCqHq2ETv9tJN07muAgh0BBvvEmK9fo0V1-BZawgyXrFQ1Eyn4Nl477yIfRF_M0-oDi1zG5aTbyx4vKricV7B7h8EPYKkHoR3CGQJceZqMPAVVXy5xY/s522/TwilightOfDemocracy_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="341" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9W2Fek62Gnc-5R9CVb4xqs6_MI7rSe_DkBx425-DaWLY3K0bnMLqdbTshA0fFUmXfiumU8YA_LCqHq2ETv9tJN07muAgh0BBvvEmK9fo0V1-BZawgyXrFQ1Eyn4Nl477yIfRF_M0-oDi1zG5aTbyx4vKricV7B7h8EPYKkHoR3CGQJceZqMPAVVXy5xY/w131-h200/TwilightOfDemocracy_Cover.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
While much has been written and said about these growing challenges, the focus of such arguments has generally been at a societal level. By contrast, in <u>Twilight of Democracy</u>, journalist and historian Anne Applebaum takes a more personal, intimate approach; through the political schisms she has experienced with several of her friends and colleagues over the past two decades, she captures the essence of what has happened these last years, revealing what her subtitle refers to as <i>The Lure of Authoritarianism</i>.
<p></p><p>She opens by describing a party that she and her husband gave on New Years Eve at the turn of the millennium, at their home in Poland. As an American journalist having worked in various capitals in Europe, and with her husband a member of the Polish government, the wide variety of local and international friends and acquaintances who attended included journalists, diplomats, and others in the cultural elite. Politically, Applebaum writes,</p><p></p><blockquote>you could have lumped the majority of us, roughly, in the general category of what Poles call the right – the conservatives, the anti-Communists. But at that moment of history, you might also have called most of us liberals. Free-market liberals, classical liberals … [who] did believe in democracy, in the rule of law, in checks and balances. (2)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>
In the years following that party, however, Applebaum found that a not insignificant number of these friends shifted to the extreme political right. More fundamentally, she observes, they abandoned classical, liberal democratic values, and began aligning themselves with organizations and political parties that emphasize loyalty to party ideology over meritocratic and democratic principles. In her book, she explores the political evolution of these former friends as a basis for describing what she finds to be a broader shift toward authoritarianism in the West.
</p><p></p><p>
Though she mentions at the outset that she “will not offer either a grand theory or a universal solution,” (14) she does reference the work of a behavioral economist, Karen Stenner, who she cites as claiming </p><p></p><blockquote>that about a third of the population in any country has … an authoritarian predisposition … that favors homogeneity and order [as opposed to] its opposite, a “libertarian” predisposition, one that favors diversity and difference. (16) </blockquote><p></p><p>For Stenner, the issue is not a political one of left versus right, but rather that “authoritarianism appeals, simply, to people who cannot tolerate complexity.” (16) This framing, of intolerance to complexity, struck a deep chord with me: as readers of other of my reviews may have discovered, one of my favorite New York Times front page headlines is <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/images/2019/06/16/nytfrontpage/scan.pdf?module=inline" target="_blank">Lost in Abortion Noise – Nuance</a></i>, since it seems a fitting, generic headline that could be used for any fill-in-the blank topic in these days of disagreements filled with strident over-simplification.
</p><p></p><p>
Applebaum argues, however, that the mere presence of a nuance-averse portion of the population –those with <i>an authoritarian predisposition</i> – does not on its own make autocracy inevitable. To animate this group, a dictator requires the support of those “who can use sophisticated legal language, people who can argue that breaking the constitution or twisting the law is the right thing to do … [that is] members of the intellectual and educated elite.” These “fallen intellectuals,” as she refers to them, will willingly “launch a war on the rest of the intellectual and educated elite, even if that includes their university classmates, their colleagues, and their friends,” to support and curry favor with an autocratic leader. (17-18)
</p><p></p><p>
To understand the motivations of this group, she tells the stories of several of her own former <i>classmates</i>, <i>colleagues</i>, and <i>friends</i> who had attended her New Years Eve party in 1999, and with whom she has since become politically estranged. She finds them to have felt marginalized in one way or another in the existing liberal democratic regimes in their countries; and so, seeking the influence they felt was their due, they have aligned themselves with populist, authoritarian political parties and leaders, and often thereby earning the positions of power they craved.
</p><p></p><p>
Having made a convincing case for the rise of these “fallen intellectuals,” Applebaum turns to the question of how a sizeable segment of the population has come to align with them. Here, she seems to offer a mixed message, before settling on a particular answer.
</p><p></p><p>
Initially, she makes an argument based on economic realities, noting that</p><p></p><blockquote>democracy and free markets can produce unsatisfying outcomes, especially when badly regulated, or when nobody trusts the regulators, or when people are entering the contest from very different starting points. The losers of these competitions were always, sooner or later, going to challenge the value of competition itself. (59) </blockquote><p></p><p>Later, however, she backtracks a bit, arguing that: </p><p></p><blockquote>“The economy” or “inequality” does not explain why, at that exact moment [in 2015-2018], everybody got very angry. … This is not to say that immigration and economic pain are irrelevant to the current crisis: clearly they are genuine sources of anger, distress, discomfort, and division. But as a complete explanation for political change – as an explanation for the emergence of whole new classes of political actors – they are insufficient. (108-9)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>
Instead of anger with the economy, she finds the decisive factor to lie in the segment of the population with the <i>authoritarian predisposition</i> described by Stenner. The <i>fallen intellectuals</i>, in their work, target those intolerant of complexity, knowing that “the noise of argument, the constant hum of disagreement … can irritate people who prefer to live in a society tied together by a single narrative.” (109) Using newly available information tools, they </p><p></p><blockquote>invent memes, create videos, conjure up slogans designed to appeal precisely to the fear and anger caused by this massive international wave of cacophony. [They] can even start the cacophony and create the chaos … knowing full well that some people will be frightened by it. (118) </blockquote><p></p><p>Through such methods, these intellectuals “persuade a chunk of voters to vote for someone who promises a new and more orderly order.” (116)
</p><p></p>
Applebaum also notes that the foundational conditions for such populist anger form a latent part of the present-day world:<div><blockquote>When people have rejected aristocracy, no longer believe that leadership is inherited at birth, no longer assume that the ruling class is endorsed by God, the argument about who gets to rule – who is the elite – is never over. (158-9)</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-age-of-anger-history-of.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="486" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMWADGJ3Ua438NLoUbWsz-U7qIG00f3Ocl_s-Yu29xhFsGS6_PraPV7OdbQF9cFa7WV79znnf3iaH_ygp0cUWGxGEfRUwVO1FcOjtDCFh1qpeO8LGGtJPKrJbQxJjOPoHNa2dcoOxjo8QdSO-uACW_5pbS4gKy5-Ouuk_1cqeGBBIygk3OzxTTNYInGC0/w134-h200/AgeOfAnger_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div></div><div>The essayist Pankaj Mishra makes just such a claim the central theme of his book <u>Age of Anger</u>. (My review linked to at right.) Mishra argues that coming out of the Enlightenment people embraced the idea of liberty and equality for all, with the unanticipated consequence that<p></p><p></p><blockquote>power lacking theological foundations or transcendent authority, and conceived as power over other competing individuals, [is] inherently unstable … [and] condemned the rich and poor alike to a constant state of [resentment] and anxiety. (327, Mishra) </blockquote><p></p><p>Thus, he observes, civilization finds itself enveloped in an anger whose level may wax and wane, but that never completely disappears.
</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/11/book-review-crisis-of-democratic.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="461" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRMkfajAvmmjh3yJrO-87gtctKOLISUto6hnD6kgz1jxqa5Qp22QMFXhm0Vx1QQSKoF_d-UAdNjEtdVDDFuw7xJ92EuSq6asKBtK6EKvXWgH5g28DJ0Deayp3PSm-MbnBf6BHPgsRl6q1SS-CbIBWBO3-gE2SkOPsdhVwV3aqPwwf7NAJFENBjj0qlSmM/w132-h200/TheCrisisOfDemocraticCapitalism_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>
Applebaum’s view of the shift to autocracy as largely driven from the top down has instructive similarities, but also important differences, with the arguments of economist Martin Wolf, in <u>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</u>. (My review linked to at right) Wolf identifies similar current challenges to Western democracies, but points to a somewhat different, if not wholly unrelated, culprit. Describing democracy and capitalism as “complimentary opposites,” and “always fragile,” he argues that if independence between them is not maintained, “the delicate balance between politics and market can be destroyed,” which can bring down the entire project of democratic capitalism.
<p></p><p></p><p>
For Wolf, the current crisis has originated as a result of those with economic power using their wealth to acquire political power, and so pervert the system to their benefit. This has led to a rise in frustration and anger, as significant numbers of people decide that the system is rigged against them, and that they are “losing control over their livelihoods, status, and even country.” (85, Wolf) The consequence, he argues, is a disillusionment with democracy that leads people to embrace an authoritarian leader who promises them the return of what they have lost. Thus, Wolf gets to the same result as Applebaum – authoritarianism – but by a different path.
</p><p></p><p>
And yet, perhaps the deeper answer is that both forces are present, and self-reinforcing. Wolf’s wealthy business owners co-opt the political system, thereby creating increasing inequality, which leaves people frustrated and angry, and looking for ways to fight back. Applebaum’s <i>fallen intellectuals</i> enflame this disillusioned public through conspiracy theory, hyperbolic exaggerations, and outright lies, in order to empower a populist dictator who they hope will give them the positions of power they feel they deserve. And, not surprisingly, business owners generously fund the efforts of such autocrat-supporting intellectuals, in a symbiotic relationship that each hopes will benefit their own interests.
</p><p></p><p>
In <u>Twilight of Democracy</u>, Anne Applebaum argues that embittered members of the intellectual elite have pursued positions of power by exploiting those who find the siren call of authoritarianism seductive when faced with the challenging and often raucous debates present in democracies. She makes a convincing – and bracing – case for the danger these <i>fallen intellectuals</i> pose, by leveraging personal stories of friends and colleagues who have come to take up the work of supporting autocratic elements and regimes in Western democracies. Her palpable disquiet at how these former friends have abandoned liberal democratic values to aggressively support demagogues and authoritarians makes evident her view of the depth of the danger it poses.
</p><p></p><p>
Of course, as history has made eminently clear, demagogues can be difficult to control, and can turn to wield their power against even supporters – when one destroys the system, it becomes notoriously difficult to control the end point. In that sense, given the dark and disturbing portrait Applebaum paints of both our present and our immediate future, one can hardly help but latch on tightly to the thin sliver of hope she offers late in her essay:</p><p></p><blockquote>No political victory is even permanent, no definition of “the nation” is guaranteed to last, and no elite of any kind, whether so-called “populist” or so-called “liberal” or so-called “aristocratic,” rules forever. The history of ancient Egypt looks, from a great distance in time, like a monotonous story of interchangeable pharaohs. But on closer examination, it includes periods of cultural lightness and eras of despotic gloom. Our history will someday look that way too. (186)
<br />
</blockquote><p></p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br /><a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Anne%20Applebaum" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
</div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-26125422413304532752024-01-20T14:03:00.006-05:002024-01-21T10:35:55.027-05:00Book Review: "A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto" by China Miéville<h3><u>A Spectre, Haunting</u> (2022)
<br />China Miéville (1972)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">291 pages</span></h3>
In <u>A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto</u>, China Miéville provides an accessible and thought-provoking introduction to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s famous pamphlet. Although best known as a writer of novels, Miéville certainly has the bona fides for undertaking this work, having earned a master’s degree and PhD from the London School of Economics and published several nonfiction books and essays; his writing here reflects these various aspects of his background: from his work as a novelist, engaging prose in which he makes his points clearly and effectively; from his economics scholarship, a well-researched and thoroughly documented study of the text’s content.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbJjzOaV5H4Z2eAjSVuGHmXUDK1HgXX4z-Pp4MulfmErtw7LKDH9F0O5PYRIVYgV0BNcUUtevJtiGKYumi8TWQSuW5VfDiYDfW5P56gI84lxyYSKXr7oPgxV7M6Y1BQJyrVGEPxi9IqRJlHZymFWMZAoPBVlCfhiJSMHlykBhAe0J7CBxj7KzjWUhTYZ4/s1164/ASpectreHaunting_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1164" data-original-width="769" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbJjzOaV5H4Z2eAjSVuGHmXUDK1HgXX4z-Pp4MulfmErtw7LKDH9F0O5PYRIVYgV0BNcUUtevJtiGKYumi8TWQSuW5VfDiYDfW5P56gI84lxyYSKXr7oPgxV7M6Y1BQJyrVGEPxi9IqRJlHZymFWMZAoPBVlCfhiJSMHlykBhAe0J7CBxj7KzjWUhTYZ4/w132-h200/ASpectreHaunting_Cover.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><p>After opening with a reminder of how the style of communication assumed by a manifesto differs from, say, a scholarly paper or book, Miéville methodically works through his analysis of Marx and Engels’s publication. In successive chapters, he places the work into the context of the time in which it was written, provides an overview summarizing its content, evaluates Marx and Engels’s intent as expressed in the text and their other work, addresses criticisms that have been leveled against it, and explores its present-day relevance. Having included the text of the <i>Manifesto</i> as an appendix, he frequently references it in his analysis, tying his comments concretely to the words of Marx and Engels; throughout, he also references a wide variety of other sources, both critical and supportive of the <i>Manifesto</i>.
</p><p></p><p>
His intent with this work, for himself and his readers, is perhaps best summarized as that the effort he put into researching and writing it represents his answer to a question he poses late in the book:</p><p></p><blockquote>What does it mean to find motivation in – to have fidelity to – the <i>Manifesto</i> today? To read generously enough to gain what we can from its pages, critically enough to see its blind spots and failures, to criticize it rigorously and sensitively? (136)</blockquote><p></p><p>In his analysis, Miéville consistently manages to achieve this delicate balance of providing both a generous and critical examination of the <i>Manifesto</i>, ultimately making a convincing case for its continued relevance.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/06/book-review-communist-manifesto-by-karl.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="352" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif69uQ5W96mqDn5vUxtqLl3Io3ddPxH7unjdNVZzmxOoyqVRdyj4xIz8yQIM7Z-qhC0VeM9y7wh5541kDZJqiNiKMVVEXL83Z73G-vhd1lSgL5lWGXtOfsAlsHs-DCu6lVnZaG7zIyJjH1hQ1t_zwgRbn6RU9tqTDI6hGIVpPmn2y8ZZTO3PiZZheLzig/w116-h200/CommunistManifesto_Cover.jpeg" width="58" /></a></div>
I first read the <i>Manifesto</i> itself early last year, in an edition with an extended introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones (my review linked to at right). In his essay, Stedman Jones focuses largely on the philosophers and philosophic traditions that led up to and heavily influenced the communist movement in general, and Marx and Engels in particular. Although, like Miéville, he has points of criticism with the text, the two seem fully in agreement about its continued importance; as Stedman Jones notes, it remains a “still compelling vision,” and critique, of capitalism. (10, Stedman Jones)
<p></p><p>Particularly striking about Miéville’s analysis of the <i>Manifesto</i> is his convincing review of how Marx and Engels’s mid-19th century observations and criticisms of capitalism have been borne out by events of the 20th, and now 21st, centuries. Noting that some of the specific claims in the <i>Manifesto</i> about the capitalist system may now appear dated, Miéville argues that a present-day reader should not become distracted by those who nit-pick over such details. Instead, one’s focus should remain on</p><p></p><blockquote>the fundamental dynamics with which the <i>Manifesto</i> is concerned. Those are of profit-extraction by a minority, though the exploitation of the labor of a majority, in the context of competitive accumulation. (82) </blockquote><p></p><p>For Miéville, Marx and Engels’s trenchant description of the devastating consequences and ineluctable unsustainability that arise from these <i>fundamental dynamics</i> forms the core message of their work.</p><p></p><p>
And, despite the rosy predictions of those arguing that capitalism can be tamed, bourgeois society – as constituted by and for the owners of the means of production – remains, as Miéville notes (and an even cursory glance around our present-day world makes clear), “resistant to any change that might put profit maximization in jeopardy or threaten the stability on which profit and power relies.” (18) In Marx and Engels’s presentation in the <i>Manifesto</i>, he detects, in fact,</p><p></p><blockquote>a certain bleak admiration in their vision of modern capitalism as so voracious, total, and totalizing a system that it cannot be made liveable with. This doesn’t imply impregnability or seamlessness – communist political strategy is predicated on working at the cracks. But it understands capitalism’s logic as <i>predicated</i> <i>on </i>exploitation and oppression, such that it can never exist without them, such that whatever reforms can be effected will always be inadequate, opposed ferociously by the bourgeoisie, always embattled. This is why capitalism cannot be accommodated. (84)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />The fundamental reason for this inability to successfully reform capitalism, to make it <i>liveable with</i>, comes down to what economist Martin Wolf observes, in his sobering book <u>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</u>, as</p><p></p><blockquote>“the rise of rentier capitalism, in which a relatively small proportion of the population has successfully captured rents from the economy and uses the resources it has acquired to control the political and even legal systems, especially in the US, the world’s most important standard bearer of democracy. (173, Wolf, my review linked to at right)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/11/book-review-crisis-of-democratic.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="461" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_7NDb1rrEbTd9m5QI8EkRNsV7CdUjsgPlfMxFSOUdBRymbokwm1h3AKdVdixx-dAPjK5T7zUh3VELhoGlaXVBJ6HCjbQDFNqRXmT1mrQsFbVdSH-5tyu9zd_ku-uMJ3UZGKO3aey8zIUbxWKl996fGbDiZffwZ6LRqW7s818_uL81Olh3OyNBo2rsvBI/w132-h200/TheCrisisOfDemocraticCapitalism_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>Despite finding capitalism and democracy to be fundamentally co-dependent – Wolf argues that you can’t have one without the other – his analysis makes clear the ease with which capitalism can destroy democracy, by enabling those with economic wealth to capture political power and then use it to protect and expand their wealth at the expense of the broader population.
<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-review-big-myth-by-naomi-oreskes_5.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="568" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHIORNZhjekro3fLTR3yOYIf4kLQMY5Of4UiLU8v0EIfULpTX9Vcc4xTpYP0T4ISl7h1nOqX8NumoFuLll4RbyRFXYLaMkUd23aknh7iGlaQpSfzOuEnVbAOhEf3va0mktNWhRCQcUzZiRwTWWHUgwif0XF-kn3K7lhtrjmOndgGjLc-pMluqhbFLDgfU/w132-h200/TheBigMyth_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>One can learn how this process proceeded in the US in Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway in-depth analysis in <u>The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market</u> (my review at right). The two historians document the successful propaganda campaign waged by US business in the 20th century to convince Americans to become free market fundamentalists through precisely the transformation of economic advantage into social and political power that Wolf identifies, an effort that has inevitably led to the destabilizing outcomes Miéville notes as described in the <i>Manifesto</i>.<p></p><p>After a “quick dismissal of a few exhausted anti-communist bromides” (98), Miéville delves into what he finds to be some of the more thought-provoking critiques of the text, including the accusation of it having “systemic blind spots on race.” (116) He argues that the discussion of race is unavoidably connected to that of class, and, citing the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, notes that racism has been</p><p></p><blockquote>a project of generating cross-class solidarity among whites to the overwhelming benefit of the (white) ruling class, and for the downgrading of class itself as a perceived social schism, and its replacement with [what Du Bois referred to as] “the color line.” (124-5)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />A century and a half after the <i>Manifesto</i>, such use of racism against class solidarity remains a fundamental part of the capitalist playbook, as described in comprehensive and enlightening detail by Heather McGhee, an expert in economic and social policy. In her book <u>The Sum of Us</u>, which explores the many ways that racism impacts not only Blacks but also society at large, she includes a chapter on corporate anti-union efforts that continue to focus on replacing class consciousness with race consciousness. Exploring in detail a specific case, she notes that</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2021/06/book-review-sum-of-us-by-heather-mcghee.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="568" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSLw8nue16ksz3sVsBkkvFeFDkb93yGSyk996fPNCGlBNKNlwAjqLxon0uo9gS7bxLxaILzNVh-PuNibVM-VKI9f9SBvpB85W_PaGHUn8f-mSMKrNCWH9b38KkeEgWUQkm47D4FC3Sh1xnuXpK9h_6g0hjEvYZjsyUrGjUnMNgimvXdgGAXuWqvHhl70/w133-h200/TheSumOfUs_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><blockquote>Nissan plant workers [in Mississippi] were getting a bad deal compared to unionized autoworkers …. But the white workers … were still getting … a better deal than <i>someone</i>. The company was able to redraw the lines of allegiance [by making clear for] a white worker … that he could get promoted to a ‘cushier’ job [by] not signing a union card. … They could be satisfied with a slightly better job that set them just above the Black guys on the line, more satisfied by a taste of status than they were hungry for a real pension, better healthcare or better wages for everyone. (120, McGhee) </blockquote><p></p><p>(Interestingly, although McGhee never references Marx or the <i>Manifesto</i> or communism in her critique of US race relations and class, she has a quote from Du Bois that overlaps with one Miéville also uses; again, though the details and methods of capitalism may vary, the fundamental concerns endure.)
</p><p>In the final section of his work, Miéville explores the relevance of the <i>Manifesto</i> in our present-day world. While its critique of capitalism continues to ring true, he notes that the text’s tone of inevitability regarding the downfall of the capitalist system has proven false, at least up to now. Miéville argues that this is a consequence of the fact that, as has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past two centuries:</p><p></p><blockquote>Capitalism can be awesomely elastic and adaptable … includ[ing] metabolizing aspects of society that were there before capitalism and even seem to stand against it, as well as those newly thrown up, even seemingly in opposition to it. … Mild reforms and radical moments are purposed and contested and opposed and co-opted and deployed, sometimes simultaneously, by those committed to capitalism’s maintenance, as well as by its enemies. (141)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />One can gain an understanding of how this adaptability has played out in the US from historian Howard Zinn’s brilliant book <u>A People’s History of the United States</u>. Focusing, as the title indicates, at the level of life for the masses in the US – as opposed to only the leaders – he documents a pattern over the past couple of centuries of significant riots and uprisings among the US population leading to business and political leaders grudgingly giving in on a minimal subset of demands sufficient to just quell the violence, only for the process repeat itself again some few years later. (Compared to the sanitized version of US history presented in American schools, I found it eye-opening, as I read Zinn’s book, how frequently in American history uprisings and riots have occurred.)
</p><p></p><p>
Miéville, too, gives examples of these pressure points, such as the fight against child labor and for reduced work hours. This latter question, he notes, made evident to Marx a critical element of capitalism’s adaptability, and the challenge it presents those looking to replace it:</p><p></p><blockquote>In <i>Capital</i>, [Marx noted] the [British Factory] Acts’ limitations on the working day as simultaneously against the inclinations and immediate profits of individual capitalist concerns, while also being <i>in capital’s collective interest</i>. (142, italics in original)</blockquote><p></p><p>Thus, at critical moments, as Zinn also described, politicians have overcome the lobbying of business owners focused on their short-term bottom line, to act in the longer-term interest of maintaining the capitalist system.
</p><p></p><p>
Of course, as Martin Wolf points out in his book referenced above, the fundamental challenge of democratic capitalism is that this regulatory activity by a political class focused on the long-term can too easily be undermined. This happens when those with economic power use their wealth to gain political power and so push through laws that support their immediate profits – even if, as happened during the Gilded Age of the late 1800’s and again over the past decades in the US, it leads to a significant rise in inequality, one that begins to destabilize the system and so put capital’s longer-term interests at risk.
</p><p></p><p>
Whatever the level of corruption of the political class, however, Miéville notes the challenge that the reform-of-capitalism path also represents for groups intent on initiating a transition away from the system. If such groups support reforms that ameliorate the worst excesses of capitalism, the result is to tend to prolong capitalism’s hold and so leave in place the fundamental system and the problems it creates. But, to not support such reforms leaves swaths of the working class worse off than they could be. Marx came to recognize this also, in the years after writing the <i>Manifesto</i>, but came to recognize that such reforms would not only benefit the working class in a day-to-day sense, but also “can be understood as increasing working class power and room for maneuvers overall.” (144)
Not surprisingly, as Marx realized, people struggling just to survive will have little social or economic space within which to work for broader reform of the system.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-brief-history-of-inequality.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1117" data-original-width="745" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmJTX-Wnd4cmjhunsQFHREn7EkyQyr7oHyTmYlkrOec0IyTXYTOG6jtUNcYNEQ02RAyRvnvat1LTgR-s9BHHbYg-sehSSoVxSyMRvMXvGVgZHXlk9ZB_h8A9xZF9mu40sRYuzl2B8OSXIqN07ymF2QbigJDDOkS_JVoYhCshW-SRaaUGiQwzCLrYUY3YY/w133-h200/ABriefHistoryOfEquality_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>
The larger question, however, may be whether the apparent necessity of this repeated cycle of agitation and uprising to achieve reform is the <i>only</i> path to ameliorating the excesses of capitalism, or even moving beyond it to something better and more sustainable. A bracingly pessimistic, if persuasive, answer to this question is given by economist Thomas Piketty in his wonderful book <u>A Brief History of Equality</u> (my review linked to at right), in which he writes: <p></p><p></p><blockquote>Long-term movement toward equality [since the end of the 18th century] … is a consequence of conflicts and revolts against injustice that have made it possible to transform power relationships and overthrow institutions supported by dominant classes, which seek to structure social inequality in a way that benefits them, and to replace them with new institutions and new social, economic, and political rules that are more equitable and emancipatory for the majority. Generally speaking, the most fundamental transformations seen in the history of inegalitarian regimes involve social conflicts and large-scale political crises. (10)</blockquote><p></p><p>Thus, it seems, the cycle of uprising and reform that Zinn documented as being a central part of US history will likely have to recur in the future as efforts continue to overcome the economic and social injustices that arise out of the fundamental dynamics of capitalism.
</p><p>Nevertheless, as Miéville seeks to convince us in <u>A Spectre, Haunting</u>, we must carry-on this pursuit of justice, and not be held back by the seeming entrenchment of the capitalist system, for: “how many times has the utter impossibility of change been proved, only for change to rock the world and throw up everything we thought we knew?” (171) In clear and effective prose, he argues that the <i>Manifesto</i> – over a century and a half after its publication – continues to have much to tell us about the damaging shortcomings of capitalism, providing a compelling analysis that fairly demands of us a response, implicating us in the need to work to find a better path forward.</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br /><a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20China%20Mieville" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b><br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-8347547760359090752024-01-10T19:16:00.002-05:002024-01-10T19:21:27.035-05:00Book Review: "Upstream" by Mary Oliver<h3><u>Upstream</u> (2019)
<br />Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">178 pages</span></h3>
Recently, my sister-in-law recommended Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s <u>Wind, Sand and Stars</u> to me. She mentioned that she had read <u>The Little Prince</u> a number of times over the years, but reading it this past summer to a nephew had prompted her to seek out other of Saint-Exupéry’s works, leading her to discover that wonderful collection of essays. When I told her that I had already read it, she asked for my review of it.
<p></p><p>
It turns out, however, I read it many years ago, long before I started writing these blog reviews. But, I told her, I do remember being deeply moved by it and, after rereading some of the <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Antoine%20de%20Saint-Exupery" target="_blank">quotes from it that I had noted down</a>, that I recall finding in Saint-Exupéry’s writings, here and in his other work, a reminder of how to live as a part of nature rather than separate from it – how to open one’s eyes and heart to the wonder of the world, to its moments of transcendent beauty as well as unsparing harshness.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjip3iYBwkTcaEZGBcZ08DVqGqMUbCe3ZEvMIAUvN3iSNasCCSAisiQzxx_befRGge8QS97aNMvbQyyEq8yQu7Qjr2fv-GrnTFfCcMtD8lC4w2tU0MM3OqJapkrt6pRPyIoTSWL77k_bq_3DKQifZw0FQyCpMKKpgy5C55zIC_tVDjT6-6pN_tJ7kgphEI/s700/Upstream_Cover3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="452" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjip3iYBwkTcaEZGBcZ08DVqGqMUbCe3ZEvMIAUvN3iSNasCCSAisiQzxx_befRGge8QS97aNMvbQyyEq8yQu7Qjr2fv-GrnTFfCcMtD8lC4w2tU0MM3OqJapkrt6pRPyIoTSWL77k_bq_3DKQifZw0FQyCpMKKpgy5C55zIC_tVDjT6-6pN_tJ7kgphEI/w129-h200/Upstream_Cover3.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><p>In one of those serendipitous moments that animate a reader’s life, I had just started into Mary Oliver’s selection of essays <u>Upstream</u>. At first glance, Saint-Exupéry and Oliver could hardly be more different: the former a life-long pilot who flew throughout Europe, northern Africa and the Americas before serving France in World War II; the latter, a poet and teacher, apparently never happier than when meandering through the landscape near her home in quiet observation and contemplation. Both, however, demonstrate in their writings a profound wonder about the world, a seemingly inexhaustible desire to explore and experience nature, and an openness to accept what they encountered, in all its variations.</p><p></p><p>
Oliver found inspiration in her engagement with the natural world as it presented itself in her immediate surroundings. Thus, in <i>Swoon</i>, she writes about watching a spider in her house as it finishes its web. What shines through in the essay is not just the facts Oliver learns about the spider or the wonder of its ways, but rather the patience and intensity she brings to observing this small piece of life she clearly finds remarkable:</p><p></p><blockquote>All the questions that the spider’s curious life made me ask, I know I can find answered in some book of knowledge, of which there are many. But the palace of knowledge is different from the palace of discovery in which I am, truly, Copernicus. (125)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p>
This passion for engaging deeply with a subject, whether a spider on the cellar stairs, an owl or fox in the surrounding woods, or a favorite poet or writer whose work she had read and reread, runs through all the essays here. Already in the opening section of pieces, as Oliver touches on her childhood up through young adulthood, it becomes evident that she has always been powerfully drawn to the natural world.
</p><p></p><p>
But she also found in nature an escape from a world of adults and peers that she obliquely hints at as being too often an environment of “sorrow and mischance and rage.” (14) In an essay on Edgar Allan Poe, she makes a connection to this desire to escape, finding in one of his stories “sleep as Poe most sought and valued it – not for the sake of rest, but for escape. Sleep, too, is a kind of swooning out of this world,” (89) And here that word, <i>swoon</i>, again – her longing to lose herself into the natural world.
</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/11/book-review-new-and-selected-poems.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="689" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9bFycc8UITNBgCVn2ydPUBQ1Rqxhvc6nhGRx8W_tg0zYbMepJ0wadhVXQHnQQs_KlicCrbd3L4keY9WjY5GAAx9IaQ2N16n5qUE4dc1WwmDxGtrOtDhXOJIgXYCz81MBFNnZoOD7Ohjt_fEfpF4PwwAWL7GXOXtKgVO6lhSTm3VK9eM_EBDTRB5CyvI/w134-h200/NewAndCollectedPoemsVol1_MaryOliver_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div><p>Before coming to this collection, I read a book of Oliver’s poems (my review linked to at right). The essays here are very much a kind of prose version of her poetry. In both, Oliver’s engagement with and wonder at the natural world shine through, profoundly effecting in a reader the desire to go out and explore, and so discover the world outside their door.</p><p><br />
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-47284798334391504702023-12-24T20:48:00.002-05:002023-12-24T20:48:54.425-05:00Book Review: "Terrible Worlds: Revolutions" by Adrian Tchaikovsky<h3><u>Terrible Revolutions: Worlds </u> (2023)
<br />Adrian Tchaikovsky (1972)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">445 pages</span></h3>
Apocalyptic novels and movies have been all the rage in recent years, portraying various catastrophic ends for civilization, whether asteroid impacts, zombie infections, or alien invasions. Climate change, the COVID pandemic, and wars that threaten to turn nuclear have apparently left many people fearing the worst – and fully prepared to indulge in fantasies reflecting that.
<p></p><p>
Perhaps, however, rather than anticipating existential risks from some unlikely source, humankind should more fear a future in which civilization survives, but in the form of an enduring dystopia run by an elite few.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdubi93-ENW-16tYMitftDOptHhwTvlQepUTTEEtfl_it_7DIlYE4-tS9m4bhYV08HKzKi6KEq0jQucUD-IiAvUuUu8E2qLBNUxeN9o5QVLRVBI-gWV19IeimaPIqL9rQXhZe7Gs3SJAGJijpFf2akejk5wbWCue9IQs02Vj_8W67hvHjqmcP8A_Mvj4/s900/TerribleWorlds_Revolutions_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="588" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivdubi93-ENW-16tYMitftDOptHhwTvlQepUTTEEtfl_it_7DIlYE4-tS9m4bhYV08HKzKi6KEq0jQucUD-IiAvUuUu8E2qLBNUxeN9o5QVLRVBI-gWV19IeimaPIqL9rQXhZe7Gs3SJAGJijpFf2akejk5wbWCue9IQs02Vj_8W67hvHjqmcP8A_Mvj4/w131-h200/TerribleWorlds_Revolutions_Cover.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><p>It is precisely such dark visions of civilization gone awry that the brilliantly creative storyteller Adrian Tchaikovsky explores in <u>Terrible Worlds: Revolutions</u>. In each of the three novellas of this mind-bending collection, he extrapolates present-day concerns and challenges into disturbing, if all too plausible, futures – just at the point when people finally rise up against what has been imposed upon them.</p><p></p><p>
As I began the lead story, <i>Ironclads</i>, I felt a kind of déjà vu, though not to another work of fiction. Rather, the future civilization Tchaikovsky depicts seems to follow all too inevitably from the description of our present-day reality laid out in a recent book of history and political science. In <u>The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market</u> (my review linked to at right), Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway demonstrate how business groups, over the course of the 20th century, engaged in a successful propaganda effort to convince the American public to become free market fundamentalists. At the heart of this campaign lies a rejection of any regulation, any tax, any government involvement in the economy at all, as these groups</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-review-big-myth-by-naomi-oreskes_5.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="568" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdyhT_s3h1yCVVw_gWrkoMXae2Nx_lALVdPwz4F_D26mCU2Ao0JEjWJu2eDaMfABjpIRSgBJzwsdZuQwZq0Dz_-tC_KbxsbqhhYvjzB6yIDmB7rD_eHp6_AhK5fJHp_mazIcGD5y_3WM2RWisdsHRHaq7AE4R7sGBfWx4yTOCay4PYA041Uy37UWNdWcU/s320/TheBigMyth_Cover.jpg" width="105" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><blockquote>transmogrify a self-serving argument for business privilege into a seemingly virtuous defense of cherished American values … embedding it in the bedrock of American culture, to the point where the myth would be mistaken for age-old truth. (119, <u>The Big Myth</u>)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /> In <u>Ironclads</u>, Tchaikovsky carries this present-day myth forward into a future in which free market fundamentalism has become the American religion – a denomination referred to as “Church of Christ Libertarian.” Corporations dominate power in the country, effectively controlling the government (even more than they do today), with corporate leaders and their families being, as one character sardonically describes it </p><p></p><blockquote>the Deserving. These groups were rich because it was God’s plan, just like if any of us got rich, that would be God’s plan too. Just like any of us might get rich somehow. We could be president too. Everyone said so. We just had to work hard and wait our turn. (17)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /> In order to grow their market in this future world, these American corporations have moved beyond their present-day propaganda and lobbying efforts, banding together to instigate a violent crusade against countries that don’t accept the truth of free market fundamentalism. Along with the masses of expendable grunts fighting these wars, the scions of corporate leaders also join the fight, but from inside indestructible mechanical bodies, <i>ironclads</i>: playing at war, without risking their lives. As the story opens, three soldiers are sent on a mission to find out what has happened to one such ironclad, who has disappeared in Sweden while fighting. What they discover about the global corporations’ tenuous allegiance to nationalism or national governments, will shock even these soldiers’ cynical outlook.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2018/12/book-review-21-lessons-for-21st-century.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="473" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidKIcTChItPGnl6nOzvJWr41tiW9uEBQ60eOhHFfTE8TuRcJ53KkT4V4CZrhTITr9jNNMk28heI0hlUpAt5fUA9-qwWI-ArIt_qYlIRLfY-4Phru2voI8ZVaKfoqGqB4kzY_x1GksnjEfjH3jmYtqlwaa5FKwfaQco6M2LmTiF4Dxy4DFJX4lOUl3CiMs/s320/21Lessons_Cover1.jpg" width="105" /></a></div>
Links to earlier reading also appeared for me in the final two stories, in particular to historian Yuval Noah Harari’s <u>21 Lessons for the 21st Century</u>, in which he anticipates future “biotech” and “infotech” revolutions that create benefits affordable only for a wealthy elite. As a consequence, he warns, inequality will rise to such unprecedented levels that the current social compacts – already fragile – collapse completely as the super-rich isolate themselves ever more completely from the rest of humanity. (My review of his book linked to at right.)<p></p><p>And so it goes in <i>Firewalkers</i>, which is set several generations in our future, with climate change making life increasingly difficult across the world, but especially in a steadily expanding band of desertification spreading from the equator. The wealthy elite have begun the construction of space stations, with robots on-board to serve their needs, planning to leave behind the world to those who have become (to borrow Harari’s word) irrelevant.</p><p></p><p>
In a small town which has sprung up near a complex from which a space elevator rises up to one such space station, the townspeople scratch out a living by supporting the needs of the wealthy who arrive to stay at the complex’s hotel for a few days, waiting to be taken up to the space station to live. Among the townspeople are the <i>firewalkers</i>, young adults who earn their livelihood by going out into the inhospitable, surrounding desert to fix issues with the solar arrays critical to maintaining the amenities that make the rich comfortable as they wait at the complex. As the story opens, one such group ventures out on a mission, and comes to discover that they are not the only ones angry about being left behind.
</p><p></p><p>
In the final story, <i>Ogres</i>, a different response by the wealthy elite to environmental degradation and social upheaval has played out. Over the course of several generations, bioengineered genetic changes have been deployed to create a master class, a small but significant group of people with increased size, strength and aggressiveness relative to the rest of a now diminished – in number, and physical and mental stature – population. Referred to as <i>ogres</i>, these elite have imposed a feudal society, in which they are a kind of modern nobility, with the rest of the population a downtrodden working class. When an unusual man born in a farming village defies, and eventually comes to threaten, the social order, however, it becomes clear that, to borrow the phrase, life finds a way.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-elder-race-by-adrian.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="663" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifcv7fQbR5hT-TQjIDh4coB4h6Wl6mqGZ8SXb92oiGUm8MNoLgRg7i5fCL32cjQ0RrUY7ah1pSnsr__d7yG_uYgw3slMgok3YA4gjafCvN_zeIZ5IR4pEfP0J9n4ypWxOSskogA0ILGsuDovSXuJ_QDprPkl8DRBQfWHNm9MZvEd6S0pBl6pxVYCD7RpM/s320/ElderRace_Cover.jpg" width="99" /></a></div>
Tchaikovsky excels not only in his imagination of these scarily plausible futures for our present-day civilization, but also in the world building he does. The characters he creates and the worlds they inhabit fairly crackle off the page. It was, in fact, this amazing feat of world building which I first encountered in his novel <u>Elder Race</u> (my review linked to at right), and that had me looking for more of his work.
<p></p><p>In <u>Terrible Worlds: Revolutions</u>, Tchaikovsky extrapolates our present reality into disturbing potential dystopias. But, the outcomes of his stories here leave some hope: although the elite may exploit their advantage to the point of creating such hellish futures, their mastery will never be absolute; however robust the systems of control they impose, revolution still, eventually, comes for them.</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-50736083949182008592023-11-30T12:22:00.005-05:002023-12-02T22:02:26.293-05:00Book Review: "The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism" by Martin Wolf<h3><u>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</u> (2023)
<br />Martin Wolf (1946)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">474 pages</span></h3><blockquote>
“Almost a quarter of respondents in a new [October 2023] poll say American politics have gotten so far off track that “patriots may have to resort to violence” to save the United States … [including] one-third of Republicans surveyed … 13 percent of Democrats … and twenty-two percent of independents.”<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i><a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4274233-more-in-new-poll-say-patriots-may-have-to-resort-to-violence-to-save-us/#:~:text=One%2Dthird%20of%20Republicans%20surveyed,who%20said%20so%20in%202021." target="_blank">More in New Poll Say ‘Patriots May Have to Resort to Violence’ to Save US</a></i></div></blockquote><p></p><p>
These recent polling results make manifest the disturbing depth of the political and social divisiveness that has spread in the US since at least the Great Recession of the late 2000’s. Antipathy, and increasingly even anger towards those with whom one disagrees politically has not only deepened distrust in government institutions fundamental to the stability of the country, but indeed fostered violent attacks against them.
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Liberal democracies globally face similar challenges, notes economist Martin Wolf in his timely book <u>The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism</u>. The heady days of the early 1990’s, when the West celebrated its victory in the Cold War as an <i>end of history</i> moment in which the combination of liberal democratic politics and free-market capitalist economics had seemed to prove itself successful, feel like a distant memory. Instead, we now face an internal crisis, one that Wolf argues has arisen not from outside threats, such as alternative political-economic regimes, but rather due to inherent characteristics of democratic capitalism itself:</p><p></p><blockquote>The health of our societies depends on sustaining a delicate balance between the economic and the political, the individual and the collective, the national and the global. But that balance is broken. Our economy has destabilized our politics and vice versa. (xix)</blockquote><p>It is this <i>delicate balance between the economic and the political</i> in democratic capitalism that Wolf explores in his book: how it first emerged; what has destabilized it in our present moment; and, finally, which reforms could help reestablish an equilibrium.</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXeiLSNlTo-KdxF_QPB1WB1yIXLyjGogYUfSSVctPVvMXb1jP9nWOl-iC8k9R9ScHwbMBRVV2f9mYWexHXuGVayHdxElVNpqoCyXDWFdGTd-L7lnV1a1DCsAeApP4bLsD4aHV2pEma23cT73om4YBvSMtoLeeyoj_X5V5HRayeS19jzefAnekrrejZxo/s700/TheCrisisOfDemocraticCapitalism_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="461" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXeiLSNlTo-KdxF_QPB1WB1yIXLyjGogYUfSSVctPVvMXb1jP9nWOl-iC8k9R9ScHwbMBRVV2f9mYWexHXuGVayHdxElVNpqoCyXDWFdGTd-L7lnV1a1DCsAeApP4bLsD4aHV2pEma23cT73om4YBvSMtoLeeyoj_X5V5HRayeS19jzefAnekrrejZxo/w132-h200/TheCrisisOfDemocraticCapitalism_Cover.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
He opens with the observation that throughout history politics and economics have been deeply intertwined as “symbiotic twins.” This remains true for democracy and capitalism, he notes, but with the additional characteristic that the two systems are fundamentally dependent on one another: “capitalism cannot survive in the long run without a democratic polity, and democracy cannot survive in the long run without a market economy.” (13)
<p></p><p></p><p>
To demonstrate this profound interdependence, he notes that a key element in the development of capitalism was the shift to permitting individuals to participate in a marketplace in which they could sell their labor for money. This led to “an economic and social revolution that … was brutal and exploitative, [but] also transformative” (22): as ever larger groups were allowed to participate in the marketplace, it became politically untenable to withhold suffrage from them. Admittedly, it was a slow process; the shift to universal suffrage took well over a century in Western democracies, and particularly long in the US: “when George Washington was elected president, only 6 percent of the population of the United States could vote” and more than a dozen countries granted universal suffrage before “the US in 1965.” (42-43)
</p><p></p><p>
The emergence of democratic political systems in turn supported capitalism, by establishing and maintaining a rule of law that enabled a market economy to thrive. Wolf argues that a capitalist economic system can, in fact, only survive in conjunction – symbiosis – with a democratic governing system. So dependent are the two systems on one another that “democratic capitalism … is the only form of democracy we are likely to see.” (31)
</p><p></p><p>
Even as democracy and capitalism play critical roles in each other’s success, however, they exist as “complimentary opposites” in a marriage Wolf describes as “always fragile”. If independence between the systems is not maintained, the “delicate balance between politics and market can be destroyed, [through either] state control over the economy [or] capitalist control over the state.” (29)
</p><p></p><p>
In his elucidation of this delicate balance, and the risks to maintaining it, Wolf highlights a crucial point: the profound symbiosis between the two systems “does not mean that economic and political freedoms are the same: the freedom to transact is different from the freedom to act politically.” (31) Historians Naomi Orestes and Erik M. Conway explore this critical distinction in depth in <u>The Big Myth</u>, describing how wealthy US business owners waged a decades long propaganda campaign in the 20th century to dissolve it, attempting to persuade Americans to believe that the two freedoms are indeed the same – that any loss of <i>economic</i> freedom inherently leads to a loss of <i>political</i> freedom. Business’s goal was to tilt the playing field in its favor, by having the country adopt a free market fundamentalist belief that viewed any kind of regulation on business as a step toward socialism or communism. (My review of their book linked to at right.)
</p><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/10/book-review-big-myth-by-naomi-oreskes_5.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="568" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDbZi1aEvCns8Op7B3MqfdLVd9RCISZjoCRTgfuZxi4qwP2X1P5sO6bflWsl9sR4S4nsPKoHmnApHeeeOgW2PHMBQ2PNPyqSS-0wWhura9z5d7sEOI2fgdArRYWdK30xPRqIniNXZz28NkBgXLLnd1x3jqFyUFnWLuKTvT9odRvLqFFYg-Jq4x3CKUQaY/w132-h200/TheBigMyth_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p>Orestes and Conway document the ultimate success of this campaign, and how it has led since the 1980’s to precisely the outcome Wolf describes in his book as:</p><p></p><blockquote>the rise of rentier capitalism, in which a relatively small proportion of the population has successfully captured rents from the economy and uses the resources it has acquired to control the political and even legal systems, especially in the US, the world’s most important standard-bearer of democracy. (173) </blockquote><p></p><p>Referencing one of market fundamentalism’s own heroes, Wolf notes that “a good part of what has gone wrong is what Adam Smith warned us against – the tendency of the powerful to rig the economic and political systems against the rest of society.” (119) (In <u>The Big Myth</u>, Oreskes and Conway expose the selective editing market fundamentalists have done with Smith’s work, to make it appear that he supports their extreme interpretation of the free market.)</p><p></p><p>
Wolf presents a range of economic indicators that make evident the destabilizing rise in inequality in recent decades, but the following observation perhaps best crystalizes the situation:</p><p></p><blockquote>The ratio between average chief executive pay and employee pay in the UK was 129 to 1 in 2016, an increase from 48 to 1 in 1998. In the US, the corresponding ratio was 347 to 1 in 2016, up from 42 to 1 in 1980. (90) </blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2020/12/capital-in-twenty-first-century-2014.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1215" data-original-width="769" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf_p_l3r7MRRGii7SnsfC3hCTuvja3P_g8BmGumZpd2KPbMVNnuc2D3Ag8_blLR4r45_gUMwvh0vBk3H0lCH64cv0Mu8aA1TxuUrjxiTepeWweJ0UQuxzdlMzKgBT4vEyF20QTqxNc5w_ELJPpeM7ia5qj3yQHeT2oN2UJdw1QsNTuIosIkOUtGS9GT14/w127-h200/CapitalInTheTwentyFirstCentury_Cover.jpg" width="63" /></a></div>For a more in-depth examination of how the US and other Western democracies have recently returned to levels of inequality not seen since the Gilded Age, French economist Thomas Piketty provides a detailed and engaging account in both <u>Capital in the 21st Century</u> and <u>A Brief History of Equality</u>. (My reviews of these works linked to at right.)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-brief-history-of-inequality.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1117" data-original-width="745" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivyFu8E12832wz61M7YYOr0xpy2VSKNgpHGeZQDz1xZjp_Y6i4CysKEeVsj22P922FS7hUMMJnk1DLDPGgcxVALFQ0q7TBZmI2OaI3JiHJqkAA24Eg4At7OuUvAicPu9ZOHc07kdcIYJrkje8M4E7teRze_7AR0v0pDTXezGyMoagbC_NSzUMIEPVoiqs/w133-h200/ABriefHistoryOfEquality_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>This increasing inequality has fueled the recent rise in populism in the US, Britain, France, and other high-income democracies, according to Wolf, which autocrats have then exploited to justify disregarding and eventually dismantling democratic institutions, helping tip democratic capitalism, in the US and elsewhere, toward <i>authoritarian capitalism</i>. Although autocrats focus popular attention on issues such as trade, immigration and globalization, Wolf concludes that these are not the true culprits in the rise of populism; for example, he notes, “the dominant cause of the decline in the share of industry in employment has been rising productivity, not [global] trade.” (94) Instead, he claims, the driving force of populist anger comes from people feeling that they have been “losing control over their livelihoods, status, and even country,” (85) disrespected and ignored by the wealthy elite.<p></p><p></p><p>
The essayist Pankaj Mishra makes a similar case for the origins of populist frustration in his book <u>Age of Anger</u>. (My review linked to at right.) Mishra argues that large segments of the global population have come to feel that a successful elite has rigged the system against them, resulting in</p><p></p><blockquote>their natural rights to life, liberty and security[,] already challenged by deep-rooted inequality, [now further] threatened by political dysfunction and economic stagnation, [leading to] an existential resentment of other people’s being, caused by an intense mix of envy and sense of humiliation and powerlessness, … [which] poisons civil society and undermines political liberty, and is presently making for a global turn to authoritarianism. (14, <u>Age of Anger</u>)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-age-of-anger-history-of.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="486" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggu94KK8DeKaHLsYsgZ-e8u51wQr85MA8-tymEjubWV5QrRB3BBvj4f_XlQ9pexk8JgKBndwV6gFThknIjw3y4avXko9qynDGaE_wyaEZ39Z5GzZrCGHRrNat53_KlQiubeSw79SLlJzixnmugWy83U01HOvtpziKSyPIgKcyqNfR9sgFKnB6PbUNcPvg/w134-h200/AgeOfAnger_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div>
Mishra’s argument is that such frustration did not exist in feudal or other earlier political-economic societies, since people, essentially, knew their place. This changed in the 18th century, as Enlightenment philosophers argued for rationalist reforms, and for a shift from aristocratic hierarchies to a meritocratic society. This laid the groundwork for the rise of capitalism, which planted the seeds of frustration, Mishra argues, leading to “the most fateful event of human history: the rise of an industrial and materialist civilization, which … ushered in a new era of global consciousness” (50-51, <u>Age of Anger</u>) in which each individual felt that they had as much right to wealth and power as anyone else; and, when they found it denied them by an elite few, they not surprisingly became frustrated and angry.
<p></p><p></p><p>In one sense, the distinction between the arguments of Wolf and Mishra could be considered slight, with Wolf’s <i>fragility</i> of democratic capitalism due to the ever-present tendency toward increasing inequality leading to the frustration that Mishra makes clear is <i>poisoning civil society</i>. However, there remains a fundamental and critical difference between the two: while Mishra provides no path out of our civilization’s current predicament – the frustration and anger may recede for periods, only to return because it’s a fundamental characteristic of our economic system – Wolf claims that a fragile balance can be reestablished that allows democracy and capitalism to coexist successfully.</p><p></p><p>
In the final portion of his book, Wolf makes the case for how to restore this balance, offering a string of recommendations for, as he titles the section, <i>Renewing Democratic Capitalism</i>. He presents ideas for both our economic and political systems, and they certainly all seem quite reasonable. But even Wolf acknowledges that “the obstacle to any of this is the power that corporations and wealthy people have over governments, not the inability of governments to get their way … if they wanted to” (309) This, however, is precisely the rub, and what makes it difficult not to lean toward Mishra’s view.
</p><p></p><p>
Yes, capitalism has lifted many across the globe out of abject poverty; yes, it has driven innovation on many fronts, including medications and technologies that make life easier; yes, a competitive, market-based economy seems so much more effective than the other forms that have been tried over the past several centuries. And, to all that, one can add Wolf’s argument that capitalism played a central role in getting us to universal suffrage democracy.
</p><p></p><p>
But.
</p><p></p><p>
Even in the moments when Wolf’s <i>fragile balance</i> has been achieved, this success appears to have come at great cost. One could consider, for example, the 1950’s as such a period, and even argue that the resulting economic stability allowed the civil rights movement of the 1960’s to gather just enough support to be successful legislatively (as Wolf’s argument for capitalist economics supporting universal suffrage suggests.) But, at what cost? The effective – <i>stabilizing</i> – regulatory and tax structure in the 1950’s grew out of reaction to Gilded Age excesses and the pain of the Great Depression, as Wolf notes, but also the financial needs of governments to fight World War I and World War II, and the subsequent rebuilding, as Piketty describes in <u>Capital in the 21st Century</u>. And even then, stability was relatively short-lived: beginning in the 1980’s, after an extended period of relative peace, the regulatory infrastructure and progressive tax rates instrumental to maintaining Wolf’s fragile balance were dismantled, enabling the rising inequality, and crisis of democratic capitalism now apparent.
</p><p></p><p>
Even if we could implement some number of Wolf’s suggestions, and so renew democratic capitalism’s stability, the very nature of capitalism is to create wealth for a few, and human nature then tends to lead those economic elite to want to corrupt the political system to their will, to legislate a regime in which they can further increase their wealth. Can the long arc of history continue to bend toward periods of increasing justice in the presence of a capitalist system that actively undermines it? How many times can we oscillate through this cycle between fragile stability and wild excess before populist anger explodes in a revolution that destroys the system completely?
</p><p></p><p>
Perhaps, however, if we believe democratic capitalism is indeed the best political-economic system for our civilization, as Wolf clearly does, occasional populist violence is simply the risk we must abide. Because, to give Thomas Piketty the last word, the history of the past two centuries has shown that significantly reducing inequality in our current system will likely take a revolution:
</p><p></p><p></p><blockquote>
Long-term movement toward equality [since the end of the 18th century] … is a consequence of conflicts and revolts against injustice that have made it possible to transform power relationships and overthrow institutions supported by dominant classes, which seek to structure social inequality in a way that benefits them, and to replace them with new institutions and new social, economic, and political rules that are more equitable and emancipatory for the majority. Generally speaking, the most fundamental transformations seen in the history of inegalitarian regimes involve social conflicts and large-scale political crises. (10, <u>A Brief History of Equality</u>)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Martin%20Wolf" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-2679160469305801522023-10-28T14:40:00.006-04:002023-10-28T14:40:50.108-04:00Book Review: "The Nature of the Chinese Character" by Barbara Aria<h3><u>The Nature of the Chinese Character</u> (1991)
<br />Barbara Aria
<br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Calligraphy by Russell Eng Gon
<br />Illustrations by Lesley Ehlers
</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">96 pages</span></h3>
I have long enjoyed the puzzle aspect of languages, in particular the etymology and construction of words. In German, famous for its many compound words, a simple example would be that the word <i>Stift</i> means ‘writing instrument’ and <i>Blei</i> means ‘lead’ (the ore), and they came together at some point in history to form the word for ‘pencil’: <i>Bleistift</i>: a lead writing instrument. I recall a native German teacher warning our class to not try and create such compound words ourselves – that it’s not a free for all – but the temptation is indeed hard to resist.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHEX3IIDFhYO55Dbth_oiS2_ydG_RozS3hDFQxc6DAXUWRfWzdeWK_0_oxqC5mSzrr8XU04IOA7YCBDcUz1alGnnB-3VOkGHd5wZYAyX3nO2UeWPIyDoIrl9F4Y7DwPIJ7oyhBFYO_oG6WKapeCbxmEsDrw6V0NfcePgBshbNfe8N1h0-9OC7Fb28tFw/s867/TheNatureOfTheChineseCharacter_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="654" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHEX3IIDFhYO55Dbth_oiS2_ydG_RozS3hDFQxc6DAXUWRfWzdeWK_0_oxqC5mSzrr8XU04IOA7YCBDcUz1alGnnB-3VOkGHd5wZYAyX3nO2UeWPIyDoIrl9F4Y7DwPIJ7oyhBFYO_oG6WKapeCbxmEsDrw6V0NfcePgBshbNfe8N1h0-9OC7Fb28tFw/w151-h200/TheNatureOfTheChineseCharacter_Cover.jpg" width="151" /></a></div><p>Given this background, it is perhaps not surprising then, that when I discovered author Barbara Aria’s book <u>The Nature of the Chinese Character</u>, I couldn’t resist reading it. Aria’s text, with calligraphy by Russell Eng Gon and illustrations by Lesley Ehlers, goes right to the heart of my interest. As someone who only knows perhaps a half dozen Chinese characters, and a (different) half-dozen or so words, I have long been intrigued by the apparent connection of at least some Chinese characters to objects in the natural world.
</p><p></p><p>
In the book, Aria presents forty Chinese characters, exploring for each its origins and evolution. Although apparently only a small portion of the Chinese written language has pictographic origins, her intimate and thoughtful prose paints lovely portraits of the history of a selection of such characters. The word <i> nature</i> in her title in fact serves double duty: the characters she includes all relate to the natural world, and, through her descriptions of their origins and evolution, she introduces us to the nature of the Chinese language more generally.
</p><p></p><p>
For anyone fascinated by Chinese characters and the artistry of their earliest origins, Aria and her collaborators provide a gorgeous introduction.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-7412489414148038312023-10-05T06:53:00.012-04:002023-10-08T08:27:38.268-04:00Book Review: "The Big Myth" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway<h3><u>The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market </u> (2023)
<br />Naomi Oreskes (1958) and Erik M. Conway (1965)<br /><span style="font-size: small;">565 pages</span></h3><blockquote>By promoting a false dichotomy between laissez-faire capitalism and communist regimentation, market fundamentalists [have made] it difficult for Americans to have conversations about crucial issues, such as appropriate levels of taxation or the balance between federal and state authority, or even how to appraise the size of the federal government objectively. (118)
</blockquote><p></p><p>
Truer words never spoken. Most anyone in the US who has ever brought up the pitfalls of free market capitalism or questioned its sustainability has likely had the conversation quickly shutdown by the comeback <i>What, you prefer communism?</i>, as if that constitutes the only conceivable alternative. And not just from free market fundamentalists: even many Americans who lament capitalism’s excesses have become convinced that trying to correct them will only lead us onto a slippery slope to a Soviet-style regime – nuance, and the half century plus lived experience of those in many European nations, be damned.
</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGlNAe-fLSwnU-TxLdJlEmu7_U1YA0E20XcHCU8DO5uKNgMT_jJy-aPCxaYKj5GxTzPcanzvfL8S1sy0V2QsZ4JJ1TTWxuEPG4c5zj61AP8qdtR7BfYKGGm9OWEHua8u5pGun1o_wp39jZqnacRDg0pbnuyGTa6YfjFovRZng2oTgG51jQXedeO9iqsQ/s863/TheBigMyth_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="568" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGlNAe-fLSwnU-TxLdJlEmu7_U1YA0E20XcHCU8DO5uKNgMT_jJy-aPCxaYKj5GxTzPcanzvfL8S1sy0V2QsZ4JJ1TTWxuEPG4c5zj61AP8qdtR7BfYKGGm9OWEHua8u5pGun1o_wp39jZqnacRDg0pbnuyGTa6YfjFovRZng2oTgG51jQXedeO9iqsQ/w132-h200/TheBigMyth_Cover.jpg" width="132" /></a></div><p>Historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, in their thought-provoking work <u>The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market</u>, provide a detailed analysis of how business leaders have worked aggressively and persistently for over a century to persuade Americans to believe this dichotomy, to accept that <i>any</i> loss of economic freedom will inevitably lead to a loss of political freedom. In their introduction, they make clear that it is this extreme view of free market fundamentalism that warrants concern:</p><p></p><blockquote>We think what's at issue is not capitalism <i>per se</i>. Contemporary conservatives, libertarians, and market fundamentalists are not really defending capitalism, even if they think they are. They are defending a certain <i>idea</i> of capitalism, a vision of growth and innovation by unfettered markets where government just gets out of the way. ... To the extent that it once did (approximately) exist, it was a disaster: a world with little or no workplace safety, no constraints on pollution, no limits to the trees that could be cut down or the dangerous products that could be sold. (13)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>
The campaign by business to push through this fundamentalist view originated in the opening decades of the 20th century, according to the authors. It arose in response to a Progressive social and political movement born from the excesses of the Gilded Age of the late 1800’s, one that successfully lobbied for restrictions on child labor and the implementation of worker’s compensation. Business owners, looking to head off further such laws threatening their profits, banded together to plot ways to fight back.
</p><p></p><p>
A key early battle in this regard took place in the 1920’s, according to Oreskes and Conway, over the issue of rural electrification. Cities had largely been electrified by this point, but much of rural America had not, as private utilities found it unprofitable to build out the necessary infrastructure. When both the federal government and state governments tried to step in to fill the gap, however, these same utilities fought aggressively against it – opposing even plans that tried to strike a reasonable balance between public and private ownership. As a governor of that time who attempted to develop one such program lamented:</p><p></p><blockquote>If the people of the United State ever turn to the nation-wide public ownership of electric utilities … it will be because the companies have driven them to it … [having] opposed and prevented reasonable and effective regulation by the States and the nation. (43)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />Already in this period, the authors note, industry groups moved beyond just lobbying for or against specific legislation or promoting a particular business or industry. Instead, by targeting newspaper editors, educators, and the public directly, their “goal – expressed outright in numerous documents – was to change the way Americans thought about private property, capitalism, and regulation.” (51)
</p><p></p><p>
These early efforts by industry groups were often ham-handed, the authors note, and when the details eventually came to light a decade later during congressional hearings, it caused the business community significant embarrassment. Combined with the disastrous impact of the Great Depression, the revelations resulted in the political influence of business reaching a nadir during the 1930’s and early 1940’s.
</p><p></p><p>
Out of this period, however, arose a new, more politically savvy group of business owners who developed more refined approaches for pushing their agenda, their efforts focused on reversing the many aspects of the New Deal that undercut their profitability. Oreskes and Conway term the core message they propagated as the <i>indivisibility thesis</i> – a claim that political and economic freedom were intimately connected, and that “anything less than total business freedom was a step on the road to socialism or worse.” (118) Using these arguments, business groups rejected any regulation, any tax, any government involvement in the economy at all, thereby</p><p></p><blockquote>transmogrify[ing] a self-serving argument for business privilege into a seemingly virtuous defense of cherished American values … [and] spend[ing] the ensuing decades bolstering its intellectual credentials and embedding it in the bedrock of American culture, to the point where the myth would be mistaken for age-old truth. (119)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />Having established the central narrative that market fundamentalists sought to promote, the authors explore the many and varied approaches industry organizations and wealthy individuals pursued and funded to promote it throughout the mid-20th century. Having learned from the mistakes of earlier groups, their new methods tended focus on direct pressure, and more on using money to underwrite those who were either already pre-disposed to support the desired message or were in a sufficiently precarious financial situation that they would be willing to align their thinking with that of their patrons. This again involved working through educators and editors, but also included seeking out supportive preachers who could bring the message to their congregations, and sponsoring radio and TV programs that were little more than paid propaganda for business.
</p><p></p><p>
The extreme position free market fundamentalists staked out with the indivisibility thesis becomes clear through the ways in which they repeatedly had to curate reality to promote their message, editing out anything that could undermine it. Thus, for example, Oreskes and Conway note that even as market fundamentalists built up Adam Smith as the ur-capitalist, they also quietly excised his comments in <u>The Wealth of Nations</u> that supported government engagement in the economy, such as his argument that the financial industry needed regulation to achieve a durable and healthy capitalism.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2010/12/road-to-serfdom-by-friedrich-hayek.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="647" data-original-width="423" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRoHKYyWu29eg8oE5j89I6nv1ZmkNQpaJhZM2wcopEJkeJzIZpQ-Bz2KNnXkxsN5uV6l5ZBN-onq7r0rVe4yWXcZUwNAE02m8_ImFv5yJlHjLExiDBJFNZWfWiytkHkO0i0TwywUZ8VIR574Xo8TVLvK70G_aWzbrp4GLyPHoY2yljfda02p6DPh0MGN4/w131-h200/Cover_TheRoadToSerfdom.jpg" width="65" /></a></div>
Similarly, when market fundamentalists brought Austrian economics professor Friedrich von Hayek to the US to add academic rigor to their message based on his book <u>The Road to Serfdom</u>, they ignored his calls in that text for a government social safety net, for example, and went so far, Oreskes and Conway point out, as to published an alternative version of the book that better aligned with their message. (Some years ago, I read Hayek’s <u>The Road to Serfdom</u>, thinking I should get to know a text that so many conservatives have touted as undergirding their views. As can be found in my review (linked to at right), however, I was struck reading it by how Hayek, while clearly a believer in markets and capitalism, expressed the need for government assistance programs and explicitly distanced himself from conservatism.)
<p></p><p></p><p>The authors also include a fascinating exploration of the multipronged media blitz undertaken by business leaders in the mid-20th century, through print, radio, and television. Here again, the details often force us to confront the history we had been taught in school or absorbed from cultural messages. Perhaps most shocking is the real story behind the <u>The Little House on the Prairie</u> series, relative to what appears in the novels and TV series. Striking too is the story of Ronald Reagan’s rise to fame as the spokesman on a series of TV shows sponsored by GE in the mid 1950’s to extol the virtues of business and free markets: Reagan’s views shifted strongly rightward, the authors note, as he aligned his thinking with that of his employers at GE, and a decade later he came to benefit politically from the significant public visibility he gained through the show.</p><p></p><p>
Reagan, in fact, goes on to play a central role in the final portion of the book, as the time and money business associations and wealthy individuals spent spreading the gospel of the indivisibility thesis finally paid off during the final decades of the 20th century. By the 1970’s, the authors note, even Democrats spoke about the need for deregulation: when the authors write that an administration “pushed laws through Congress removing the New Deal-era price and service regulations from commercial air travel, trucking, and railroads … [and] target the nation’s vast energy sector for sweeping reform” (309) I found it surprising that they are talking about Jimmy Carter, and not Ronald Reagan.
</p><p></p><p>
In fact, however, the authors draw clear distinctions between the economic agendas of the Carter and Reagan administrations around rewriting regulations. They describe the Carter administration as pursuing necessary and careful deregulation for “the creation of competitive markets where they did not previously exist …[and] removing controls that were counterproductive or no longer justified” (331-332) in the interest of </p><p></p><blockquote>enabling the economic growth necessary to pay for [quoting economist Alfred Kahn of the Carter administration] ‘continued progress in humanizing our society,’ but … not ... throwing workers (and consumers) to the wolves.</blockquote><p></p><p>Reagan’s broad and sweeping deregulation approach, in contrast, focused on “aggressive de-unionization [and] the weakening of environmental, health, and safety statutes.” (331)
</p><p></p><p><br />In Reagan, free market fundamentalist had created a true believer, who pursued deregulation aggressively; what he couldn’t accomplish in Congress in terms of deregulation, he achieved by starving regulatory agencies of funds. The authors note that</p><p></p><blockquote>Reagan presented markets not merely as a place where people expressed their interests and satisfied their desires, but as the embodiment of freedom. … [Thus, he] proclaimed the solution to high oil prices was to let ‘freedom solve the problem through the magic of the marketplace.’ (357)</blockquote><p></p><p>They document Reagan’s repeated use of this idea of the “magic” of the market in his speeches, and how this conceptualization allowed him to promise that free markets could solve any problem, without having to provide any supporting evidence – it was just <i>magic</i>.
</p><p></p><p><br />The authors note that the reign of free-market fundamentalism has continued after Reagan, whether Democrats or Republicans have controlled government. It impacted, for example, both Clinton’s failed attempt to enact National Health Care, and his successful deregulation of the financial industry. And they document the destructive impacts that have resulted – in the Clinton examples, the former left tens of thousands of Americans uninsured, and the latter has been directly implicated in causing the Great Recession of 2008. As William Greider noted in <u>One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism</u>:</p><p></p><blockquote>When law and social values retreated before the power of markets, then capitalism’s natural drive to maximiser returns had no internal governor to check its social behavior. When one enterprise took the low road to gain advantage, others would follow. (341)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />This last part of the book, covering the past 50 or so years, is perhaps the most shocking part of the story. That business leaders in the mid-20th century aggressively tried to further increase their profits and power by tilting the social and political field in their favor is hardly surprising – although admittedly the full extent of their activities is discouragingly impressive. But, for readers who have lived through the events of the last half century, Oreskes and Conway tear away the veil put up by the free-market fundamentalists. It becomes like seeing behind the curtain in the <u>Wizard of Oz</u> – the statements once taken at face value about the “magic of the market,” or about what Adam Smith or Friedrich von Hayek wrote and argued for, or about the indivisibility of economic and political freedom, or so many other claims suddenly become so much unsupported propaganda.
</p><p></p><p>
Perhaps the most important take away from <u>The Big Myth</u>, however, is that understanding how the US has come to this point could enable us to recognize that, as Oreskes and Conway note:</p><p></p><blockquote>Our choices are not confined to oppressive communism or heartless capitalism. To suggest that they are is a dangerous failure of vision. But that is precisely what market fundamentalism has achieved: it has blinded its adherents to the realities around them, while making it hard for all of us to see the range of options that have worked in the past and could work again in the future. (424) </blockquote><p></p><p>By seeing behind the veil that has been draped around us for so long, perhaps we can finally find a path to a more economically sustainable economic system.
<br />
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br /><br /><div>An engaging and wide-ranging interview of Naomi Oreskes by Brooke Gladstone for the program <i>On the Media</i> can be found <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/history-free-market-fundamentalism-on-the-media" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br /><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2020/12/connections-agustin-fuentes-and-stories.html" target="_blank">In a blog post from 2020</a>, I comment on a fascinating discussion Krista Tippett had on her <i>On Being</i> podcast with biological and evolutionary anthropologist Agustín Fuentes that ventured onto the topic of the societal implications of our current economic system.<br />
<br />Further quotes from William Greider’s <u> One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism</u> can be found <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20William%20Greider" target="_blank">here</a>.<div><br /><a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Naomi%20Oreskes%20and%20Erik%20Conway" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-61338336269150403132023-09-16T21:14:00.001-04:002023-09-16T21:16:14.626-04:00Book Review: "Children of Dune" by Frank Herbert<h3><u>Children of Dune</u> (1976)
<br />Frank Herbert (1920-1986)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">609 pages</span></h3>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">[Note: although I make it a point to avoid spoilers in my reviews, this is the third in a trilogy, and it's not possible to write about it without including some context from the earlier books, <u><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/12/book-review-dune-by-frank-herbert.html" target="_blank">Dune</a></u> and <u><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-review-dune-messiah-by-frank.html" target="_blank">Dune Messiah</a></u>. So, if you haven't read those first two yet, I suggest you jump back to my reviews of them, linked to from the titles.]</span></i>
<br />
<br />
At the end of the second book of the Dune trilogy, <u>Dune Messiah</u>, the Emperor Paul Atreides, Muad’Dib, wanders off into the desert to die, having been blinded during an uprising against his rule. Shortly before, he learned that his wife had died while giving birth to twins, who he has named Leto and Ghamina.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvUZR7tEqsmjLpoM4PHpTiIhEWA7KAyWzvjM-uc4VeTn_zHWo7-jSsPDRn8irlSFnuZwea9Yhl0JJp-GPY5Nd6tCmkNyxyQFjWzdPrC442Ejc2opZykTvfA5HQrl_q3ro4GJwXAkdfi7xAYt5m31hSMwWxXr5ScGrCBZ6C6AVhRXX3d-bygUoWeIIKFg/s3515/ChildrenOfDune_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3515" data-original-width="1956" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvUZR7tEqsmjLpoM4PHpTiIhEWA7KAyWzvjM-uc4VeTn_zHWo7-jSsPDRn8irlSFnuZwea9Yhl0JJp-GPY5Nd6tCmkNyxyQFjWzdPrC442Ejc2opZykTvfA5HQrl_q3ro4GJwXAkdfi7xAYt5m31hSMwWxXr5ScGrCBZ6C6AVhRXX3d-bygUoWeIIKFg/w111-h200/ChildrenOfDune_Cover.jpg" width="111" /></a></div><p>The third book, <u>Children of Dune</u>, opens with the twins now nine years old. Though still children in appearance, both are <i>pre-born</i> – filled since in their mother’s womb with awareness and access to the lives and knowledge of all their ancestors, going back to long-forgotten Earth. Beyond that, they also share the profound connection that exists between so many twins.
</p><p></p><p>
Though young, the pair already face a host of dangers. Their aunt, Alia, has succeeded her brother to rule Dune for House Atreides, and schemes to keep her brother’s progeny from weakening her position on the throne and eventually taking it for themselves. Their grandmother, as representative of the Bene Gesserit order, arrives back on Dune for the first time since her son’s death, wishing to be reunited with her grandchildren, though her true intentions remain a mystery. In a distant star-system, the House Corrino, which Paul had overthrown in his rise to become Emperor, looks to restore their leadership, targeting the twins as an impediment to their desires. And, finally, a mysterious, blind preacher wanders the capital of Dune, questioning the ruling order.
</p><p></p><p>
Unsure of whom they can trust, and witness to the chaos that has begun to grow around the rule of Alia, the twins have their own plans for the future of Dune and the Empire. But, can they survive the forces arrayed against them to make their visions a reality?
</p><p></p><p>
This third book in the Dune series lies somewhere between the first two in terms of the balance of action and rumination. In the opening novel, Paul grows into his powers amid a heady mixture of intrigue and war that eventually lead to a decisive victory and his assumption of power as Emperor of the federation of planets. This sets the stage for the second book, in which Paul struggles as Emperor with the choices he has made and the violence they have wrought, as well as with the delicate, seemingly impossible task of using his prescience to navigate the Empire toward a peaceful future, even as conspiracies, plots and general human inconstancy complicate his task. Largely foregoing the action-adventure elements of the first book, Herbert spends significant portions of the second taking readers inside Paul’s head, reflecting on, and grappling with, the inherent and profound challenges of rulers from time immemorial.
</p><p></p><p>
Now, in <u>Children of Dune</u>, with power up for grabs after Paul’s departure, the action picks up again a bit. Nonetheless, with the palace intrigues and groups grasping for power – whether the twins themselves, their aunt Alia, their grandmother Jessica, or the heads of House Corrino – Herbert again has readers inside the heads of a variety of conspirators, as they consider the ends they wish to achieve, and the perilous paths they pursue.
</p><p></p><p>
Ultimately, the action and adventure present in all three of these books serve mostly as a vehicle for Herbert’s true goal: exploring the challenges of leadership, the complex and ever shifting motivations of those who pursue it, and the ceaseless struggle they have to hold on to it once they have it. These stories may be set in a distant future, when humanity has spread far from their Earthly home, but the tale Herbert tells goes back to the earliest kings – and resonates strongly too with the power struggles we witness in the present day.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-38077691012099475392023-09-03T11:02:00.000-04:002023-09-03T11:02:10.013-04:00Book Review: "Palimpsestos" by Christina del Río Fuentes<h3><u> Palimpsestos: Las Huellas del Tiempo en la Arquitectura</u> (2022)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">(Palimpsests: The Traces of Time in Architecture)
</span><br />Christina del Río Fuentes
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">Prologue: Alfonso Carvajal
</span><br /><span style="font-size: small;">93 pages</span></h3>
If when you wander down a street, whether in your hometown or somewhere half a world away, you tend to find your attention captured by evidence in the buildings of earlier structures or uses – incongruities in facades along a block, differences in the style from the street level to higher stories, or fading, wall-painted ads for former stores – then architect Christina del Río Fuentes has written a book that will speak directly to your heart. Her marvelous essay <u> Palimpsestos: Las Huellas del Tiempo en la Arquitectura</u> (Palimpsests: The Traces of Time in Architecture) invites us to seek out such accumulations of architectural changes in a place, and to consider what they reveal about that location’s inhabitants and the evolution of their hopes and dreams.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitu6rIpOzI6ZYyV0wlFBoZcbQXKyV9EF76OLsPAV_KWl741AM12HRvfEBL3W9dwH-FZaqITiTd7F9S-QCI59x_CuUuGdYm8PYFqDnFKaIMrisF29M614EkQN7dFLqVLaB4eb9mr_NVUFK55hfPmbF-BEdwAiLwsPv6-Yr4E_uzOgDVQCc-6aFHfUq9n_I/s906/Palimpsestos_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="906" data-original-width="652" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitu6rIpOzI6ZYyV0wlFBoZcbQXKyV9EF76OLsPAV_KWl741AM12HRvfEBL3W9dwH-FZaqITiTd7F9S-QCI59x_CuUuGdYm8PYFqDnFKaIMrisF29M614EkQN7dFLqVLaB4eb9mr_NVUFK55hfPmbF-BEdwAiLwsPv6-Yr4E_uzOgDVQCc-6aFHfUq9n_I/w144-h200/Palimpsestos_Cover.jpg" width="144" /></a></div><p>She opens by explaining her use of the word <i>Palimpsests</i>, describing it as coming from the Greek <i>palimpsestos</i> ‘scaped again’, originally meaning a writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) that has been used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased. But the word has also come to mean, quoting from Merriam-Webster, “something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface.” Del Río Fuentes ultimately finds both of these meanings applicable, as the <i>diverse layers</i> of architectural style in a place often result from earlier structures that have been repurposed or built over.
</p><p></p><p>
After first acknowledging the evidence of lasting human impact on the natural world (we do, after all, live in an age that some have labeled the <a href="https://www.anthropocene.info/" target="_blank">Anthropocene</a>), del Río Fuentes focuses for most the book on the kinds of palimpsests found in the evolution of cities. She describes three types of such impacts on a city’s architectural style: <i>scars</i>, “vestiges of the past that have remained present,” (36) say after a place has been rebuilt in the wake of a catastrophic fire; <i>strata</i>, groups of architectural elements that have become integrated with other groups that come before or after, as cities evolve to reflect changes in their inhabitants’ needs and desires; and, <i>collage of time</i>, in which buildings remain from the past but have been renovated to reflect a changed cultural vision of a city’s inhabitants, for which she provides a particularly vivid example of the present-day Roman-catholic cathedral in Cordoba that was originally a mosque build by the Moors. She closes her essay with examples from cities that exhibit each of these architectural histories.
</p><p></p><p>
By integrating cultural and historical considerations with the physical reality of the architectural styles, del Río Fuentes brings cityscapes alive in her essay. What at first glance appear as mute collections of buildings reveal themselves as</p><p></p><blockquote>[not] a constructed territory, but rather an accumulation of distinct transformations. They appear as dynamic cities in which their development, their changes, give rise to unforeseeable models. (47)</blockquote><p></p><p>By demonstrating that these transformations have analogues in the work of artists, she reveals how the evolution of the structure of a place is driven by its inhabitants, and that the dynamism of the architecture comes out of their evolving cultural norms and priorities.
</p><p></p><p>
After reading <u>Palimpsests</u>, you’ll surely see your hometown differently, becoming attuned to the mixture of styles present, the scars sometimes left as new replaces old, and the variety of surprising layers hidden often in plain sight.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br /> While I was in the middle of <u>Palimpsests</u>, I happened to read Jacinto Antón’s interview of the photographer Isabel Muñoz in <u>El País Semanal</u> (<a href="https://elpais.com/eps/2023-07-08/el-alba-de-la-civilizacion-retratada-de-noche.html" target="_blank">9 July 2023, <i>The Dawn of Civilization, Pictured at Night</i></a>) LINKLINK regarding her stunning pictures of the Turkish site Göbekli Tepe, which triggered a direct connection. Göbekli Tepe is described as “a meeting place built by groups of hunter-gatherers in the dawn of the Neolithic age (Neolithic preceramic, 9600-7000 BC), during the transition to the first permanent settlements.” In the article, a Turkish archaeologist, Necmi Karul, comments that <div><blockquote>They are spaces of socialization and memory. In the pillars, we see images, for the large part of animals, that must have formed part of a collective memory. The buildings are architecture living and renewable (we see that the reliefs were replaced), they are living constructions, that indicate to us a new style of living. (italics mine)
</blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>
To my understanding, <u>Palimpsests</u> is only available in Spanish. But it’s a relatively short essay, and if one knows some Spanish, and is willing to proceed with a dictionary at one’s side, it can be tackled. (Translations of the quotes above from the book, as well as from the magazine article, are mine.)
<br />
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-85420402180720665032023-08-14T20:17:00.004-04:002023-08-14T20:18:44.494-04:00Book Review: "Bewilderment" by Richard Powers<h3><u>Bewilderment</u> (2021)
<br />Richard Powers (1957)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">278 pages</span></h3>
Some seventy years ago, during lunch with several fellow physicists, Enrico Fermi suddenly posed a question that has become known as the Fermi Paradox: if intelligent life is at all common in the universe, then <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox" target="_blank">“where is everybody?”</a> One hypothesis, among many that have been put forward, is that perhaps intelligent life inevitably self-destructs – that technological progress overwhelms the ability of its creators to cope with its implications.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-7u9iaWsYPIgSEumeYhjx82Kd2zO4fUr7ZKL6JLiDYxyi2u_vWCXa-fDA_yQW4PMq5sVInHk8LohUH7JLoBIKkWrA97fEBK-0JuMfmMH7E0sOos5ZmxBHeOQgS-BwD6Z3F3LcsDkAYEsDsi4sEWzvDj4Ta90e1HmPWg7aPUrRHof6cMh4MfY8JexNhE/s1200/Bewilderment_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="794" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-7u9iaWsYPIgSEumeYhjx82Kd2zO4fUr7ZKL6JLiDYxyi2u_vWCXa-fDA_yQW4PMq5sVInHk8LohUH7JLoBIKkWrA97fEBK-0JuMfmMH7E0sOos5ZmxBHeOQgS-BwD6Z3F3LcsDkAYEsDsi4sEWzvDj4Ta90e1HmPWg7aPUrRHof6cMh4MfY8JexNhE/w133-h200/Bewilderment_Cover.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>In his novel <u>Bewilderment</u>, Richard Powers makes a convincing case – ripped from present-day headlines – that such a bleak hypothesis is in fact supported by observed human behavior. Referencing both the mounting evidence of environmental damage and the political partisanship and dysfunction that actively frustrate attempts to build on what little progress has been made to reverse it, Powers persuasively portrays humankind’s steadfast belief that we sit above nature and can do with it what we please. As a species we remain perilously blind to the dangerous consequences of our actions for our future, unable to view ourselves as intimately a part of the natural world.<p></p><p>
The story opens as a father, Theo, and his nine-year-old son, Robin, enjoy a camping trip in the Smoky Mountains. Theo has pulled his son out of school for a few days after yet another incident between Robin and his classmates – Robin struggles to fit in, and some among his fellow students cruelly exploit his difficulties, badgering him until he reacts. Theo describes the often-conflicting diagnoses that doctors have offered for his son’s behavior, and the variety of medications they have prescribed to address it. By this point, Theo notes:
“Watching medicine fail my child, I developed a crackpot theory: Life is something we need to stop correcting. My boy has a pocket universe I could never hope to fathom. Every one of us is an experiment, and we don’t even know what the experiment is testing.” (5)
And, he notes, the death of his son’s mother the year before in an accident only magnifies the boy’s struggles.
</p><p></p><p>
Theo, in his work as an astrobiologist at a university, models and simulates potential exoplanets – how life could develop in wildly different ways in dramatically different environments. He shares these worlds with Robin through what seems to be a kind of advanced virtual reality interface, allowing the two of them to pretend to spend time on the simulated worlds. These experiences lead both father and son beyond the parochial limitations and assumptions of human life; clearly, too, they come to inform Theo’s concept of his son as a “pocket universe,” and that “every one of us is an experiment.”
</p><p></p><p>
For his part, while Robin struggles to concentrate on tasks that don’t interest him, when a subject or activity catches his attention he becomes deeply focused on it, to the exclusion of all else. This plays out in the story through his interest in nature, which he has picked up from the work of his mother, who had been an environmental activist, lobbying and testifying to government officials in pursuit of a more caring and protective stewardship of the natural world. From watching his mother, including now on old social media clips of her in action, Robin too has developed a strong sense of the importance of caring about nature, and a deep frustration at how he sees it being mistreated – a passion that can, for him, quickly turn into compulsion and anger.
</p><p></p><p>
Further incidents involving Robin at school put increasing pressure on Theo to medicate his son, a step he desperately seeks to avoid. In his search for alternatives, he turns to a colleague in the neuroscience department who has been developing a radically new treatment. Robin begins this treatment, and it dramatically transforms his behavior for the better, making him calmer and less reactive. But when events beyond their control interfere, father and son find themselves navigating challenging and uncertain territory.
</p><p></p><p>
Although Powers builds the story around developments in astrobiology and neuroscience that lay at least some years in our future, they seem convincingly plausible. And, at any rate, these technologies are not the point of his story; rather, they serve as plot devices through which he explores and highlights humankind’s increasing separation from the natural world. This disconnection, he makes clear, lies at the heart of our willingness to allow it to be plundered and degraded, with what he feels are existential implications.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-overstory-by-richard-powers.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHeEVIlwqkGpVj7UAYjExeJ7qJkPMWBKqaUo4Lt5FkCBk5PD3LE9FWEAdtS3GenieaJYG87Dtk0icmI_gc2kE22d6i0WlzbEZEERlSJ3f4Bq9nq7KOrIYgmRKH4lFJ4RD1pGhD5AQGqaAAuipT2US-6jt7KtpjYA7MkeludDAuNDEfCRGk1UByYIsLLLA/w133-h200/TheOverstory_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>
These themes build upon his previous work, the masterful novel <u>The Overstory</u>, which focuses on how our misunderstanding and neglect of forests leads us to miss out on not only the beauty and wonder they contain, but also on their fundamental importance to human life. (My review linked to at right.) In <u>Bewilderment</u> he broadens this concern to the entire natural world, including the brutal treatment of animals both in the wild and farmed, and our inability to recognize the danger this behavior toward them poses for our survival.
<p></p><p>Perhaps not surprisingly, given how loss of trust in science has accelerated during the political upheavals of the past half-decade, Powers incorporates present-day political realities into his story, as challenges both father and son must face. Looming over their lives, an unnamed president disparages science and creates a climate in which voicing one’s opinions – scientific or otherwise – has become increasingly fraught; and, disruptions in battleground states during a presidential election lead to increasing political turmoil and uncertainty. Though the book was published in 2021, the story makes no mention of COVID, although it does describe the rise of a deadly pandemic that threatens to spread in a deeply partisan climate that makes addressing it a challenge. Not a hard scenario to imagine in the year 2020, given what was happening…</p><p></p><p>
If this book had been written even a decade ago, such plot elements would have likely been considered hyperbolic fearmongering; today, to not believe the potential for the consequences Powers imagines seems naïve.
</p><p></p><p>
While <u>The Overstory</u> was monumental in its scope, its sobering message was also softened somehow by that breadth, as well as by the more amorphous and non-specific social ignorance of nature it portrayed. <u>Bewilderment</u>, in contrast, takes a much more intimate and direct tone, with a father and son struggling in private and personal ways easy for most any parent to identify with, and the growing climate and political concerns that aggravate their situation seeming all to believable. Together these elements make this story hit harder, and leave readers little hope for a better way forward.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-50356616013405720542023-07-27T22:17:00.002-04:002023-08-05T14:55:11.482-04:00Book Review: "Severance" by Ling Ma<h3><u>Severance</u> (2018)
<br />Ling Ma (1983)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">291 pages</span></h3>
An illness originating in China with initial symptoms similar to the common cold spreads to become a global pandemic; workplaces provide masks and bring in disinfection services before eventually shifting their employees to work at home; groups of protestors not wearing masks enrage the public; cities empty out as their populations flee in fear: author Ling Ma’s novel <u>Severance</u> has all the hallmarks of a Covid-era tale.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjmFn8pyEwo7um6IbHiuX5ndkl-x-OxpyvLVLCdLlSbZrvDV3Z8LhLZuRRFYbbLnR4lDnEjUZM9IsfWqhF8jLQ7wgoyBGJ9c3D2HW3P4YsMwF51ARi-kKiahRbxAVL0zaXKLBkJPibW08jYqEgVCR5ifqcm41UxiJ3ZJOU14X-ytYr3ffJAkUd-OOZC8/s1000/Severence_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRjmFn8pyEwo7um6IbHiuX5ndkl-x-OxpyvLVLCdLlSbZrvDV3Z8LhLZuRRFYbbLnR4lDnEjUZM9IsfWqhF8jLQ7wgoyBGJ9c3D2HW3P4YsMwF51ARi-kKiahRbxAVL0zaXKLBkJPibW08jYqEgVCR5ifqcm41UxiJ3ZJOU14X-ytYr3ffJAkUd-OOZC8/w129-h200/Severence_Cover.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><p>Then you check, and discover it was published in 2018…
</p><p></p><p>
Ma’s fictional pandemic does differ in its transmission path and, critically, in having significantly more devastating consequences. As the story opens, our narrator, Candace Chen, has left a nearly deserted New York City behind, and met up with a small group of survivors who are headed for a site on the outskirts of Chicago, where the group’s unofficial leader has a large mall that he owns, and that he proposes they make into their home base.
</p><p></p><p>
The novel tells Chen’s story by weaving together three separate timelines: one tracks her experiences with the group as they head west toward their destination; a second provides flashbacks to the days pre- and post-pandemic in which she struggles to make a life for herself in New York; and a third, recollections of her childhood with her parents, who both passed away some years earlier. Rather than telling a sequential story, the flashbacks skip around – the way we often recall a memory of a particular moment or period in our lives, triggered for reasons that may remain inscrutable.
</p><p></p><p>
Her parents’ death during college left Chen floundering – isolated by both distance and cultural experience from the rest of her extended family still in China. After graduating, she followed her friends to the city, but, with no immediate employment prospects, she lives off funds inherited from her parents, while watching her friends transition ahead of her into the expectations of adulthood, with jobs and relationships. Finally, after what seems to her a disconcertingly long wait, she too finds work and a boyfriend, and settles into the life she feels is expected of her.
</p><p></p><p>
Then, in the immediate run-up to the pandemic, she separates from her boyfriend. Soon after, the pandemic spreads, and with no connections and nowhere to go, she agrees to remain working on-site for her company in downtown New York, becoming one of a small cadre asked to keep an eye on things in-person. As she watches the city, and civilization more generally, grind to a halt, inertia keeps her doing the job she has promised to do, the routine blinding her to the increasing futility of the work. Eventually reality breaks through, however, and she flees the eerily vacant city, eventually meeting the group she comes to travel with.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2015/04/book-review-station-eleven-by-emily-st.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="461" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioV8SchDSTpHhkCCTw4hmeWECSZxWiQCTYLCiyTWheIS7LQyIRQalzzXCvBVaoE8MSWMp30kakXLR05z67wdBa9IiAyA5oNBpiOlp9JDjeHY22KZbUOBFpMbR0QzIZYxOydBhYT956jwnI3325GHN0xK1NJ62CliCLHTivyueWxpubxPeFiy569ONhx-g/w133-h200/Cover_StationEleven.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>
It is interesting to consider how differently this novel will tend to be read in the wake of readers’ experience with the Covid pandemic, relative to someone who read it in the before-times. I can imagine that, if I had read it then, I would have found it a story that used the plot device of a <i>pandemic apocalypse</i> as a means to explore idiosyncrasies of human behavior; in particular, the challenges for first generation immigrant families, and also the many unspoken expectations and numbing ruts of working life. This was, for example, how I read Emily St. John Mandel’s brilliant <u>Station Eleven</u>, and Edan Lepucki’s <u>California</u> – the particulars of the apocalypse in each case were not the point; the depth of these story lay in the human experience the pandemic revealed. (My reviews of these other novels linked to at right.)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2015/10/book-review-california-by-edan-lepucki.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="406" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNLkEqzv86d_97RPlJ7_xAvNNRGfCuHWhCP8oUvdAGzsluekWwiLySeKr_XxA1rfW2ZXu-8D1uRQdfkEV4jOHkX4s8u8fyN6xP0Qi3nKwVz8iScpEeZgDPcQSzIbWyUy0ql414NPgrp_mrksGudPJlvs4bZ-4FB22faIgkyXFHCsImx3RCts4t7e6r0TM/w133-h200/Cover_California.jpg" width="66" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p></p>
But, we can’t go back and, reading Ma’s novel today, in the immediate aftermath of the depths of the Covid pandemic, I found it difficult not to focus on and identify with Chen’s experience of the evolution of the pandemic, from the earliest days of it being a rumor of a disease in a faraway place, through the stages of denial, the vane belief that it couldn’t be <i>that</i> bad, to the realization of the deadly reality. However striking and moving I found Ma’s descriptions of the struggles of Chen’s parents as they tried to make a new life in the United States, or of Chen’s own feelings of disaffectedness as she tries to find her way growing up, or maturing into an adult with an apartment and a job, or even surviving in the post-pandemic world – a world many orders of magnitude worse than what happened with Covid – it was the portions of the story that traced the gradual, never quite accepted descent into the pandemic that held my attention most powerfully. They simply felt too close to reality.
<p></p><p></p><p>
And, as New York City shut down around Chen, gradually but inexorably, I had a bit of a post-traumatic stress reaction, a mental shift back to the early period of the Covid pandemic, when store shelves were suddenly not so well stocked, and the realization dawned that it wasn’t something that was going to go away in a few weeks.
</p><p></p><p>
Clearly civilization has survived Covid. But there remains now this period, if hopefully transitory, when what we experienced leaves some residual fear that it could have been so much worse – and that the next one could be so much worse. And that lingering uncertainty and disquiet will tend to color a present-day reading of Ma’s novel, diverting attention away from her trenchant exploration of the immigrant experience as well as of the working world experienced by so many who work as part of fitting in to the social expectations, not because they have necessarily discovered their passion.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br /><a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Ling%20Ma" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
</div><br />Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-25647556604416987432023-06-22T21:28:00.002-04:002023-08-06T13:45:59.455-04:00Book Review: "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels<h3><u>The Communist Manifesto</u> (1848)
<br />Karl Marx (1818-1883)
<br />Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">418 pages</span></h3>
In the 20th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ <u>The Communist Manifesto</u> achieved almost totemic status as the foundational treatise of the communist movement. But its fame – or for many notoriety – has extended far beyond the ranks of its readership. Aside from familiarity with a few particular phrases, such as its ominous opening line “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism,” for many the book remains more a symbol than a read text.
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Itd0hxMjLXJI5nUGliY9CBj6VVVy-oQJICddbYMej1i3S9ki_bLVCg3r-P-DJ0sbtQrfvg8rV6PStCYbrEGKh87i3v0ytSBH4LfccaL2olsJs38uBZmBK8YvFxlrejnn9Jtdis9R4glWMMQW2w8DiZJH1UWpmYK4z8t2H9JumY71geLMViRKzQgktDo/s609/CommunistManifesto_Cover.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="609" data-original-width="352" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Itd0hxMjLXJI5nUGliY9CBj6VVVy-oQJICddbYMej1i3S9ki_bLVCg3r-P-DJ0sbtQrfvg8rV6PStCYbrEGKh87i3v0ytSBH4LfccaL2olsJs38uBZmBK8YvFxlrejnn9Jtdis9R4glWMMQW2w8DiZJH1UWpmYK4z8t2H9JumY71geLMViRKzQgktDo/s320/CommunistManifesto_Cover.jpeg" width="185" /></a></div><p>And, as a symbol, it has largely come to be defined by its connection to the Soviet system that grew out of the Russian revolution of 1917. Just as one can seemingly not question the sustainability of capitalism without being accused of preferring Soviet style communism (as though it’s the only alternative), the <i>Manifesto</i> as an expression of political and economic philosophy has become anchored to the totalitarian Soviet Union as representative of its inevitable outcome.</p><p></p><p>
Wanting to move beyond both the view of the text as a symbol and its identification with the Soviet regime, I decided it was time to read it, and so gain an appreciation for Marx and Engels’s critique of the economic realities of mid-19th century Europe, and what specifically they proposed as an alternative.
</p><p></p><p>
As chance would have it, the bookstore I visited to find a copy of the book (shout out to <i><a href="https://www.thirdmindbooks.com/" target="_blank">Third Mind Books</a></i>) had several editions. One that stood out was the Penguin Classics version: for a treatise I had understood to be perhaps a hundred pages with notes, I was surprised that this edition was over 400 pages long. The difference arises due to a roughly 300-page introduction by historian Gareth Stedman Jones, in which he describes the history of the collaborations and influences on Marx and Engels that culminated in the vision they brought to the <i>Manifesto</i>. While this prologue proved challenging at times, given I don’t have a background in philosophy, it nevertheless added critical background detail and context for understanding the <i>Manifesto</i> itself.
</p><p></p><p>
Stedman Jones opens by noting that a broad spectrum of present-day groups “appear to conclude that with the final overcoming of [the] challenge [to world capitalism by revolutionary socialism], the future progress of an unconstrained and fully globalized capitalism will proceed unimpeded.” (9) More trenchantly, he calls out “a certain strand of post-modernist writing … [by] French and American theorists who have concluded that because the class struggle over communism is over, history itself must have come to an end.” (10)
</p><p></p><p>
Such claims about the triumph of global capitalism based on the demise of the communist regimes of the 20th century demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding (or, perhaps, willful misrepresentation) of history. And, Stedman Jones argues </p><p></p><blockquote>the best answer to this kind of post-modernism is to draw attention to the now forgotten sequence of events which resulted in the construction of the grand historical narrative associated with Marx. An investigation into the construction of the <i>Manifesto</i> can explain how this still compelling vision of the world was first stitched together. (10) </blockquote><p></p><p>In his Introduction, he makes clear, in fact, that it is as a <i>compelling vision of the world</i> that the book remains of powerful interest, rather than for its prescriptions. (Note that, while not ignoring Engels, Stedman Jones focuses primarily on the evolution of and influences to Marx’s thinking.)</p><p></p><p>
By detailing the philosophical developments and debates that roiled Europe over the course of the 1800’s, as the Enlightenment of the 1700’s precipitated a long period of revolution and reaction, he demonstrates the origins and evolution of the communist movement and ultimately the conceptual framework behind the <i>Manifesto</i>. His acknowledgement that recounting and examining this background “requires the telling of a rather lengthy and complicated story” (10) makes clear then why the Introduction is three times the length of the work itself. (Pankaj Mishra, in <u>Age of Anger</u>, explores the still unfolding social and cultural implications of the shift from feudal societies based on deference afforded lords and clergy, to the freedom and individualism triggered by the Enlightenment.)
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-age-of-anger-history-of.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="486" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMHy3HfkHedonPZHQ3u6_-MGUHNVoxLy0TJryGf6QQhq2xOPdYKwKNFwQ_PobuCo_i7-Oe6dtZE3cbeAoW4MFB2eH4voo30ZN-F39MwJc0IztYmc1N1hemGlVb2eq5UzPjHH_wKyTvvIJr5bxB1vJkWxV-kXs7EOOfOPjHbvsIbH_N7zVi1Z9vP1yfD4w/w134-h200/AgeOfAnger_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div><p></p><p>Describing the origins of communist thinking, Stedman Jones notes that “Marxian Socialism in Germany … emerged from debates … about what should replace Christianity,” rather than in concerns with “industrialization or the social and political aspirations of industrial workers.” (10-11) He traces the path Marx and Engels’ thinking took from this focus on replacing Christianity to reaching the point of writing religion out of the <i>Manifesto</i>, instead inventing a “socio-economic” origin for the communist movement, built on the “outlook of the ‘proletariat’.” The challenge becomes, however, that if we today ignore the “quasi-religious origins” of the development of the communist movement, it makes it harder to make sense of the similarities of “the passions, intransigence and extremism of twentieth-century revolutions to the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” (12-13)</p><p></p><p>
Of numerous philosophers and their followers in the early to mid-1800’s championing the idea that Christianity had precipitated a social and economic crisis and looking to reverse this impact, one early influence on Marx to whom we are introduced is Ludwig Feuerbach. Feuerbach argued that </p><p></p><blockquote>the essentially ‘communal’ character of the human species was transformed by Christianity into the particular union of each individual with a personal external being, [making] religion … responsible for the individualism of modern society. (156) </blockquote><p></p><p>This engrained individualism paved the way for an economic system based on private property, as well as the modern state built to defend it. Rectifying this, Marx concluded, required recognizing that “religious freedom was by no means the same as freedom from religion;” understanding this, he felt, could lead people to shift back from being “egoistic individuals” to a “species being,” focused on the progress of all – a return to a communal outlook. (173)
</p><p></p><p>
For Marx however, the rise of private property did not represent a mistaken direction in humankind’s development; instead, according to Stedman Jones, Marx argued that “even if [progress for] ‘human life’ now required ‘the supersession of private property’, in the past it had required [the development of] ‘<i>private property</i> for its realization’.” (193) Marx described pre-capitalist societies in which</p><p></p><blockquote>the harmonization of resources and needs was effected by forces other than the market: by customary norms, by time-hallowed traditions and by political or religious institutions. In such societies, the institutions that regulated and organized production also tended to be responsible for the organization of all other aspects of life. These institutions regulated production to meet a pre-given and traditional set of needs. (272) </blockquote><p></p><p>Capitalism, then, represented a </p><p></p><blockquote>break[ing] free from this rigid and highly regulated framework …. It was [a] generalized freedom from the many forms of pre-capitalist institutional restraint that explained the enormous superiority of capitalism in forwarding human productive advance. For only capitalism had a <i>built-in interest in the continuous expansion and proliferation of new needs</i>. (272, my emphasis)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />The <i>productive advance</i> that came with the rise of the bourgeoisie represented a step forward for humanity, Marx found, but only as a way point, not an end point. The new technologies and wealth creation that accompanied the development of the bourgeoisie could serve as a critical basis for the next step forward in the development of humankind: communism, a society in which the focus shifted back again to the common needs of humankind, as opposed to the selfish needs of individuals.
</p><p></p><p>
Marx’s goal, then, according to Stedman Jones, was to return to a concept of “use value” that had reigned in pre-capitalist societies, and so re-unite the economic with “other spheres of life.” (272) But now, with the benefit of the gains wrought by capitalism, Marx foresaw a world in which many, if not most, needs could be provided by the advanced productivity enabled by newly developed technologies.
</p><p></p><p>
In the opening section of the <i>Manifesto</i>, Marx provides an unsparing review of the consequences of the evolution from feudalism to the rise, hand-in-hand, of the modern bourgeoisie and modern modes of production and exchange – free market capitalism:
“For exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, [the bourgeoisie] has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” (326) And, to promulgate and protect this crass exploitation, it has created the necessary governing structures, with “the executive of the modern State … but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” (326)
</p><p></p><p>
What today is referred to as <i>globalization</i>, Marx characterizes as a system in which
“the need of a constantly expanding market for its product chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.” (328)
And he minces no words in observing how the bourgeoisie accomplished this, noting “the cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls … forces ‘the barbarians’ … to capitulate [and] creates a world after its own image.” (329)
</p><p></p><p>
For Marx, the bourgeoisie are those who own capital, own the means of production. The rest of the population, in order to support the insatiable growth of capital, become</p><p></p><blockquote>the proletariat, the modern working class … a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital …. [They] are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. (332) </blockquote><p></p><p>The proletariat thus includes “small tradespeople, shopkeepers … the handicraftsmen and peasants … [whose] diminutive capital … is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists.” (334) And, eventually, expands to “every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe … convert[ing] the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers.” (326)
</p><p></p><p>
Marx notes, however, that by creating such a large working class who do not share in the benefits of capital ownership, the bourgeoisie creates its own eventual demise, as the proletariat will finally rise up against the exploitation of those who benefit from their work: “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” (341)
</p><p></p><p>
One could certainly question how, some 170 years later, this victory of the proletariat has failed to materialize. The historian Howard Zinn, in his ground-breaking work <u>A People’s History of the United States</u>, provides a hint at how the system has sustained itself, describing the elite as having learned in times of upheaval to give a little of what is demanded, just enough to pacify the restless rabble, and so hold onto power. He argues, too, that the elite learned how to co-opt support, as while the</p><p></p><blockquote>poor could not be counted on a political allies of the government … there were more solid citizens … who might give steady support to the system … [including] a growing class of white-collar workers and professionals … who could be wooed enough and paid enough to consider themselves members of the bourgeois class, and to give support to that class in times of crises. (213-214, <u>A People’s History of the United States</u>)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>
In the second section of the <i>Manifesto</i>, Marx describes and defends the communist plans and program. These proposals include the well-known calls for “centralization” of credit, communication, transportation, and production, in “the hands of the State;” but also puts forth ideas now commonplace, such as “free education for all children in public schools [and] abolition of children’s factory labour.” (354-355) Although one can question the practicality of centralized economic control as a solution, Marx defends such approaches by calling forth the ramifications of the fundamental flaws of modern capitalism. And, while this communist prescription may not convince, the identification and description of the economic illness and it’s present-day consequences to our political and social stability surely does to anyone not blinded by their personal success in its current manifestation…
</p><p></p><p>
In fact, one can understand the draw of the <i>Manifesto</i> for those who read it. The identification of the success of modern capitalism in developing increasingly advanced means of economically beneficial production ring true with one’s experience and understanding of the past couple of centuries. But, so too do the many and fundamental flaws identified. The <i>Manifesto</i>, as Stedman Jones points out, has a “power” and a “rhetorical force” in calling out the failures of our present economic system that is undeniable for those willing to put aside their preconceived notions long enough to actually read it.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br /><a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Karl%20Marx" target="_blank">More quotes from this book</a><br /><br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-9486748775096322132023-05-13T21:12:00.002-04:002023-09-04T17:02:51.242-04:00Book Review: "Dune Messiah" by Frank Herbert<h3><u>Dune Messiah</u> (1969)
<br />Frank Herbert (1920-1986)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">337 pages</span></h3><div><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">[Note: although I make it a point to not include spoilers in my reviews, this is the second book in a trilogy, and it's not possible to write about it without including some context from the earlier book, <u><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/12/book-review-dune-by-frank-herbert.html" target="_blank">Dune</a></u>. So, if you haven't read that yet, I suggest you jump back to my review of it, linked to from the title.]</span></i></div><div><i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcQWWRWVPfNtoZSMzAW1IWzBZQ7DXakkYr3GayUdcRGA6GsQRwKTbfCxuOCUQT1IuDrfJGoCsegYQvEBCQ-UiBKpMrmZztEbouveELFk3ZXBEKzzL2up9GUKBbQWoix4lWB38hRpJoRHB7CWkGrlgvujzGlYrY4ucDZqWSqndThSKcQgm_9KIR0eQ/s1152/DuneMessiah_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="644" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcQWWRWVPfNtoZSMzAW1IWzBZQ7DXakkYr3GayUdcRGA6GsQRwKTbfCxuOCUQT1IuDrfJGoCsegYQvEBCQ-UiBKpMrmZztEbouveELFk3ZXBEKzzL2up9GUKBbQWoix4lWB38hRpJoRHB7CWkGrlgvujzGlYrY4ucDZqWSqndThSKcQgm_9KIR0eQ/w112-h200/DuneMessiah_Cover.jpg" width="112" /></a></div></div>Although <u>Dune Messiah</u> reads as an eminently worthy sequel to Frank Herbert’s epic <u>Dune</u>, a reader of the opening novel who ignored or dismissed its clear portents could perhaps be forgiven for balking at the significant shift in dramatic tone of its successor. And, if the comments in each book’s Introduction – and elsewhere – are representative, quite some number of readers have indeed had their expectations disappointed by the sequel.<div><p><u>Dune</u> (my review linked to at right) tells the story of Paul Atreides, the son of the Duke who rules the planet of the book’s title. Paul has been schooled by his mother in the arts of the Bene Gesserit, an order that uses extreme mental and physical training to exert control over others; he has also had his skills enhanced by generations of genetic selection, and finally augmented by the Dune <i>spice</i> that gives prescience. In the wake of his father’s death in battle to forces of the Emperor of the galactic federation, Paul uses his extraordinary abilities to mobilize the subjugated, native Fremen of Dune, ultimately leading them to victory over the Emperor.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/12/book-review-dune-by-frank-herbert.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="570" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRF1yeox74ot6K_sf8sbqbmtuI_7r90yxUMMLVa-fw9uBQfxKomgilbFLcDUekatk9k6-Fq67ou9VsfXv8Ba7sB8KUPIbfJ0HGMQtHKYseR2pf3gcfvCgqWIrYVnyW46Y8FyVd5NFSJu5ClwhKsMB_uUaBtCeqdRTx3jloZprIU-J-ZDjyibSKGMl/w134-h200/Dune_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div><p>But the same foresight enabling his success also warns him of future dangers. Having played into deep-seated religious beliefs among the Fremen in order to rally them to his side and overthrow their enslavers on Dune, Paul has effectively created a ferocious Jihad in his name. His visions tell him that this Jihad will rise up to overrun many of the planets of the federation, consolidating his power as emperor and securing the Fremen’s new-found liberty. But, they also hint at the great difficulty he will face in controlling his followers, and so avoiding that the empire sinking into despairingly dark and violent chaos. Thus, while <u>Dune</u> reads as a thrilling adventure of political and military maneuvering, it reveals too the doubts and fears that plague Paul. And although it can be easy as a reader to gloss over Paul’s profound misgivings about what he has unleashed, for those who do, the shift in tone in the sequel then comes as a shock.</p><p></p><p>
<u>Dune Messiah</u> opens some dozen years after <u>Dune</u> ends. As foreseen, Paul has gone from having defeated the Emperor on Dune to becoming Emperor of the federation of worlds. But the violence and death of the Fremen Jihad that has accomplished these victories troubles him deeply, as do the dystopic potential futures his prescience continues to reveal. His visions warn him too of a conspiracy that has arisen around him among those who lust for his power or have become disenchanted with the violence of his rule.
</p><p></p><p>
In the sequel, the concerns that occasionally plagued Paul in the first novel now come to dominate his thinking – and the story. In order to achieve peace and prosperity for the peoples of the federation’s many worlds, he must navigate around the myriad possible destructive futures that his action or inaction at certain moments could precipitate, a challenge complicated by the developing conspiracy. And he finds himself forced to manipulate even friends and family as he carefully plots a path toward a peaceful future, which further isolates him in his own thoughts. Thus, the story comes to be focused on Paul’s preoccupations with his cryptic visions.
</p><p></p><p>
Herbert alternates chapters between Paul sinking into his ruminations, and the scheming of the group fomenting the conspiracy against him. These two storylines then come crashing together in the final portion of the novel, as the planning of the conspirators and Paul’s maneuvering in response come to a head. Finally the pace quickens, and a bit of the thrilling ride that propels much of the first novel returns.
</p><p></p><p>
In the light of its sequel, <u>Dune</u> can be seen as a kind of an extended preface, setting up the critical questions Herbert then tackles in <u>Dune Messiah</u>: the dangers of personality cults for even the most beneficent of rulers, and the challenge of not only achieving but more pointedly maintaining good governance, even when given significant awareness of how the future could play out and some idea of the impacts of the options one has.
</p><p></p><p>
It is not simply that power corrupts, Herbert seems to say: more damaging is that the lust for power corrupts, and so even the best ruler will struggle to maintain a constructive, peaceful course in the face of those arrayed against them. And Paul comes to realize that the paths that deviate off into darkness are so many many more, relative to those that remain in the light, and ultimately that avoiding a dystopic future can require great personal sacrifice.
</p><p></p><p>
Herbert also points to the challenges of governing in the face of the broad range of motivations and misunderstandings of the general population, which can be as challenging for a ruler to navigate, if not perhaps more so, than concrete, willful opposition. For the opinion of the masses can shift against a ruler suddenly, and for unpredictable reasons, undermining even the best-intentioned plans with little warning.
</p><p></p><p>
<u>Dune Messiah</u> lacks the action and thrills of <u>Dune</u>, but with the shift to a plot that plays out on a more contemplative plane, the result is also a more nuanced story. Rallying forces to overcome and conquer can sometimes be successfully accomplished by a ruler; but then comes the challenge of transitioning those same forces to a more peaceful, stable and sustainable path, without losing one’s mandate to lead.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-73717928621727146672023-04-02T21:19:00.004-04:002023-04-02T21:19:39.393-04:00Book Review: "Personal Recollections of Vincent van Gogh" by Elisabeth Duquesne van Gogh<h3><u>Personal Recollections of Vincent van Gogh</u> (1913)
<br />Elisabeth Duquesne van Gogh (1859-1936)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">58 pages</span></h3>
The paintings of Vincent van Gogh have a distinctive style that is instantly recognizable, and a brilliance of color and richness of theme that has made him arguably one of the most well-known and popular painters in history. Typical portrayals of van Gogh’s life and personality, however, have often seemed narrowly drawn – caricatures of a troubled, obsessive, and perhaps slightly mad, artist.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmo2ai2IoOWMNzT-2_d6JhvMgHHPsva8R-TEIp2OzMPivnYysJlzYZt2lIH74VC-pxeKBYf3jpVLVYVVL1z3BeUyn9w0LCJV9D3_LEFCeW7GTMvTxsuwEB7AaPRDIuOEcymoPt1M7Z65ra_cCkb4zUgUV6pPzQgvsrA9L7xfvxKYS1J2w5kLBrd9vi/s856/PersonalRecollectionsOfVincentVanGogh_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="856" data-original-width="554" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmo2ai2IoOWMNzT-2_d6JhvMgHHPsva8R-TEIp2OzMPivnYysJlzYZt2lIH74VC-pxeKBYf3jpVLVYVVL1z3BeUyn9w0LCJV9D3_LEFCeW7GTMvTxsuwEB7AaPRDIuOEcymoPt1M7Z65ra_cCkb4zUgUV6pPzQgvsrA9L7xfvxKYS1J2w5kLBrd9vi/w129-h200/PersonalRecollectionsOfVincentVanGogh_Cover.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><p>Van Gogh’s sister, Elisabeth Duquesne van Gogh strove to change that view of her brother in her memoir <u>Personal Recollections of Vincent van Gogh</u>, by providing a more nuanced and intimate portrait. Written some two decades after his death, her essay describes her memories of growing up with her mercurial brother, from their time together as children in rural Netherlands to his repeated retreating back home after yet another attempt at a career or studies that he in the end couldn’t abide.
</p><p></p><p>
As the title makes evident, her book does not represent a full biography of her brother – she focuses mostly on the periods when he lived at home, as well as what she learned from the letters he sent to his family while away. Once he became fully engaged in painting – “Art was his first and only love” (37) – she saw little of him, and in the final chapters summarizes his development as an artist based largely on his now famous correspondence with his brother Theo, and what she finds revealed in the evolution of his paintings.
</p><p></p><p>
Elisabeth does not sugar-coat her brother’s struggles, acknowledging a shyness that made him appear aloof, an anguish at the misery and poverty he witnessed among peasants that led him to extreme self-sacrifice, and a constant bridling against the constraints and limitations of the various vocations he tried that left him constantly dependent on familial support. But, for the most part, she has written a paean to a brother she clearly adored, while lamenting what she sees as his misunderstood genius, particularly from her perspective of watching his fame finally blossom in the years after his death, after he had sold but one painting during his lifetime.
</p><p></p><p>
Through surely biased by her love for her brother, her remembrances paint a much more human portrait of him than exists in the popular imagination. We discover a young man who after long searching for direction finally found an outlet for his energy and vision, leading to works that were critically – and at times violently – panned during his lifetime, but that would eventually come to be recognized for a profound brilliance still admired today.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-82378226924925921142023-04-01T14:57:00.001-04:002023-04-01T14:58:00.917-04:00Exaltation 1: raise your voice in song<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">At a recent elementary
school assembly for National African American Parent Involvement Day, each
grade level performed a song or a poem together. All the performances were well prepared and
well done, but I found the call and response rendition of the song “Sing About
Martin” by the pre-5 class particularly moving.
I was so taken by it, in fact, that I’ve shared the video of it made by
the school principal with family and friends, and even now, when I watch it again
for the umpteenth time, it brings tears to my eyes.</p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">As you watch it,
at the link below, imagine the scene: these little ones up in front of all of
their schoolmates, all of the school’s teachers and staff, and many, many
parents, their voices strong and clear – no fear, standing tall, filling the
room with their powerful song.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/1eFa3gPL0qw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1955" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2DXJwEkiVOzneWUW-mWmqVkG5iCUuG3_Rm1kgGK00btXY6xed295AMd-_Yk7kCWBiVIMnAtAdUfzrFLL-U0_yES8b5UXJQ_btq3zb_gl1ekqH6o49l0DmyyMn8wy_gog2PPHsYj-vLPysQU2MR7wvgpPD1n5itBERNL00OY43K0WJ6THc3VRVXhyk/w400-h225/SingAboutMartin_Young5s.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><hr size="1" width="50%" /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">Elsewhere on this blog, I have a series of <i>Lamentations</i>, documenting moments <span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">– </span>especially in what I've read <span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">– </span>that have generated for me a profound sense melancholy and sorrow.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">But, there are moments of joy and awe, too, and this is the first of what I expect will be a series of <i>Exaltations</i>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">(The introduction to the <i>Lamentations </i>series can be found <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2017/06/lamentation-hammer-sky.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and links to the complete series <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/click-on-book-cover-below-to-read.html#Lamentations" target="_blank">here</a>.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-82128329087107112512023-03-25T16:15:00.000-04:002023-03-25T16:15:03.454-04:00Book Review: "Silverview" by John Le Carré<h3><u>Silverview</u> (2021)
<br /> John Le Carré (1931-2020)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">215 pages</span></h3>
Typical espionage novels thrill with cat and mouse action, as seasoned spies carry out fraught missions in foreign lands or seek to protect their homeland from the clandestine activities of probing foreign counterparts. Although the protagonists may question the goals and means and orders of their superiors, in the end they generally serve the mandate of their organization, in spirit at least, if not too the letter. And, whether they have a cynical and hard-bitten or calm and debonair nature, they generally do so at the apparent sacrifice of their relationships and a <i>normal</i> life, at best connected closely to only some few of their colleagues.
<p></p><p>
But at what cost?
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht1Qi2bmpLyWO6-w7OLrkHW7KZI9PMmV8iTpiwifnHTfNzHrhwZrFKioIr45TMUmdVQIeYk-FYRJwHW8ObxLG-3VCaRjASk4NcXmN6h4dE3ClQydFVzBFn181y5DCAeFNVwyqIYgOrl1qu0G1HCLcgN9giSp1VmfohwGcSchn0d3dI2Q38pCDi6ylh/s900/Silverview_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht1Qi2bmpLyWO6-w7OLrkHW7KZI9PMmV8iTpiwifnHTfNzHrhwZrFKioIr45TMUmdVQIeYk-FYRJwHW8ObxLG-3VCaRjASk4NcXmN6h4dE3ClQydFVzBFn181y5DCAeFNVwyqIYgOrl1qu0G1HCLcgN9giSp1VmfohwGcSchn0d3dI2Q38pCDi6ylh/w133-h200/Silverview_Cover.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><p>John Le Carré turns to this question in his final novel, <u>Silverview</u>, published shortly after his death. No cold war or great power conflict motivates the plot; instead, Le Carré explores the manifold impacts of a life of espionage on a spy and his family, and how the institution he serves deals with the consequences when those impacts lead him to question his vocation.</p><p></p><p>
The story develops around two men on opposite sides of the stark divide between the public and the organizations charged with protecting their safety: Julian Lawndsley, who has recently left the hectic life of a job in London’s financial district to open a small bookshop in a coastal village in south-eastern England, and Stewart Proctor, a high ranking official in England’s security services.
</p><p></p><p>
Into Julian’s quiet shop appears one evening an unusual customer – an older man, Edward, who takes an active interest in Julian and his store, and who eventually reveals that he knew Julian’s father while at university. Although Julian has his suspicions about this new customer and his sudden interest in the shop, readers realize early on that Edward is, if not with certainty a spy, then at a minimum actively of interest to Stewart as he pursues a Domestic Security case.
</p><p></p><p>
Chapters alternate between Julian’s interactions with Edward, and Stewart’s prosecution of his investigation. Instead of the white-hot, non-stop thrills of a standard spy novel, here Le Carré ratchets up the tension only slowly, deliberately. Julian, despite his concerns, allows himself to be drawn into Edward’s orbit, enticed by the mystery and hint of risk that perhaps fills a void created by having given up the excitement of a job in the financial markets. And Stewart, for his part, can trust no one but his superiors with even the motivations for his investigation; forced to play a delicate dance around the truth even with his colleagues, Steward struggles to discover the truth about Edward, and determine the danger he may pose.
</p><p></p><p>
It becomes clear, however, that Le Carré’s after more introspective concerns here than the potentially explosive danger of a traitorous double agent. Instead, through the character of Edward, he explores how the same intelligence and talent necessary for someone to serve a successful career in espionage can lead them to eventually become undone by their experiences, and so to begin to profoundly question the duty they had dedicated their life to – and the challenge that this can pose for a service requiring absolute loyalty to the cause.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-77896956382877506352023-03-11T21:48:00.001-05:002023-03-11T21:49:30.242-05:00Book Review: "The Home Place" by J. Drew Lanham<h3><u>The Home Place</u> (2016)
<br /> J. Drew Lanham
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">217 pages</span></h3>
In <u>The Home Place</u>, J. Drew Lanham reflects on the deep and abiding love of the natural world that he developed growing up in western South Carolina. More poignantly, he goes on to explore the realities of American society that confronted him when he embraced this passion as a career, as captured by the book’s subtitle: <u>Memoirs of a <i>Colored</i> Man’s Love Affair with Nature</u>. (Emphasis in the original, as can be seen in the cover photo at left.)<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8tTJG_xIKT0CDSHohUNQWXmnMH_NgvPP5Usu8MH7R_9QjIvC9jaH4TyAmia82A2c6odoW9UiuXRla9RTok5imdnBveIHdSxFsPe2zJJI9Lnnq1Zo2Vkb-HUNNknCDaZ4SiInqimG38Tkkk_LNaFjH7g_-xSbVCPfwTR83LBnRYZgum3NNvXfhCWT/s1020/TheHomePlace_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="660" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga8tTJG_xIKT0CDSHohUNQWXmnMH_NgvPP5Usu8MH7R_9QjIvC9jaH4TyAmia82A2c6odoW9UiuXRla9RTok5imdnBveIHdSxFsPe2zJJI9Lnnq1Zo2Vkb-HUNNknCDaZ4SiInqimG38Tkkk_LNaFjH7g_-xSbVCPfwTR83LBnRYZgum3NNvXfhCWT/w129-h200/TheHomePlace_Cover.jpg" width="129" /></a></div><p>Lanham spends the first half of the book describing his up-bringing on his family’s homestead – the Home Place of the title – a mix of farmland and forest. He writes loving portraits of his parents, and of his grandmother, who had a separate house on the Home Place, and with whom he lived for much of his youth. His parents taught in the local school system and farmed the land of the Home Place, a combination of occupations that helped instill in their son a passion for observing and understanding the natural world. His grandmother’s more visceral connection to the flora and fauna of the Home Place clearly also hoped awakened in Lanham a profound awareness of the world’s wonder and mystery.
</p><p></p><p>
At Clemson University, Lanham first studied Mechanical Engineering. But the truth will out, and in his junior year, he notes “I … reversed the course of my destiny,” (138) shifting focus to the biological sciences building on campus, and a path that eventually led to doctoral studies in Ornithology and a position as an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson.
</p><p></p><p>
The courage to make such a dramatic shift presages his ability to deal with the challenges that he came to encounter with his new vocation, and that he describes in moderate but resolute prose in the second half of his memoir. Moving beyond the borders and familial security of the Home Place to pursue his research in the natural world, he discovers wonders aplenty, “moved to tears by the beauty of snow capped peaks” (178) and “devoured by remnant forests that from far away look uniformly verdant but from within are every shade of green imaginable … a living breathing thing.” (179) Unfortunately, however, these marvels come paired with an uglier side, and not simply the threat from grizzly bears and wolves. As innocuous as birding might appear at first glance, Lanham discovers the profoundly disquieting reality of, as one of his chapter titles labels it, <i>Birding While Black</i>.
</p><p></p><p>
At times these dangers and associated fears have concrete form. But perhaps more damaging is the constant mental distraction of feeling that one stands out, in situations which someone who is white would not give a second, or even first, thought. It's an experience Cathy Park Hong refers to as <i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2021/02/book-review-minor-feelings-asian.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="861" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwtzpwMP_UqlpQ8CxTzGyjgH1yir0xGbqPvfo7IzJFCOczQR86Q2R1AkqVbfySdAsRryzk2emSGO2vb0E2VeclfEzTqFWvAM2QKXBb8rXAJBuBIy1sS-zGLz3MyaV6hoI3YZRCVfKg3-WPL3wvg0DaKPB66Pm3ykwDxvyjKLJ90xlheyFaGwez3X4r/w131-h200/MinorFeelings_Cover.jpg" width="65" /></a></i></div><i>minor feelings</i> in her eponymously titled book,<p></p><p></p><blockquote>the racialized range of emotions that are negative, dysphoric, and therefore untelegenic, built from the sediments of everyday racial experience and the irritant of having one’s perception of reality constantly questioned or dismissed. Minor feelings arise, for instance, upon hearing a slight, knowing it’s racial, and being told, <i>Oh, that’s all in your head</i>. (55, <u>Minor Feelings</u>, my review linked to at right)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p>Hong goes on to describe the crazy-making reality of wondering whether her concerns are real in any given moment or encounter. Lanham asks similar questions, including in situations in which getting it wrong could have a deadly result, the stakes raising one’s thoughts to an exhaustingly persistent fever pitch.</p><p></p><p>
And so, a memoir about Lanham’s profound love of nature becomes a clear-eyed, powerful revelation of race relations and experiences in America today. It can be easy for the majority to assume that the civil rights movement resolved these issues, that they are now largely things of the past; certainly, one shouldn’t ignore the advances that have been made since the middle of the 20th century. But Lanham’s memoir makes clear, as does Hong’s and a deafening drumbeat of other personal accounts and stories and images, that much work remains to be done to get to a uniform level of life experience without fear. Ignoring or dismissing that reality will only extend the time required to shift American society to a better, more socially sustainable place for all.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
I first heard of Lanham, and his book, in his wonderful <a href="https://onbeing.org/programs/drew-lanham-pathfinding-through-the-improbable/" target="_blank">interview with Krista Tippett</a> for her program <i>On Being</i>.
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-24578335891628021822023-03-04T15:24:00.002-05:002023-03-04T15:24:47.742-05:00Book Review: "Stories of Your Life and Others" by Ted Chiang<h3><u>Stories of Your Life <i>and</i> Others</u> (2002)
<br /> Ted Chiang (1967)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">285 pages</span></h3>
For his collection <u>Stories of Your Life <i>and</i> Others</u>, Ted Chiang has crafted eight mesmerizing gems. Each story draws readers into a meticulously constructed, deeply convincing world, with plots that build deliberately but surely to a fever pitch.
<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWUxtvzoGpOVDZgg2Q0oEs2SQNlehw1W3STFhNMfHElD6hO2BC4Jr22Bs3FFeqnI7R8aEwm-s9H7HoK5zk7N9l7d6Urgrh25R8iHVQvgp7lGmFn47ODApdtJWhO5rzRpn2m2JW08-g9cZf4qlhBPiBfwo4VvVM-FgK-wvv5sTRKJVEtOI7cZgjgCY/s1159/StoriesOfYourLifeAndOthers_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1159" data-original-width="740" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWUxtvzoGpOVDZgg2Q0oEs2SQNlehw1W3STFhNMfHElD6hO2BC4Jr22Bs3FFeqnI7R8aEwm-s9H7HoK5zk7N9l7d6Urgrh25R8iHVQvgp7lGmFn47ODApdtJWhO5rzRpn2m2JW08-g9cZf4qlhBPiBfwo4VvVM-FgK-wvv5sTRKJVEtOI7cZgjgCY/w127-h200/StoriesOfYourLifeAndOthers_Cover.jpg" width="127" /></a></div><p>Though they qualify as science fiction, Chiang centers his stories around a solid foundation of science fact and philosophical tradition. The science fiction aspects then motivate the action, a means through which to explore the vagaries and vicissitudes of human life, our strivings for both good and ill. His mastery and incorporation of the science will particularly thrill readers with a scientific or engineering background and interest, even those who normally avoid science fiction, while leaving the stories still accessible to a lay audience.</p><p></p><p>
In the opening story, <i>Tower of Babylon</i>, groups of miners converge on the famous tower, which has reached the rocky surface of the vault of heaven, far above the dusty Middle Eastern plain. The miners have been asked to ascend to the far distant top of the tower, and then mine upwards through the rock to open a passage into heaven. Referencing the mysteries of ancient texts and traditions, Chiang explores humankind’s longing to reach for what lies beyond our understanding, the potent pull of the unknown on our imagination.
</p><p></p><p>
Another ancient tradition, the Christian doctrine of divine nomenclature, lies at the heart of <i>Seventy-Two Letters</i>. Set in the 1800’s, the story describes scientists exploring the possibilities and limits of animating objects by giving them particular names, developing a secular physics of nomenclature. What appears to be a kind of alternative history, however, suddenly transforms into a much more complex vision of physical reality. (I’ve little doubt that readers with a deeper understanding of biology will experience that realization rather earlier in the story than I did…)
</p><p></p><p>
The book’s title piece will be familiar to many readers as the basis for the film <u>Arrival</u>. Asked to try to communicate to aliens through a kind of portal they’ve placed on earth, a professor of linguistics discovers that they have a less linear, more comprehensive view of past, present, and future, and that they have reflected that in the structure of their language. The intensity of her engagement as she learns their language gradually begins to shift her concept of reality, causing her to rethink events in her own life. As well done as the movie is, this original story allows readers a more profound understanding of the main character’s mindset and transformation.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2019/10/book-review-exhalation-by-ted-chiang.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="518" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsIwoHVKwRS9Bue3zR50yy1ZwiwSjGWHb1YyZABwoSo6vud95saaAyB9BEX5bcOk5PZ-DV2hVf7MQsLgxVOhLhuBtrAtw4AmY-WJlD8hZKtIhlNoZJdQS4F--r_3kjUenkRwq5U4cr2K-Kw9-h_GJO0Ga-j38OetwU49mX6t36vxAtBaYaRk1u1Q6X/w136-h200/Exhalation_Cover.jpg" width="68" /></a></div><p>I came to <u>Stories of Your Life <i>and</i> Others</u> backwards in a sense, having already read Chiang’s marvelous, more recent collection <u>Exhalation</u>. (A link to my review at right.) Although wildly different in themes, the two sets of stories share a distinctive sensibility, as well as a dedication to the wonders and mysteries of science and ancient traditions, stretched and bent just a bit through Chiang’s imagination to create marvelously engaging works that explore our human condition. Don’t miss them, even if you are not normally a science fiction fan!</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-29943198599883032792023-02-22T21:27:00.000-05:002023-02-22T21:27:53.257-05:00Book Review: "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow<h3><u>The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity</u> (2021)
<br />David Graeber (1961-2020)
<br />David Wengrow (1972)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">692 pages</span></h3><blockquote>[How has humankind come] to be trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of reinventing ourselves? (9)
</blockquote><p></p><p>
Our dominant present-day governing regimes, whether dictatorships, monarchies, or liberal democracies, appear incapable of solving potentially existential threats such as growing inequality and worsening climate change – at best they tinker around the edges. Given this evident reality, triumphalist claims that Western liberal democracies in particular constitute <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man" target="_blank">the end of history</a></i> in terms of ideological development can seem more a cause for concern than celebration. Unfortunately, the very inevitability implied in the end of history argument makes promoting or even considering fundamentally new and different governing institutions appear outrageous, generally eliciting reactions of incredulity, if not out-right derision.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGXaiiuK1gp3gZrymm7mxXltcCLMiQiPJZUQatkcatnOh071Ri2pdH7EZfrGM4MP6p5jQb-oTxSLBwqQP1_ivaHZKFmdOMPgq7YjlnaQ4D0ZphpgLm3lk1Gnq_BPyKRL3TXMrV4LSF5puOx1LuvVuDbNcb6BjjbMyeca69bW3PV2vdFRKijvROgvlb/s500/TheDawnOfEverything_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="330" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGXaiiuK1gp3gZrymm7mxXltcCLMiQiPJZUQatkcatnOh071Ri2pdH7EZfrGM4MP6p5jQb-oTxSLBwqQP1_ivaHZKFmdOMPgq7YjlnaQ4D0ZphpgLm3lk1Gnq_BPyKRL3TXMrV4LSF5puOx1LuvVuDbNcb6BjjbMyeca69bW3PV2vdFRKijvROgvlb/w132-h200/TheDawnOfEverything_Cover.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
In <u>The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity</u>, however, anthropologist David Graeber and archeologist David Wengrow argue against such fatalistic rejection of the possibility of “reinventing” civilization. They claim that our pessimism on this point has arisen as a consequence of the propagation of an over-simplified view of human history, one implying that our social evolution has followed a teleologically inevitable path to our current political structures, and that no other path was, or is now, possible.
<p></p><p>Through a deeply researched review of human pre-history, in which the pair explore recent findings as well as older sources they argue have been ignored, misrepresented, or misunderstood, an alternative, more expansive view appears, one of our distant ancestors as having actively engaged in the creation of their community institutions. Rather than having blindly followed a relatively narrow, ineluctable path to our current top-down governing regimes, they consciously experimented with a wide variety of social and political structures. This more accurate understanding of the past, Graeber and Wengrow conclude, offers the promise that fundamental changes to our present-day political systems remain possible.</p><p></p><p>
The authors trace what they consider to be our current misunderstanding of human social evolution back to the focus of Enlightenment Philosophers on equality, a concept that had been little considered up to that point:
“one cannot even say that medieval thinkers rejected the notion of social equality: the idea that it might exist seems never to have occurred to them.” (32)
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-age-of-anger-history-of.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="486" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6hURsBfIY1SFTakFiPoNZDzoJjO-tueAj1RDkIU_WQLchPJ3n0HjHCDQNf8I32Ymf_G5UP4xze5yTvmAOm1kQyfIso8UHYhX_yybM-wUr5CAADHeolxTEogGRNY0fz9STV1AzbVvU0OKG_ukaAC6tjbRDYEm-58SqiMiPB0kzygvhdJMI9PWpkXT3/w134-h200/AgeOfAnger_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div>
(Pankaj Mishra makes a similar observation regarding the sudden appearance of the idea of equality during the Enlightenment in his essay <u>Age of Anger</u>, while also noting that the philosophers of the period considered it as applying only to <i>men of means</i>, not to everyone. When the masses nonetheless came to embrace the idea and make it into a rallying cry, frustration and anger set in, according to Mishra, as it became clear that broad equality for all was unattainable, leading to centuries of recurring revolutions and revolts. My review of Mishra’s book linked to at right.)<p></p><p>Graeber and Wengrow argue that Enlightenment views on equality were heavily influenced by reports that came back from Jesuits and others in the early post-Columbian Americas based on their observations of Indigenous American societies as well as their conversations and debates with members of these communities. The pair demonstrate that Indigenous American cultures had a long history of creating a variety of complex political structures, leading eventually to the development of institutions that accorded a significant level of personal liberty. While these broad freedoms scandalized the Jesuits, they appealed to Enlightenment philosophers and, according to the authors, informed their work. That the possibility of such influence has generally been ignored or dismissed by later researchers they attribute to a widespread assumption of a lack of political sophistication among pre-historic and non-Western peoples, an “insist[ance] that indigenous people could not possible have any real impact on history … a way of infantilizing non-Westerners.” (31)</p><p></p><p>
Interest in the evolution of social equality, they argue, led Enlightenment philosophers to look back into human pre-history to understand if such equality had once existed, and if so, how it had been lost. In so doing, quite opposing views arose, though leading to a common conclusion. Thomas Hobbes, on one side, viewed “humans [as] being selfish creatures” and felt that “human society … is founded on the collective repression of our baser instincts” and so “hierarchy and domination, and cynical self-interest, have always been the basis of human society.” On the other extreme, Jean-Jacques Rousseau held that the earliest humans were “hunter-gatherers, living in a prolonged state of childlike innocence … [and] were egalitarian,” but he came to a similar social result of <i>hierarchy and domination</i>, arguing that “the ‘Agricultural Revolution’ and then still more the rise of cities, … usher[ed] in ‘civilization’ and ‘the state’.” Either way, Graeber and Wengrow note, we end up with “literature, science and philosophy, but at the same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing armies, mass executions and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we spend much of our lives filling in forms.” (2-3)
</p><p></p><p>
Out of these Enlightenment attempts to understand the origins of inequality came a view of human social evolution, the authors conclude, as having passed through </p><p></p><blockquote>discrete stages of political organization – successively: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states – and … that the stages of political development mapped, at least very roughly, on to similar stages of economic development: hunter-gatherers, gardeners, farmers, industrial civilization. (109-110). </blockquote><p></p><p>In such an understanding, the top-down, centralized power of our current political institutions – again, whether autocratic or republican – arose as an inevitable outcome of the complexity engendered by the agricultural revolution. And, out of this, the crippling assumption developed that society could not have been and cannot now be significantly differently constituted, that such a possibility violates a kind of physical law of nature of the evolution of complex social systems.</p><p></p><p>
Beyond informing what is possible for the future, however, Graeber and Wengrow demonstrate how academics and others continue to misinterpret the past through the lens of this complexity argument, discounting or ignoring findings that don’t fit. The tendency has been to consider members of hunter-gatherer societies globally as closer to apes than to modern humans, as bands and tribes that spent little time contemplating how to organize themselves, and that active, deep consideration of social and political organization only appeared with the rise of the Western tradition.
</p><p></p><p>
By looking back into the historical record without that assumption, Graeber and Wengrow ask: why wouldn’t humans in pre-historical and non-European indigenous cultures have “self-consciously” considered a variety of possibilities for organizing their societies, debated these options, and intentionally chosen particular social, political and economic frameworks?
</p><p></p><p>
Through an analysis of the political structures that developed in groups globally and their evolution over time in relation to their environment and the impact of their neighbors, Graeber and Wengrow make a convincing case that already among hunter-gatherers, humans developed complex societies that continually adapted to changes in conditions. They demonstrate that the political structures could differ radically from one place to another, and would continue to evolve even as communities became more complex, including those with sizes on the order of the city-states that famously developed with the advent of agriculture in Mesopotamia. </p><p></p><p>
The pair describe, for example, a number of pre-agricultural societies that had seasonal structures, with a tribe coming together to a common location during one part of the year and dispersing as smaller bands otherwise. The details varied from one group to another – coming together in winter and dispersing in summer, or vice versa; coming together to hunt and dispersing otherwise, or vice versa – but, critically, the organizational structure could vary dramatically between seasons. In some societies, a tribe could in one season have characteristics of a present-day nation-state with a strong, centralized leadership authority, while in the other living in a communal political structure.
</p><p></p><p>
Perhaps more striking are examples – again globally – of pre-agricultural societies in which people came together to build large, labor-intensive monuments and other structures, without the apparent presence of the coercive central authority or leadership typically assumed to be necessary for such work. (The pair discuss how, given the general lack of written records, such a lack of elites can be inferred from the anthropological and archeological work at such sites.)
</p><p></p><p>
For Graeber and Wengrow, this broad variety of findings invalidates the oversimplified view that people in pre-historic societies had little political sophistication and debunks the assumption that inextricably links the complexity of political structures to the complexity of economic development. And they argue that this new understanding makes invalid our assumption of the inevitability and unchangeability of the top-down administrative structures of our present-day world, making a convincing case that we really do still have a viable opportunity to change them.
</p><p></p><p>
Despite the persuasive preponderance of evidence the authors present for the sophistication of early peoples, the pair’s arguments for “self-conscious” decision-making among early, pre-historic societies – that these groups actively debated over and settled on how to structure their societies – can seem a bit overplayed.
</p><p></p><p>
For example, they note that experimentation has demonstrated that “crop domestication could be achieved in as little as twenty to thirty years, or at most 200 years, using simple harvesting techniques,” (232) and yet “the process of plant domestication in the Fertile Crescent was not fully completed until … as much as 3,000 years after the cultivation of wild cereals first began.” (233) Presenting this as evidence that the story is not as simple as <i>and then crops were domesticated</i>, the pair note indications that many peoples globally seemed ambivalent about the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture and proceeded through that transformation in fits and starts that were consciously considered.
</p><p></p><p>
But the argument for it having been “self-conscious” deliberation seems weak. One can acknowledge Graeber and Wengrow’s evidence that early peoples were not the naïve children of nature they are often portrayed to have been, that they were political actors in much the same way present-day peoples are, while at the same time not assuming that they were any more self-consciously engaged than we are today. Could it not be that these early peoples evolved their social structures over long periods of time, in incremental steps that were only loosely planned? Even today, any particular generation can have a few engaged political actors, while the majority simply accept whatever the existing system they are born into.
</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-brief-history-of-inequality.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1117" data-original-width="745" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1a03oVZm-Ve0Y2TJtqf702kWbA1Rx7yY5FvaQw6nLbAAiafEGYgGJon2tFvDG9zwabWqH4BB0CFix9x6D5ZmnaIIzY3Cymz0pDOx4NbtNpMk2gVliOBwUhWfbNnxw86rm9dDbe9Gb9AGWJkN0Nuwjgg6wfZANjdWjYG9gTaVzKJWF4gtMU6PsKtg2/w133-h200/ABriefHistoryOfEquality_Cover.jpg" width="66" /></a></div>
The authors in some ways themselves provide indications of this more prosaic, less intentional path to social evolution in the number of times they describe early societies that appear to have gone through radical political transformations as a result of violent overthrows of the existing order. This fundamental element of revolution bringing about change aligns with one of economist Thomas Piketty’s main arguments in <u>A Brief History of Equality</u>, that
“If a historical movement toward more social, economic, and political equality has been possible over the last two centuries, that is above all thanks to a series of revolts, revolutions, and political movements of great scope. The same will be true in the future.” (226, Piketty) Perhaps, too, it was also true back into our pre-history. (My review of Piketty’s book linked to at right.)<p></p><p>That said, Graeber and Wengrow’s main point stands: their more careful and nuanced review of historical findings in anthropology and archaeology “suggest[s] that … the possibilities for human intervention [to change the social, economic and political structures of our civilization] are far greater than we’re inclined to think.” (524) It may be that their implication that it can be through self-conscious engagement in debate leading to reform, and may not necessarily require a revolution, is wishful thinking – that Piketty is right. But the critical point made in both of these thought-provoking works is that we should not feel “trapped in such tight conceptual shackles that we can no longer even imagine the possibility of reinventing ourselves.”</p><p></p><p>
The way forward from the challenges of today may not be obvious; but do not give in to the arguments of those who benefit from the status quo – and the many, many who carry their water – that no alternative structures can be developed and transitioned to for governing ourselves.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-59261736571896405432023-01-02T09:47:00.001-05:002023-01-02T09:47:10.280-05:00Lamentation 6: nothing could come to youSomeone we have known who has passed away often remains startlingly present for us. We may, for example, suddenly be reminded of them by a smell or a view, or by an activity we had shared with them, such as eating – or preparing – a particular dish. Or, in moments of accomplishment or success or transcendence, we may feel the urge to share our thoughts and feelings with them, only to be overcome (yet again) by the realization that it is no longer possible.
<p></p><p>
More profoundly poignant, however, is a circumstance that the brilliant Spanish author Javier Marías describes in his story <u>Dark Back of Time</u>: “It's frightening to think of hours – soon distant and forgotten, yet so slow and negligible while they're going by – during which our friends and relatives think we're alive when in fact we are dead...” (179) He captures this from the point-of-view of the person who has died, but consider the implications for those of us among the <i>friends and relatives</i>. We go about our lives assuming that those we know are out there, going about theirs, and we may even have them in our thoughts or plans or actions, only to discover later that at that moment they were no longer among the living.
</p><p></p><p>
It can happen in so many ways: I have sent a letter to a friend that came back marked ‘deceased’; Christmas greetings from my family and from me arrived for my grandmother just days after she had passed away; you are awakened from a deep sleep, on a night seemingly like every other, to a call that your mother has died; the truly heart-rending thought of parents planning after-school activities with their children who they don’t yet know won’t be coming home…
</p><p></p><p>
In <i>Three Poems for James Wright</i>, the marvelous poet Mary Oliver captures the utter finality of such moments, while also reminding us of the accompanying beauty of the larger, ineluctable cycle of nature, carrying on without us in its own eternal rhythm. </p><p></p><blockquote>it was the time
<br />the willows do what they do
<br />every spring, so I cut some
<br />down by a dark Ohio creek and was ready
<br />to mail them to you when the news came
<br />that nothing
<br />could come to you
<br />in time
<br />anymore
<br />ever. (225)</blockquote><p> </p><p></p><hr size="1" width="50%" /><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/11/book-review-new-and-selected-poems.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="689" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii99E8Gn4DtDzYepW8MlCVp-ELJI2qmCs4cVVOjpfUwdPNouIIrg454G-YEM6utJP9zTgh3bOWSZb4m-qvxaWLejk4y0UP5oqmHAPR5xbYUn9RrIj8X2JjQYy8brUV9UJXloksFcJdg0g50uKzPITD0vAwnVb8zACCTI4CabiH5fh5qbOovKKVL351/w134-h200/NewAndCollectedPoemsVol1_MaryOliver_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div>
I have taken the selection above from Mary Oliver’s collection <u> New and Selected Poems, Volume 1</u>, my review of which is linked to at right.<p></p><p>Other quotes from Javier Marías’s <u>Dark Back of Time</u> can be found <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html#Author%20Javier%20Marias" target="_blank">here</a>; I read the book before I began doing these reviews, but I can highly recommend it. My reviews of others of Marias's works can be found <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p></p><p>
Another entry in an occasional series of posts of lamentation. (The introduction to this series can be found <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2017/06/lamentation-hammer-sky.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and links to the complete series <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/click-on-book-cover-below-to-read.html#Lamentations" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-9375177879701499422022-12-30T09:53:00.001-05:002022-12-30T09:53:35.124-05:00Book Review: "The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende" by Nathaniel Davis<h3><u>The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende</u> (1985)
<br />Nathaniel Davis (1925-2011)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">480 pages</span></h3>
In September 1973, the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, died during a military coup. He and his government were replaced by a ruling junta led by General Augusto Pinochet.
<p></p><p>
Beyond these indisputable facts, however, the history of the coup quickly became mired in controversy, as already in its immediate aftermath conflicting claims and accusations dominated the discussion. The clandestine planning and often-chaotic execution of coup attempts can complicate getting to the truth in such situations, of course. But, in addition, the publicly visible animosity of the United States to Allende and his policies – among conservative politicians, and corporate executives with economic interests in Chile – bred a myriad of suspicions about US involvement.
</p><p></p><p>
With Cold War tensions running high and the US government having repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to aggressively contest the spread of communism, it is perhaps not surprising that a belief arose that the United States played a direct and material role in the overthrow of Allende’s government. The questions raised were in fact sufficient to trigger a US Congressional investigation. Although that inquiry found no conclusive evidence of US involvement, the idea that US agencies in some way actively conspired to bring about the coup nonetheless became the dominant narrative of events in Chile, not just on the left, but also in the political center, both within the US and globally.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbmXIZbYNYaIHimQuDiYPktlYYc0PfaeCFwUuOCOFGvun0eouddTIIz8SwY1S34BRS18rqQB4rF1gE03u5NMdSbv1DE5FsrlFUGxn8jvj69Z2nqvKX1xIgggcL6kRqtqtnJrveQ7YXcvFyZZwj8LPvGJCG0HJB4zSm_7ke-wLcrJKuaWvN3NtRniZ/s475/TheLastTwoYearsOfSalvadorAllende_Rev2_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="322" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvbmXIZbYNYaIHimQuDiYPktlYYc0PfaeCFwUuOCOFGvun0eouddTIIz8SwY1S34BRS18rqQB4rF1gE03u5NMdSbv1DE5FsrlFUGxn8jvj69Z2nqvKX1xIgggcL6kRqtqtnJrveQ7YXcvFyZZwj8LPvGJCG0HJB4zSm_7ke-wLcrJKuaWvN3NtRniZ/w136-h200/TheLastTwoYearsOfSalvadorAllende_Rev2_Cover.jpg" width="136" /></a></div><p>Nathaniel Davis, the US ambassador to Chile during the last two years of Allende’s government, begs to differ with that deeply entrenched understanding of the Chilean coup, however. In his book <u>The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende</u>, Davis claims that the US government actually avoided giving any implication of support to groups potentially working to overthrow the Chilean government, and that the coup in fact erupted largely out of the social, political, and economic conditions particular to Chile at that time.</p><p></p><p>
Davis began his ambassadorship in Chile roughly a year after the September 1970 elections that lifted Allende to power, and he presents his case based on his vantage point at the heart of events, as well as his later discussions with relevant colleagues within the US government. In the opening chapter Davis summarizes the first year of Allende’s presidency, before then beginning his recounting in earnest with his own arrival on the scene, which, he argues, coincided with a moment when “the Allende government reached a turning point … both in the political and the economic sense.” (xiii) The bulk of the book, then, covers the two years from Davis’s arrival to the moment of the coup and its immediate aftermath.
</p><p></p><p>
Davis tells the story roughly chronologically, with chapters developed around critical moments in the mounting turmoil. In the final part of the book, he explores in detail controversial aspects of the conventional narrative of events in Chile during this period, including what role the US government played, and whether Allende was murdered or committed suicide on the day of the coup.
</p><p></p><p>
Broadly, Davis argues that US engagement during the Allende presidency was focused mainly on maintaining “institutional democracy in Chile” (398), by providing support for opposition political parties and organizations on the center and right, so they could continue to act as viable counterweights to Allende and those on the Chilean left who aggressively sought to curtail their activities. He claims that during his period as ambassador he was meticulous about the US delegation in Chile not providing even the appearance of support for the idea of overthrowing the Allende government. He further states that he has found no indication of any support being given to the coup organizers from other elements of the US government, based on the results of the investigations that occurred in the US Congress after the coup and on his discussions with key figures in the State Department, the CIA and others within the US government, as well as within the ruling junta in Chile.
</p><p></p><p>
Davis contends that the coup in fact needed no impetus from the US, that it grew organically out of the increasing political and economic chaos that gripped Chile as the Allende government and associated leftist groups pursued a shift toward a socialist state. The Chilean government’s actions led to opposition from not only right-wing nationalists, but increasingly those in the middle class and political center, with the country disrupted by repeated strikes that spread from truck drivers to a wide variety of other commercial organizations and even professionals. Ultimately, Davis concludes that Allende’s vacillation during this period – wanting to achieve the transition to socialism without violence but unable or unwilling to “impose discipline on his own coalition” (405) as they engaged in ever more militant actions – fatally undermined his presidency.
</p><p></p><p>
Building on both his firsthand knowledge and his conversations with high-ranking sources, Davis develops a careful and thorough history of the final two years of Allende’s government, making a convincing case that US involvement, if not completely innocent, did not materially support the coup, and further that Allende died by suicide. Nonetheless, he faces a difficult dilemma throughout the text, one highlighted by a comment he makes at one point, referring specifically to the previous few pages of the book but that could be applied to the book as a whole: “The preceding pages may have the flavor of personal apologia.” (330) He recognizes that many, if not most, readers will come to his book with the deeply held conviction that the US was in some way involved in the instigation and prosecution of the coup, and that this belief means that every claim of innocence and non-involvement that Davis makes for himself, and for the US government more generally, will be met with, if not outright skepticism, then at least the shadow of doubt.
</p><p></p><p>
And it’s easy to understand why. Unless a reader is inalterably convinced about what happened in Chile in the early 1970s (US-led coup or not), it can be difficult to read Davis’s account without feeling oneself caught in a kind of hall of mirrors: his narrative and conclusions seem logical and persuasive, but at every step one wonders if one is being misled by misdirection, or careful selection of the facts. Davis himself acknowledges this dilemma at one point with a trenchant quote (that applies all too well to present-day conspiracy theorists in the US as well):</p><p></p><blockquote><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/08/opinion/foreign-affairs-alas-for-plausibility.html" target="_blank">As Flora Lewis of the <u>New York Times</u> has commented</a>, “everything that comes out [about US government actions] makes skepticism look nearer the mark on public affairs these days than credence, though there is also the danger of what David Reisman wisely calls ‘the gullibility of the cynical.’ (307)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />It could in fact be argued that Davis somewhat undermines his own case, in that sense, with his pointed decision to focus tightly on the two-year period he spent as US ambassador in Chile. Although he presents convincing arguments about the limited US involvement in Chile during that time, by limiting himself to just the short period of his involvement – even if that was admittedly the critical moment – he tends to imply a rather benign picture of US global engagement more broadly. And much as one can argue that the US has been a force for good in the world, as Flora Lewis noted in her article linked to above, and as can be understood from a variety of other sources, the US government has often enough in its history aggressively intervened in countries to get its way, including directly resorting to armed intervention. Such engagements occurred repeatedly in the twentieth century in the Western Hemisphere alone, including in Chile in support of Pinochet in the years after Davis had left for other shores.
</p><p></p><p>
Such activities in fact impacted Davis himself, just two years after he left Chile: he reports having been eased into a low visibility role in the State Department – transferred to a post in Switzerland – after “Secretary [Henry] Kissinger and I had come to disagree profoundly on covert US intervention in Angola.” (387) One can take this as supporting Davis’s credibility, while still leaving room to wonder what he might not have been in the loop about what was happening in Chile.
</p><p></p><p>
Toward the end of his book, Davis highlights an important, more global, consequence of the dominant narrative implicating the US in the coup: it obscured the lessons of the coup for those on the left. Belief that the US aggressively tipped the scales in Chile led communists and socialists elsewhere to ignore the critical economic, social and political problems that Davis argues profoundly undermined Allende’s government and goals. Rather than coming to grips with the true causes of Allende’s failure in Chile, he argues, the belief in US involvement meant that </p><p></p><blockquote>communist advocacy of the Chilean Way and the peaceful road to socialism has effectively been replaced by the historically more orthodox Marxist-Leninist view that the dictatorship of the proletariat must normally be achieved through armed struggle and violent revolution. (393)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /> By contrast, his account makes evident that Allende and the left in Chile lost the political center and with it any hope of success. It becomes clear that charting and executing a path to any significantly different political, social and especially economic future requires some level of majority support, as least passively, if one wishes to avoid a path of revolutionary violence, as Davis argues Allende did.
</p><p></p><p>
Although published in 1985, and exploring a period from just over a decade earlier, Davis’s essay provides startling commentary on the events of the last several years in the United States. With prophetic concern, Davis notes that </p><p></p><blockquote>It has been a long time since North America has been subjected to such a rending of the social fabric as Chile experienced before and after 11 September 1973. I hope Americans would react differently, but I am not sure they would. (369) </blockquote><p></p><p>Certainly, although our current moment in the US has little of the profound disruption that occurred in Chile over the period covered by Davis’s book, the “rending of the social fabric” that has been experienced here over the past decade or so would seem to confirm Davis’s doubts. His expectations for how citizens should instead react serves as a powerful reminder of what is lacking now:</p><p></p><blockquote>The Declaration of Independence speaks of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Americans do care that divergent points of view should get a decent hearing. We must feel ashamed when rancor silences discourse. We must be concerned that public servants not be pilloried…. As the old saying has it, we must get about the task of raising our voices a little lower. (397) </blockquote><p></p><p>One could, admittedly, argue that for every public servant unfairly pilloried, others have been all too willing to lead the charge of their constituents into a divisive partisan environment in which rancor silences nuanced discourse.
</p><p></p><p>
In <u>The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende</u> , Davis comes across as an ambassador of the old mold, a career diplomat with a deep understanding and respect for his position and work. For those familiar with only the claims that the CIA played an active role in overthrowing Allende, his book paints a clear and comprehensive picture of a country spiraling into chaos, needing no outside help to be tipped over the edge into a violent coup. Far from vilifying Allende, however, he acknowledges his respect for the former president of Chile, highlighting his virtues as well as his failures. His balanced presentation paints a believable counterpoint to the narrative of US overreach in Chile, however often such overreach may have taken place elsewhere.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-58004666670827300662022-12-09T18:45:00.006-05:002023-05-13T21:22:54.389-04:00Book Review: "Dune" by Frank Herbert<h3><u>Dune</u> (1965)
<br />Frank Herbert (1920-1986)
<br /><span style="font-size: small;">694 pages</span></h3>
I’ve enjoyed science fiction for about as long as I can remember. On my bookshelves I still have stories I ordered from Scholastic Books in elementary school, such as <u>Trapped in Space</u> and <u>The Runaway Robot</u>. Back then I knew by heart all the times that <u>Star Trek</u> reruns would be shown on our local channel 50, and I eventually read the complete series of written adaptations of the show by James Blish.
<p></p><p>
Over time I discovered Isaac Asimov, devouring all his novels and short story collections (and quite a few of his nonfiction releases as well), and, from there, Bradbury and Clarke and so many, many others. A look at my <a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html" target="_blank">virtual bookshelf of fiction reviews</a> for this blog makes clear that my interest in sci-fi continues unabated.
</p><p></p><p>
On the other hand, fantasy has never attracted me. Although the line between science fiction and fantasy can be thin, and I suppose one could argue that the <i>magic</i> of warp drives and other far-out technology is not so very different from that of dragons and wizards, the latter never appealed to me. To be clear, I don’t consider one genre better or worse than the other; it’s just that my personal preference has leaned toward science fiction.
</p><p></p><p>
I recall having ordered from Scholastic Books one of <u>The Lord of the Rings</u> trilogy and not getting more than a few dozen pages into it before I set it aside. Admittedly, it was <u>The Twin Towers</u> and I only realized years later that I’d started with the second book in the series, which can’t have helped. But that early reading experience soured me on fantasy, or at least confirmed whatever opinion I may have already had. (I will admit that, years later, I very much enjoyed the epic sweep of the Peter Jackson films.)
</p><p></p><p>
All of which leads to why, despite having read so much science fiction over the years, I’ve never read <u>Dune</u>. Somehow, at some point, I got it into my head that it was fantasy, and that was that.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBGp8ldOcx5vFtiRrI3e1cZKs1VmjtM2B2byBFyopiBbLFNTfWNrycnCVAOvmHoI9a0uBODjCq8DFEHfVEtsHc56PAUb4Bs3qJXDiEIREdQ7qAVI-1heGbX_kxkpuZeSgsdjSLiotMP9Czk7lDqS-9R911GBtW1tSe5Y7yIdLnlVtgYgOx3yl2vqU/s848/Dune_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="570" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdBGp8ldOcx5vFtiRrI3e1cZKs1VmjtM2B2byBFyopiBbLFNTfWNrycnCVAOvmHoI9a0uBODjCq8DFEHfVEtsHc56PAUb4Bs3qJXDiEIREdQ7qAVI-1heGbX_kxkpuZeSgsdjSLiotMP9Czk7lDqS-9R911GBtW1tSe5Y7yIdLnlVtgYgOx3yl2vqU/w134-h200/Dune_Cover.jpg" width="134" /></a></div><p>Then, over the last decade or so, a friend and fellow sci-fi aficionado (hey John!) found out I hadn’t read it and was amazed: “How can you like science fiction so much, but have never read <u>Dune</u>?” His recommendation made me rethink my position, but I still didn’t quite get around to reading it – until now. The final impetus came from seeing the new movie version over this past summer and loving it. Looking into it, I discovered that the movie had only covered the first half or so of the book, and I decided I wanted to read the whole thing before the sequel is released.</p><p></p><p>
For those who come to this post without having read the book or seen the movie, <u>Dune</u> is set in our far distant future, when humans have spread widely throughout space to colonize many planets. It opens on one such world, Caladan, ruled by Leto Atreides, the reigning Duke of the House Atreides. We soon learn that the Emperor of the Imperium of planets has asked the Duke to shift the seat of his kingdom from Caladan to Arrakis, a planet known as Dune because of its vast desert.
</p><p></p><p>
Dune, despite its forbidding appearance, is the most important planet in the Imperium, being the sole source of a substance known as <i>melange</i>, colloquially referred to as <i>spice</i>. Spice slows aging and, more importantly, has psychological effects that allow navigators to operate spaceships successfully at faster than light speeds, an ability fundamental to the management of the Imperium. For that reason, the House that rules Dune has the opportunity to become fabulously wealthy. With control of the planet coveted by many of the Houses of the Imperium, the Duke recognizes the implicit danger in receiving the Emperor’s grant of title for the planet. He knows that the previous rulers in particular – an aggressive and relentlessly savage House known as the Harkonnen – will stop at nothing to regain their lost possession and control of the wealth it generates. Nonetheless, the Duke also realizes that he cannot risk rejecting the Emperor’s offer without losing face.
</p><p></p><p>
The setting soon shifts to Dune, where the Duke begins resettling the House Arrakis. He is accompanied by his “formal concubine,” Jessica, who is a part of the <i>Bene Gesserit</i>, a “school of mental and physical training” for select women that enables its graduates to exercise significant control over themselves and others through what can roughly be described as a profound understanding of meditation and psychologically. The pair have a son, Paul, the central character of the story, who Jessica has secretly – against the explicit rules of her order – been training in the ways of the Bene Gesserit.
</p><p></p><p>
The native inhabitants of Dune, the Fremen, are at first skeptical of their new rulers the Atreides, though happy to be rid of the draconian Harkonnen. When the Harkonnen and their allies then attack the Duke’s forces in a violent bid to retake Dune, Paul and his mother escape deep into the vast desert that surrounds the planet’s habitable zone, and they and the Fremen must decide whether to make common cause against a powerful, vicious and relentless enemy.
</p><p></p><p>
Herbert develops his story around the eternal themes of byzantine political intrigue and cutthroat competition for power and wealth. Though many technical marvels exist in the distant future he imagines, they support the story rather than dominate it. Instead, it is advanced mental and physical training that plays a pivotal role in the story. The members of the Bene Gesserit form a powerful sect-like group, and starkly differentiate between those who have some level of such powers and are considered <i>human</i>, and the vast majority in the Imperium who they consider, effectively, as little better than animals; and, though the Bene Gesserit play a highly visible role throughout the Imperium, their goals remain shrouded in mystery to outsiders. Ultimately, their powers and mystique come to play a decisive role as Paul and his mother attempt to win over the Fremen.
</p><p></p><p>
Certainly, with the Bene Gesserit, Herbert introduces mysticism and some level of psychic-like powers into <u>Dune</u>. But, the story never tails over into fantasy, at least for my taste. Instead, it is a thrilling tale of political maneuvering and infighting, of the desire for vengeance and the risks that it can unleash. I found myself in the position that perhaps best indicates a great read: I wanted to rush ahead ever quicker to see what would happen next but kept trying to slow myself down so that my immersion in the world Herbert has created would last just that much longer.
</p><p></p><p>
And, I’m now definitely looking forward to reading the sequel, <u>Dune: Messiah</u>, soon.
<br />
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br /><br /><div>
The actual final trigger for reading <u>Dune</u> when I did was that I came across a gorgeous edition that’s been released as part of the <i><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/PGX/penguin-galaxy" target="_blank">Penguin Galaxy</a></i> series, along with five other “greatest masterworks of science fiction and fantasy.” That you can’t judge a book by its cover may well be true, but I’m an incorrigible sucker for a beautiful edition of a book I plan to read anyway. <div><br /></div><div> The novel comes with a variety of appendices. Some of them are directly useful in reading the story, such as in particular the <i>Terminology of the Imperium</i>, a glossary of words particular to the world Herbert has created. Others provide background information on the planet Dune, the Bene Gesserit and other topics; I chose not to read those until after I’d finished the story, to keep the experience as ‘fresh’ as possible (given that I’ve already seen the new movie version). The additional bits of information are vaguely interesting, but when you read them, as I did, desperately hoping to stay immersed in the story I’d just finished, they weren’t particularly satisfying…</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-review-dune-messiah-by-frank.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="644" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcQWWRWVPfNtoZSMzAW1IWzBZQ7DXakkYr3GayUdcRGA6GsQRwKTbfCxuOCUQT1IuDrfJGoCsegYQvEBCQ-UiBKpMrmZztEbouveELFk3ZXBEKzzL2up9GUKBbQWoix4lWB38hRpJoRHB7CWkGrlgvujzGlYrY4ucDZqWSqndThSKcQgm_9KIR0eQ/w112-h200/DuneMessiah_Cover.jpg" width="56" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My review of the sequel, <u>Dune Messiah</u>, now posted, and linked to at right.</div><br /><div><br /></div><div>
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div></div>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-79722116877662017812022-11-12T14:45:00.001-05:002022-11-12T14:45:16.778-05:00Book Review: "New and Selected Poems: Volume One" by Mary Oliver<h3><u>New and Collected Poems, Volume One</u> (1992)
<br />Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
<br />255 pages</h3>
My first introduction to the amazing poetry of Mary Oliver was through her interview on Krista Tippett’s wonderful program, <i><a href="https://onbeing.org/" target="_blank">On Being</a></i> (which I listen to as a podcast – don’t miss the unedited versions!). Along with the interview, Tippett’s feed includes posts of Oliver reading several of her poems. Listening to these various sessions reveal Oliver to have developed a profound connection to the natural world and, from that, insight into how such a connection can inform – as Tippett so often discusses with her guests – what it means to be human.
<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVa9myJ8K1NFZPc6NIwQOUL_al3pY4FTgksUhj81MvXLCmXTAWXI2CyJcuf0NaC1ll1f43-_-P6LCWl1NZd3f-YDXzFXUp0mSSN46vDJsZ1yelZAP147aFAEApgCcdvG2LMp97CYj57yD5Yq4m-1kRXYfp897sjPux2IgVvxx_n9ef_yko9s5r_5GZ/s1032/NewAndCollectedPoemsVol1_MaryOliver_Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="689" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVa9myJ8K1NFZPc6NIwQOUL_al3pY4FTgksUhj81MvXLCmXTAWXI2CyJcuf0NaC1ll1f43-_-P6LCWl1NZd3f-YDXzFXUp0mSSN46vDJsZ1yelZAP147aFAEApgCcdvG2LMp97CYj57yD5Yq4m-1kRXYfp897sjPux2IgVvxx_n9ef_yko9s5r_5GZ/w134-h200/NewAndCollectedPoemsVol1_MaryOliver_Cover.jpg" width="134" /></a></div>
In the interview, Oliver describes spending hours upon hours wandering through the countryside to immerse herself in nature, with paper and pencil in hand to capture the revelations and reflections she has along the way. Her readings of her poetry left me eager for more, and I decided to begin with her collection <u>New and Selected Poems: Volume One</u>.
<p></p><p>Published in 1992, the book has a selection from the first three decades of Oliver’s work, plus another thirty poems that had not yet been published. Interestingly, the poems are grouped in reverse chronological order, so that reading them sequentially from the beginning has the effect of peeling back on Oliver’s evolving understanding of our place in the world.</p><p></p><p>
She seems to capture the core of her experience in a brief stanza of <i>The Moth</i>: </p><p></p><blockquote>If you notice anything,
<br />it leads you to notice
<br />more
<br />and more. (132) </blockquote><p></p><p>Open our eyes and our consciousness to our surroundings, she suggests, and we’ll suddenly become aware of the vast richness of the world before us.
<br /><br /></p><p></p><p>
The image of Oliver carrying pencil and paper on her walks into nature to capture moments in notes that later become poems powerfully colors the reading of many of the pieces in this collection. We find Oliver writing not about nature, but rather about her observations and experience living within it – its rituals and its pace – as in <i>One or Two Things</i> </p><p></p><blockquote>The butterfly’s loping flight
<br />carries it through the country of the leaves
<br />delicately, and well enough to get it
<br />where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
<br />here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
<br />of flowers and black mud; up
<br />and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes
<br />
<br />for long delicious moments it is perfectly
<br />lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
<br />of some ordinary flower. (120)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />Many of her poems point to the need to slow down and appreciate all that nature offers, both in terms of marvels as well as an understanding about living. As she herself found in her own early life, people often struggle to look past daily concerns, to differentiate what is needed from what is desired, and so pass by nature largely unawares. In that vein, she asks us in <i>The Sun</i>: </p><p></p><blockquote>do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
<br />a word billowing enough
<br />for the pleasure
<br />
<br />that fills you,
<br />as the sun
<br />reaches out,
<br />as it warms you
<br />
<br />as you stand there,
<br />empty-handed –
<br />or have you too
<br />turned from this world –
<br />
<br />or have you too
<br />gone crazy
<br />for power,
<br />for things? (51)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2019/08/book-review-pilgrim-by-david-whyte.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="477" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicQmkIunjUwM9_UOitYBrlmi1GUIsBW4wgaWoij_s0D20zAVED1Hs_Fi8i8tBub_z5fEmrfUQ0zdNO7QBXFFCxj28L58PVx9Zjqghs1zc64JIe56GoMFQzPBbK9FefpKDoF96H7ZFCx_g_inkMbJuymuINQJbRXtRq1o2p-VmzenH1TdaDHN4UaTI4/w131-h200/Pilgrim_Cover.jpg" width="65" /></a></div>Instead of giving in, then, to the often-damaging distraction of such human striving, she calls for a more contemplative embrace of nature, one that can guide us on what the poet David Whyte has referred to as our pilgrimage through life. Writing of her own longing for such a deep openness to the world, Oliver imagines in <i>Entering the Kingdom</i>: <p></p><p></p><blockquote>The dream of my life
<br />Is to lie down by a slow river
<br />And stare at the light in the trees –
<br />To learn something by being nothing
<br />A little while but the rich
<br />Lens of attention. (190)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />This kind of clear seeing of nature, she finds, can teach us how to take the critical step toward equanimity. Instead of anthropomorphizing animals – projecting our human striving and planning and regrets onto them – we can discover them as they are, learn how they simply live life as it comes to them. Thus, in <i>The Turtle</i>, she writes of watching a mother laying eggs in some mudflats: </p><p></p><blockquote>and then you realize a greater thing –
<br />she doesn’t consider
<br />what she was born to do.
<br />She’s only filled
<br />with an old blind wish. (123)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />What Oliver discovers in nature reflects an ancient contemplative tradition, the idea that we, as humans, can quiet our minds by recognizing ourselves as at base a consciousness experiencing the world – not directing our life, but receiving it. Her view touches close up upon the recognition of the illusory nature of human free will, a view she seems to not only embrace but long for in <i>Roses, Late Summer</i>: </p><p></p><blockquote>If I had another life
<br />I would want to spend it all on some
<br />unstinting happiness.
<br />
<br />I would be a fox, or a tree
<br />full of waving branches.
<br />I wouldn’t mind being a rose
<br />in a field full of roses.
<br />
<br />Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
<br />Reason they have not yet thought of.
<br />Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
<br />Or any other foolish question. (96)
</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p><br />In her collection <u>New and Selected Poems: Volume One</u>, Mary Oliver creates exquisite portraits of the natural world. More importantly, however, she shares through her poetry an invitation to seek out nature, to pass through it slowly, deliberately, and perhaps find a path away from the hectic lives to which we too often feel chained. Heed her call to wander out into whatever natural space you can find, with a mind open to the wonders that await, and you may begin to discover for yourself what it means to be human.
<br /><br /></p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7366561764647841095.post-91495228597633425272022-11-05T16:25:00.001-04:002022-11-05T16:26:26.949-04:00Book Review: "Allow Me to Retort" by Elie Mystal<h3><u>Allow Me to Retort</u> (2022)
<br />Elie Mystal (1978)<br /><span style="font-size: small;">270 pages</span></h3><blockquote>Conservatives are always worried that protecting too many rights might one day lead to a society that’s fundamentally fair. (170)
</blockquote><p></p><p>
This pointed remark succinctly captures both the theme and the tone of Elie Mystal’s <u>Allow Me to Retort</u>. Subtitled <i>A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution</i>, the book consists of an interconnected series of essays through which Mystal explores many of the divisive social and political topics of our day – from cancel culture to gun control and abortion, police brutality to equitable juries and voting rights – in the context of the relevant portions of the US Constitution and its Amendments. Convincingly detailing how conservative groups have artfully manipulated the content and interpretation of the law to systematically block or reverse progress toward a fairer society and so preserve their hold on wealth and power, Mystal’s prose makes evident his anger and frustration at the resulting impact on the many who have been disenfranchised.
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrpDvap_Q1x1dWLXrnZx6MmPpmHDPYrUvxHxGvvBJryEdYeJgr6oHZNCYa-2rb6OR7MqGayesSTzMGlxU3H5gIroNtN3oYbSFSiU8X7tIIgp49bK3wNmSQDErH2HZVDHbQa-dhUf0N0u8I7i-Rv9jNBa3zwDfpW1kfAS90YY_jXp_kjdu9l_jUkod/s868/AllowMeToRetort_Cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="868" data-original-width="556" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrpDvap_Q1x1dWLXrnZx6MmPpmHDPYrUvxHxGvvBJryEdYeJgr6oHZNCYa-2rb6OR7MqGayesSTzMGlxU3H5gIroNtN3oYbSFSiU8X7tIIgp49bK3wNmSQDErH2HZVDHbQa-dhUf0N0u8I7i-Rv9jNBa3zwDfpW1kfAS90YY_jXp_kjdu9l_jUkod/w128-h200/AllowMeToRetort_Cover.jpg" width="128" /></a></div><p></p><p>Mystal argues that the Constitution in fact originated as a deeply flawed document, with the explicit definition of a slave as counting three-fifths of a person only the most blatantly obvious piece of evidence for that. At the Constitutional Convention, the white, male property owners who drafted the document enshrined into it an Enlightenment view of the ideal society that definitively differentiated the U.S. system of government from that of European aristocracies, while also carefully establishing and reinforcing their own power.</p><p></p><p>
As Pankaj Mishra argues in his book <u>Age of Anger</u> (my review linked to at right), for Enlightenment philosophers:</p><p></p><blockquote>Liberty primarily meant freedom for social mobility for the man of talent [and] means. … Hierarchy would still mark the new society [they proposed]: the mass of the people would remain necessarily subordinate to the authentically enlightened at the top. (59, Age of Anger) </blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/2022/08/book-review-age-of-anger-history-of.html" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="728" data-original-width="486" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK05ApJNorC3o3L_vUHxktgAjpOZctvpXMO4i-vm67luUU5JKrJPz0uF_XbnlkZLN2v3ESSrd2Gy0KgBH5tudu1BoC8IdNNLrx3UJ3tfLiDxenlqe2c18cksAW7Kq3dpa1JmGadVnu5QbLvzbc9_i7auDCjY9WdOwpIbDWq7jnAgHw7WmPW8WY5Lz9/w134-h200/AgeOfAnger_Cover.jpg" width="67" /></a></div><p>In that context, those who drafted the original Constitution and Bill of Rights created a system of government that would not threaten the status and power of <i>the men of talent and means</i> such as themselves. Mystal, with characteristic directness, summarizes the motivation for the Enlightenment society the founders created as: “rich people never have a problem with monarchy; they have a problem with <i>hereditary</i> monarchy.” (203)</p><p></p><p>
Despite the Constitution’s questionable beginning, Mystal acknowledges that several subsequent Amendments made it better, as the general population gradually rose up to claim the rights they saw the elite enjoying. In particular, he points to the Thirteenth (abolishing slavery), Fourteenth (equal protection for all), Fifteenth (universal male suffrage), and Nineteenth (female suffrage), as</p><p></p><blockquote>recast[ing] the entire document, destroying the slave state that the founders wrote into existence and replacing it with something new, something heterogenous, and something still flawed yet not utterly unredeemable. (128) </blockquote><p></p><p>But, he goes on to note, “the entire conservative legal project, since ratification of those amendments during Reconstruction to the present-day, has been to limit the scope and effectiveness of this “new” Constitution.” (129)
</p><p></p><p>
Mystal’s analysis of and reaction to this <i>conservative legal project</i>, as well as the origins and focus of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights in the maintenance of slavery and the power of an elite few, forms the central thread running through the book.
</p><p></p><p>
Thus, for example, he describes the Second Amendment as arising out of the desire of Southern leaders at the Constitutional Convention “to guard against slave revolts.” They worried, he writes,
“that the federal government, dominated by Northerners, would choose to not help the South should their population of oppressed humans demand freedom [and] that the new Constitution put the power of raising militias with the federal government and not with the individual states.” (37)
With this historical understanding, the scope of their demand for the inclusion of the Second Amendment becomes clear, as does the wording of its opening clause, <i>a well regulated Militia</i>. And yet, he notes, in recent decades conservatives have invented and successfully promulgated a personal self-defense intent to the Second Amendment, an interpretation that didn’t exist before the 1970’s, but that has now become fully internalized among conservatives, including politicians and judges.
</p><p></p><p>
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Mystal brings a persuasive depth of legal theory and history to his analysis of the origins of the Constitution and Amendments, the present-day battles over their interpretation, and the implications for US society, while managing to keep his account readable. He brings in specific legal terms where necessary to explain how the courts operate, but clearly explains their meaning and significance.
</p><p></p><p>
His historical and legal understanding is applied to most devastating effect in his dismantling of the claims of constitutional originalists, whatever legal point they are trying to make. At its most clarifying, he points out the nonsense of even considering giving absolute priority to what the original intent was of a group of slaveholders who could write a constitution in which white-male property owners were give the exclusive right to participate in their own governance. For originalists, it’s as though society is not allowed to grow and learn, in terms of ethical and moral standards, beyond the situation when the Constitution and its Amendments were put in place.
</p><p></p><p>
All of this analysis Mystal delivers with a healthy dose of something between snark and vitriol. Though he acknowledges the complexity of finding a neat solution to some issues, and often finds those on the left too timid, he makes clear that liberals at least strive for increased fairness, while conservatives fight tooth and nail to hold back such progress.
</p><p></p><p>
Mystal’s fundamental philosophy about conservatives, and the direct language (in this particular case without obscenities) with which he delivers it, is evident in the following paragraph from his discussion of a critical turning point toward a more fair, multicultural society: </p><p></p><blockquote>The Reconstruction and Nineteenth Amendments say that white men have to share that political and economic power with everybody else. And not merely as a theoretical proposition either; those amendments demand that power is actually shared among our multicultural society, or else the government ceases to be legitimate.</blockquote><blockquote>Of course, conservative white men object to that. They don’t like <i>sharing</i>. I mean, have you met a conservative white man? They’re still flummoxed by the concept of letting a woman finish her sentence. You think sharing the wealth and power of a global hegemony is something they’d just roll over and accept? The only time conservative white men have agreed to share power is when other white men make them do it at the point of a gun. And whenever those more enlightened whites lose the will and the nerve to keep stuffing equality and fairness down the throats of their objecting brothers and cousins, conservative forces retrench, recalibrate, and reemerge with new strategies to violently reassert white male dominance, and new legal theories to justify their supremacy. (129-130) </blockquote><p></p><p>No equivocation, then, in his view of where the threat lies in the struggle for justice.
</p><p></p><p>
Presenting his arguments with such conviction and certainty can run the risk of undermining them. One example where it does, perhaps, is in his chapter on cancel culture, with which he, interestingly, chose to open the book. He categorically dismisses the conservative argument that cancel culture exists on the left, basically arguing that those impacted are “losing acting gigs or magazine columns because of their knuckle-dragging views,” (11) and that “the real cancel culture is the one practiced by conservatives.” (17) One can agree with the latter as the greater threat, given its impact on social and political progress, while still finding the extreme left too often going overboard in its cancellation of figures who seem to have had a slip of the tongue or been in some way misunderstood.
</p><p></p><p>
For most if not all of the rest of the essays, however, Mystal remains on firmer ground in terms of the historical and legal analysis and arguments he presents, as well as his conclusions.
</p><p></p><p>
In the Epilogue, Mystal provides potential solutions to overcome the conservative push to slow, undermine, and reverse steps toward a fairer society for all. After exploring the challenges and weaknesses of several possible options, he declares that his “preferred solutions focus on restructuring and reforming the Supreme Court.” (247)
</p><p></p><p>
Citing Congress’ broad Constitutional ability to define the structure of the Supreme Court, he proposes first that some version of term limits for the Justices be put in place, and he reviews several approaches to implementing such a change. Acknowledging that the current Supreme Court would likely find this unconstitutional, he proposes first expanding the court, placing justices on it who would position the court with sufficient votes to find term limits constitutional. Noting that the historical variability in the number of justices justifies such a change, he argues that a larger number of justices, with term limits in place, would be more difficult to seed with a majority from the far-right, by ensuring turnover and spreading out the nomination of new justices.
</p><p></p><p>
In <u>Allow Me to Retort</u>, Mystal provides a valuable analysis of key elements of the Constitution and its Amendments, and their relation to the culture wars that continue to rage around so many social and political issues. He details how profoundly influenced the original Constitution and Bill of Rights was by its drafters’ goals of maintaining a stranglehold on power for those like themselves – slave holding, white male property owners. And he makes clear the myriad machinations of conservatives, especially since the Reconstruction era, to limit the scope of Amendments designed to shift our country to fairer social, political, and economic systems.
</p><p></p><p>
Some readers will surely be turned off by the aggressiveness of his language in attacking conservatives, either because they feel personally attacked or because, while they broadly agree with his arguments, they dislike his tone. But those who read through to the end will arrive at a deeper understanding of the fight currently underway over the interpretation and application of Constitutional law. And, they will most likely come away with some sympathy for the evident depth of Mystal’s frustration.
</p><hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
<b>Other notes and information:</b>
<br />
<br />
<hr align="center" color="#000000" size="2" width="50%" />
Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
<br /><b>Other of my book reviews: <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/fiction-reviews.html">FICTION Bookshelf</a> and <a href="http://tertulia-moderna.blogspot.com/p/non-fiction-reviews.html">NON-FICTION Bookshelf</a></b>
<br />
<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>Pete Olinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05034234229761790425noreply@blogger.com0