This is an almost perfect blend of autobiography, history, and travelogue. It gets rambling, but the introduction is almost irresistibly alluring. TheThis is an almost perfect blend of autobiography, history, and travelogue. It gets rambling, but the introduction is almost irresistibly alluring. The many long discussions of literature, geopolitics, folk religion, or social transformation can get intellectual, but they're also sensory and full of insight, often provided by others. I think I’ll give a few good lines:
“Metternich believed in legal states, not in ethnic nations. States are � governed by the rule of law; ethnic states are ruled by blood-and-soil passion, the very enemy of moderation and analysis.�
“When a country is being subverted; it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered. Subversion is literally administration with a minus sign in front.� � Bernard Fall
Concerning young adults, a Turkish community leader explains, “They are less interested in traditions than in global culture, which offers everything and diminishes everything at the same time.�
“The identification of religious faith with an ethnic-national group, I find, is a moral heresy.�
In traveling across Romania and into Hungary and Moldova, Kaplan is keenly perceptive of gradations in culture. He describes a Westernized, individualized sense of identity slowly displacing collectivized loyalties of the past. He sees life and vitality in the advance of European culture, and a heritage of trauma in the eastern regions. It’s clearly a cultural bias, but it comes from directly encountering people’s differences in quality of life. He fears that if Russia regains domination of Ukraine, Moldova is next. ...more
This is surprisingly informal and entertaining. Much of the book explores the modern blizzard of alternative bibles, biblezines, manga bibles, etc., wThis is surprisingly informal and entertaining. Much of the book explores the modern blizzard of alternative bibles, biblezines, manga bibles, etc., which popularize, summarize, or commercialize the good book for a rapidly expanding market. My favorite example is Matthew Tallat’s completely rearranged Bible, which groups all verses into 30 categories, each with a different topic (such as “holy days� or “deity�). Here, you can find everything said about the said subject in one list, completely stripped of all story or context.
Next, Beal explores the blizzard of ancient texts that arose in various versions, where combined with other texts in many ways, and then assembled into assorted collections of books like differing libraries. Here, for example, we find St. Jerome tasked to make an authoritative Latin version of the then-favored scriptures from several languages, and complaining “There are almost as many forms of texts as there are copies!�
As a professor of the Bible, Beal has a lot to say about the common presumption that the Bible is one book, with one author, which gives the one correct answer to every question. He explains how his students doubt themselves on reading the directly contradicting lines, or the differing versions of the same stories. Surely, they feel, there’s only one correct lesson, and they just don’t get it. Perhaps they need someone more holy to tell them the real meaning. Beal advises, “You’re letting someone else impoverish it for you, when in fact you have just brushed up against the rich polyvocality of biblical literature.�
I used to argue that the Bible is like a record of arguments spanning maybe 1,000 years. The many protagonists furiously debate what is right, good, or evil, like the political and religious leaders of our modern nations. But Beal gives a more sociable view of it. For him, the Bible is a “pool of imagination,� a “library of questions,� or a “body of folklore,� shared across generations in an expanding, dialogue about life. In the digital age, the texts interact with all other texts, in an ongoing collaborative “living conversation.� ...more
Hochschild does the best kind of social research, really getting to know local people and their personal experience of the issues around them. Here, sHochschild does the best kind of social research, really getting to know local people and their personal experience of the issues around them. Here, she talks to lots of rural Kentucky people, getting their views on the challenges before them. Many of these people feel betrayed. Their coal-based economy has largely disappeared, and their employment prospects are grim. They try to make a living, and if they’re failing they feel guilty. They’re mostly conservative folks, who feel they bear personal responsibility for their success or failure in life. As Hochschild observes, it’s typically people in the regions hit hardest by changes in the modern economy, who feel the most personally shamed by economic hardship. And that applies most heavily to adult males.
The book becomes an exploration of how men cope with shame. One major response has been substance abuse, as seen in the devastating OxyContin addiction crisis. Another is to turn shame into blame. Blame feels better. And so, for many men in eastern Kentucky, politics becomes a blame game. There are various arguments over who’s to blame for the region’s decline. Clearly, urban environmentalists helped shrink the coal industry. Globalized trade undercut local jobs. City people viewed the locals as backward hillbillies. It seemed like the whole system was rigged against them. As one man puts it,
“I get mad about some things. My brain locks up. You forget that you might get over your anger. But next time it happens to me it all slaps back—that feeling of there being no place for me. � You feel like something out there is designed to keep you down. There’s no specific person to get mad at. But I start thinking, whatever system is in charge here, I HATE it and I want to throw it out.�
Although many locals Hochschild meets are trying to solve problems or start new businesses, the issue of who to blame for the whole mess grows increasingly political. After targeting who to blame, the question turns to punishment, or revenge. After talking at length with an organizer for a white nationalist march, Hochschild summarizes his argument like this: “You’ve lost your regional pride, your well-paid jobs, suffered devaluation of what you do have, and you’ve had enough. We � will erase shame from you and � divert your shame to blame—blame of Jews, Muslims, Blacks, immigrants, liberals, and Democrats. Your access to the American dream? They took it!�
Somehow, these rebels tend to unite under the leadership of an ultra-wealthy New York politician and his ultra-wealthy backers. These leaders seem to embody the �1% corporate elite� who many liberals accuse of hogging the nation’s wealth for themselves. But these leaders point to other enemies: foreigners, migrants, outsiders who aren’t like our people. These nationalists claim that America’s 1% wealthiest leaders will protect real Americans from the outsiders seeking to rob them blind. ...more
I really liked this. Marshall examines the shifting boundaries between societies around the world, including the rather fortified India–Bangladesh borI really liked this. Marshall examines the shifting boundaries between societies around the world, including the rather fortified India–Bangladesh border, the U.S.–Mexico border, the overly porous boundaries between European states, the extremely militarized Israel–Palestine boundaries, China’s internet-security walls, Africa’s externally-imposed national borders, or the walls around North America’s gated (or “fortified�) communities. He respects the views of people who want controls on residence and economic or political activity in their communities. He highlights the benefits from increasing interchange of many kinds. He considers our temptations to just wall out the problems we’re failing to solve. It’s a clear-eyed, globe-wide look at our bounds of identity, trust, hardship, and opportunity. Just the kind of discussion we need in an age of both planetary integration and identity-oriented politics. ...more
This is a highly informed overview of state-enabled crime and disinformation around the world. It makes a strong case for transparency and accountabilThis is a highly informed overview of state-enabled crime and disinformation around the world. It makes a strong case for transparency and accountability, and in many ways it’s refreshing. I had assumed the book was a patriotic call for free nations to unite in a new Cold War between democratic and autocratic states. So at first I was pleased to see Applebaum’s even-handedness in exposing corruption and abuse across the world. For example, she shows how kleptocracy by dictators, corrupt corporations, secretive financial institutions, and anonymously owned shell companies siphon off wealth from probably all nations to offshore tax havens like Jersey or the Cayman Islands, hiding perhaps 10% of global GDP. Also, “The fact that anonymous shell companies were purchasing condominiums in Trump-branded properties while Trump was president should have set off alarm bells.�
In clarifying the issue of “autocracy,� she explains that we “should think about the struggle for freedom not as a competition with certain specific autocratic states, and certainly not as a ‘war with China,� but as a war against autocratic behaviors, wherever they are found, in Russia, in China, in Europe, in the United States.� In this view, autocracies are just the worst offenders, because they are the most invested in maximizing benefits for the most powerful few, while forcefully blocking any accountability to the public. But in general, resisting corruption and abuse requires similar reforms everywhere. For example,
“We could � require all real estate transactions � to be totally transparent. We could require all companies to be registered in the names of their actual owners, and all trusts to reveal the names of their beneficiaries �. We could close loopholes that allow anonymity in the private equity and hedge-fund industries �. We could do all this in coordination with other partners around the world.�
However, Applebaum also argues that autocratic regimes are inherently devoted to destroying accountability. In her realpolitik, “Modern autocracies � however varied their ideologies, do have a common enemy. That enemy is us.� So she does still call for a new Cold War, except it should be slightly less nationalistic, and slightly less crusade-like. She seems to laud the demolition of Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline in 2022, as a blow for realism. She calls on everybody to take sides in the struggle to come:
“We no longer live in a world where the very wealthy can do business with autocratic regimes � while at the same time doing business with the American government, or with European governments �. It’s time to make them choose.�
The calling for reform and setting a beneficial example is great. I fear the demand for rather total political and economic polarization could do more harm than good....more
Marche aims to give it to Americans straight, shooting from the hip with fluid command of the lingos spouted by various types of hate-mongering fanatiMarche aims to give it to Americans straight, shooting from the hip with fluid command of the lingos spouted by various types of hate-mongering fanatics. Sometimes you can’t tell if he’s giving his own predictions of inevitable doom, or if he’s just mimicking the way radicals talk. But anyway, he gives numerous explanations of why failure is inevitable:
“The Democrats represent a multicultural country grounded in liberal democracy. The Republicans represent a white country grounded in the sanctity of property. America cannot operate as both at once.�
“Inequality has no solution.�
“You cannot punish people out of hating you. The military is an instrument of punishment. It’s very function makes it useless.�
“The American government, in order to survive, will have to suspend the most sacred icon of the American government, the Bill of Rights. So right from the beginning, as an inevitable element of this kind of war, a massive portion of the US populace, nearly half, would consider the actions of the US government un-American. And they wouldn’t be wrong.�
“No policy solutions, not even the most extreme, would prevent what I have described here.�
In the last chapter Marche discusses possibilities for a peaceful breakup of the USA. He claims to hope for the best. But after declaring civil war for most of the book, his good wishes sound like disclaimers....more
This early effort to explore the relations between biology, sociology, and ethics is extremely careful and detailed, dealing with deep skepticism fromThis early effort to explore the relations between biology, sociology, and ethics is extremely careful and detailed, dealing with deep skepticism from scientists of the 1970s and 80s. But it leads to a discussion that has always fascinated me, namely the boundaries of our cultures, loyalties, and identities, and especially how those boundaries have been evolving over time....more
American mortician seeks world of alternatives to the West’s sanitized, over-commercialized funeral industry. She finds adventure, creativity, ritual,American mortician seeks world of alternatives to the West’s sanitized, over-commercialized funeral industry. She finds adventure, creativity, ritual, sustainability, humanity, and even wicked humor among the planet’s rising numbers of people involved in finding better, more meaningful ways to honor the dead and the planet. Somehow, Doughty makes the journey extremely enjoyable....more
By just relating the feel of different places (Sengal, the USA, Israel), Coates gives a gut-level reading of contrasts between social landscapes. And By just relating the feel of different places (Sengal, the USA, Israel), Coates gives a gut-level reading of contrasts between social landscapes. And in Israel, perceived as a black man who knows the feel of segregation, his experience is close to alarming: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stronger and more intense than in Israel.�
I’ll give just three details from the book to suggest what Coates encounters:
Israeli historian Benny Morris described (in 2004) Palestinians as “barbarians who want to take our lives. � Something like a cage has to be built for them. � There is a wild animal there than has to be locked up in one way of another. � Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians.�
In 1961, South Africa’s prime minister Hendrick Verwoerd said of Israel’s Zionists, “They took Israel away from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.�
In the entrance area of Jerusalem’s “City of David,� a plaque dedicated by an American ambassador reads as follows: “The City of David brings Biblical Jerusalem to life in the very place where the kings and prophets of the Bible walked. � The spiritual bedrock of our values as a nation comes from Jerusalem. It is upon these ideals that the American Republic was founded, and the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel was formed.� ...more
I was really glad to find this book, as it seems to focus on just the issue that’s been eating me about North America: the “founding myth� that progreI was really glad to find this book, as it seems to focus on just the issue that’s been eating me about North America: the “founding myth� that progress means conquering new frontiers. Grandin does an interesting job exploring the problems this myth has solved or generated. He examines the costs of assuming that expansion is the solution to everything. He surveys the aggressions, ethnic cleansings, or externalizations of problems the myth has spawned. He shows the frontiers of unlimited potential turning into border walls of increasingly paranoid self-protection. The freedom to take control over others becomes more of a freedom to exclude others, by whatever means seem necessary. Overall, the story is well presented, and I took lots of notes. However, I ended up unclear how this myth has “ended,� or what freedom from the myth looks like.
My main complaint is I wanted Grandin to tackle the religious dimension of the frontier myth. I mean the Bible-born myth by which a God-chosen people was given a manifest destiny to conquer a promised land, and remake it as a Godly domain. I noticed only two direct references to this religious dimension of the founding myth. On page 12, Grandin quotes a Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritan explaining that “God made way for his people by removing the heathen and planting them in the ground.� Then on page 212, he relates Daniel Bell’s observation that Christian righteousness has sanctified the “American mission� and given the USA “a special American metaphysical destiny.� This, I strongly suspect, is the real myth going on here, which is dividing America between two conflicting dreams. Is America a land of equal opportunity for all, and God-like authority for none? Or is it ordained to be God’s country, given to his true people, governed by God’s laws, and destined for victory over all servants of evil, until the kingdom of Christian Zionism rules the world?...more
Harris thinks like a moral animal in motion, scoping out the surrounding terrain of our experience, looking for better options in life. As a scientistHarris thinks like a moral animal in motion, scoping out the surrounding terrain of our experience, looking for better options in life. As a scientist, he’s convinced we can ask good questions, learn what helps us, and end up making better choices that increase human well-being. In other words, he figures that science can increasingly help us figure out what's better and worse for all concerned—instead of sticking to traditions, ancient teachings, or ideological principles no matter what. To me, it doesn’t sound too controversial. His argument, however, grows complicated, with discussions of cognitive functions, moral reasoning, cultural relativity, and social science. It’s fascinating but dense. Maybe I’ll just share some good quotes from the book:
The moment we admit that we know anything about human well-being scientifically, we must admit that certain individuals or cultures can be absolutely wrong about it.
Because moral virtue is attractive to both sexes, it might function as a kind of peacock’s tail: costly to produce and maintain, but beneficial to one’s genes in the end.
Perhaps there’s no connection between being good and feeling good � and therefore no connection between moral behavior � and subjective well-being.
We will embarrass our descendants, just as our ancestors embarrass us. This is moral progress....more
Are you deeply suspicious of our political and business leaders? Do you suspect they’re part of a massive plot to subjugate and defraud the people? MaAre you deeply suspicious of our political and business leaders? Do you suspect they’re part of a massive plot to subjugate and defraud the people? Maybe it’s time for you to step up and investigate what’s really going on. Perhaps you too can be a vigilante for truth and justice, like Nancy Drew, Tin Tin, Miss Marple, or Alex Jones. Where the watchdogs of vested interest muzzle independent inquiry and manipulate scientific research, your personal investigations could uncover the suppressed evidence, put the pieces together, and reveal the truth.
I like how Merlan takes a long view on the history of conspiracy theories. She shows how normal it is to wonder if there’s something “behind� appearances. Actual conspiracies to harm or deceive the public do happen, like the FBI’s efforts to character-assassinate black civil rights leaders, or the tobacco industry–sponsored fake science on the effects of smoking. So it’s possible that each new conspiracy theory is real. As Merlan notes, “In 2014, Uscinski and Parent published American Conspiracy Theories, which presents the results of years of research and makes a pretty conclusive case that nobody in this country is not a conspiracy theorist, at least to some extent.�
Of course lone rangers for the truth tend to be subject to their own biases, blind spots, or xenophobic hatreds. As the numbers of truthers in the cybersphere rise exponentially, they tend to ride in herds, producing what in China is called a “flesh-eating search engine� of self-appointed morality police. Concerning the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, Merlan has to lament, “Once again, as Americans, we lapsed into an occult hysteria, a persistent need to seek out new witches among us and burn them, one by one, even when they refused to be found.� She cites Masha Gessen worrying that pushers of Russiagate accusations against Trump were “prompting a xenophobic conspiracy theory in the cause of removing a xenophobic conspiracy theorist from office.�
Merlan explores a huge challenge to our capacity to think as a society. Where deference to professional expertise, journalistic fact-checking, or peer-review of research findings are deemed tactics of control by corrupt elites, the field of information sources seems leveled. All are empowered to speak directly on public media, almost regardless of their relevant experience, amateurishness, or scientific illiteracy. The notions of being “qualified� to speak on a subject, or of evaluating all available evidence like in a court of law, seem to be replaced by a simple question of �Who do you believe?� And as Trump seemed pleased to inform the Washington press corps: “the public doesn’t believe you any more. Now maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.�...more
I really like this. It's a very clear, entertaining exploration of our drive for immortality throughout history. I'm not sure that escaping death is qI really like this. It's a very clear, entertaining exploration of our drive for immortality throughout history. I'm not sure that escaping death is quite so central to all that we do. But Cave weaves a fascinating mega-story with a great rationale. Our efforts to keep living, hopefully forever, take four main forms: (1) make the body last forever; (2) arrange for the body to be resurrected (and then last forever); (3) arrange for the soul to live forever; (4) arrange for your fame, beauty, accomplishments, progeny, or whatever, to give you some eternal legacy. Those hopes or strategies, Cave claims, are what drives civilization, religion, and just about everything. It seems he takes even the Buddhist remedy for suffering, of relinquishing all attachment to things that pass away, is yet another strategy for gaining eternal existence....more
I’d have preferred a book addressed to a general audience, but Boehm is trying to nail down the evidence for his theory and does a fairly exhaustive jI’d have preferred a book addressed to a general audience, but Boehm is trying to nail down the evidence for his theory and does a fairly exhaustive job. I thought it was quite common sensical. We evolved morality because it enabled survival, pretty much as Darwin suspected. There was mate selection for the most productive and the most sharing, plus social exclusion of the greediest and least productive. The most successful genetic and social traits tended to prevail.
Boehm seeks hard evidence to test this logical theory, and focuses on the available studies of hunter-gatherer societies around the world. The detailed findings get repetitive, but that’s the point. I’d have preferred more discussion of how this evolutionary process continued through the history of major civilizations. But at the end, Boehm does attempt looking at the possibilities for future evolution of morality. Through it all, he remains strictly Darwinian regarding the origins of moral conscience and ethics. Here’s one of my favorite lines:
Basically, the evolutionary “destiny� of our species has been up to chance—unless you believe that a micro-managing Divine hand was protectively overseeing the process. I don’t. I believe devoutly in dumb luck as far as the basics of biological evolution are concerned, and this affords little comfort if as a human being you’d prefer to feel watched over and “special.�...more
This is the most practical, problem-solving discussion of men’s problems I’ve seen. Reeves avoids polemics over whether trying to help young men detraThis is the most practical, problem-solving discussion of men’s problems I’ve seen. Reeves avoids polemics over whether trying to help young men detracts from empowering women. He just presents findings from solid sociological research, which show women making strong gains in education and professional life: “While women have moved decisively into many previously male-dominated occupations, � there has been nothing like the same movement in the other direction. Gender desegregation of the labor market has been almost entirely one way.� At the same time, the studies show declines in male academic performance, and rising rates of male unemployment, loneliness, addiction, or mental illness, The chapter on challenges faced by black males is especially powerful, as it details the effects of being viewed as a threat.
In responding to such trends and challenges, Reeves doesn’t play preacher or counsellor. He develops proposals for pragmatic policy changes to enable moves toward greater equity in parenting, mentoring, career development, and care-giving. Basically, he talks like this: “Men do need help. But we can help men without hindering women or trying to turn back the clock. Fatherhood in particular can be reinvented for a more egalitarian world.� ...more
I like Rossano’s casual way of discussing how people do or don’t experience something sacred. He looks at it as a matter of relatedness, and views theI like Rossano’s casual way of discussing how people do or don’t experience something sacred. He looks at it as a matter of relatedness, and views the evolution of religion as a story of how people have related and found meaning in their lives. He examines “agency detection,� by which people see intelligent animation in nature, in animals, in collective associations of people, or in the universe. They experience a sense of relationship, and “you can’t prove to somebody that they don’t have a relationship.� For those who experience relatedness, “experience in the evidence.� It’s an interesting history starting around 70,000 BCE, in which, as Robin Horton put it, religion can “be looked upon as an extension of the field of people’s social relationships beyond the confines of purely human society.�...more
Great examination of how legal controls on Blacks have evolved, from state-backed slavery, to penal labor, to segregation in society and in prison, toGreat examination of how legal controls on Blacks have evolved, from state-backed slavery, to penal labor, to segregation in society and in prison, to disproportionate policing and sentencing. It's a tale of progress, from the horrific to the simply unfair....more
Zakaria is genially informative, sizing up the cumulative effects of early-modern Dutch and English “revolutions,� then the French, industrial, and inZakaria is genially informative, sizing up the cumulative effects of early-modern Dutch and English “revolutions,� then the French, industrial, and informational revolutions. But that’s just the first half of the book. Then he examines the recent mounting cascades of economic, political, and social change, giving some of the most objective, insightful commentary I’ve seen. ...more
Okay, I was a white boy in Texas, so I grew up smelling white rage in the air, but I didn’t know the fire was that bad. Anderson documents the murderoOkay, I was a white boy in Texas, so I grew up smelling white rage in the air, but I didn’t know the fire was that bad. Anderson documents the murderous vengeance inflicted on newly freed blacks in the wake of the Civil War. She details how the “Black Laws� required ex-slaves to sign abusive annual farm labor contracts, or else be arrested for the crime of “vagrancy.� She explains how the courts lobotomized the constitutional amendments granting blacks freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote—by splitting the power to enact law from the authority to enforce it, as when Supreme Court Justice Morrison White declared (in 1874) “The Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone,� because “the right to vote � comes from the states.�
The account is horrific, but some of it seems so farcical that it’s almost funny. Blacks in Detroit who dared to purchase a decent house in a mainly white neighborhood, and were then attacked by mobs of furious whites, were warned by mayor Johnny Smith: “I believe that any colored person who endangers life and property simply to gratify his personal pride, is an enemy of his race and an incitement of riot and murder.�
Anderson traces the rise of white rage against the civil rights movement, with George Wallace campaigning across America in 1968, warning that blacks were breaking out of crime-filled ghettos to invade “our streets, our schools, our neighborhoods.� Upstanding whites defended the right to exclude blacks as a fundamental freedom: “We are not going to compel children who don’t choose to have an integrated education to have one.� When whole school districts were closed down rather than obey federal orders to integrate, upholders of white rights accused that “blacks had chosen integration over education.�
One thing that sounds odd to me is the way Anderson feels she must talk about human rights in terms of nationalism. She keeps arguing that treating people fairly and educating children is the best way to make America great. She takes patriotic pride in the victory of electing the first black president. Then she surveys the rising tide of white fury, with mounting determination to restrict “illegitimate voting� and take the country “back.� Even the relatively genteel Mitt Romney finds his pride offended, as he wishes that Obama “would learn to be an American.� ...more
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