Who gives a damn about what McClellan has to say?

While McClellan is cashing in on his new tell-all book, which tells us nothing new by a man who didn't shape Bush administration policy in any way but merely communicated it, Christipher Hitchens points us towards a book by former White House policymaker Douglas Feith...

Parallels between fictional barbarians and today's Islamic terrorists

Parallels between fictional barbarians and today's Islamic terrorists

In Booker- and Nobel Prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, the 'barbarians' are very different compared to the terrorists the United States and its allies are fighting today. The barbarians are a set group, compared to the more ambiguous terrorist enemy. Also, they seem to attack when directly provoked (actually, during the course of the story there isn't concrete, objective proof of a barbarian attack on the Empire). They are a fairly peaceful, simple, nomadic people who live in fear of the Empire and suffer because of its expansion. However, there are some parallels between the barbarians and Islamist extremists. Many modern Islamic terrorists are waging jihad against the US because of its occupation of lands they see as sacred, belonging to Muslims, as well as its diehard support of occupiers of Mideast land like Israel. America is tainting these lands for its own profit (oil), or so their line of thought goes.

The stronger parallel between the Empire's wrath for the barbarians and America's 'war on terror' is the chilling aspect of torture used gratuitously by the Empire in the book and — to a lesser, more secretive extent, directly or indirectly — by the United States today. My personal view is not that the US is an empire in the way the one in the book is; whether it is at all is a point of contention among experts. Of course the US looks out for its own economic interests in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere, as do all nations who rely on energy supplies from that region. It is the reality of men and nations that we take care of ourselves first and make sure our well being is well provided for.

The thing that has brought the world's sole superpower into such a great mess is security. Although oil has played an indirect role, those drawing such a strong line between Iraq and Exxon should reevaluate their logic. America supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the 1979 Soviet invasion and ensuing war to fend off its Cold War arch-rival. Today it faces the same people it supported in Afghanistan in a globalized 'war.' However, unlike the war in Waiting for the Barbarians, one side is ambiguous in the 'war on terror': the terrorists. This ambiguity allows the US more leeway in its 'war,' but also leads to more trouble: anyone could be a terrorist. These terrorists either operate relatively alone with influences from groups or in cells, often under the authority of others. What unites them for the most part is ideology, but there are devisions even within that radical anti-American foundation. The Bush administration has clumped its 'barbarians' together into one massive group of pure evil. It's 'us against them'.

Torture is made into entertainment in the book. The public is put at ease at the sight of a few innocent barbarians being abused and sometimes killed. The army turns fear into hate and allows the public an outlet for that hatred. In Waiting for the Barbarians the man plagued by this lack of human decency, the town judge, is displaced by all this mess as he attempts to take on the torture machine. He is arrested at the circumvention of the law — emergency powers are in the hands of the military because of the barbarians are apparently ready to pounce. The people in the remote frontier town in Waiting for the Barbarians are in constantly terrorized by the threat of a supposedly imminent barbarian invasion, yet another similarity between their society and America's (among others).

The us vs. them seen especially during wartime is seen in the book: "The soldiery tyrannizes the town. They have held a ... meeting to denounce "cowards and traitors" and to affirm collective alliance to the Empire" (Coetzee 130). There are elements of absurdity in the story of torture in Barbarians, but that same absurdity is seen in real life in the political rhetoric condoning torture. Innocent people — people who share fear if any ties with the enemy — are tortured needlessly for no real point. Whereas the fictional barbarian situation came to an end and just rule was reinstated, the terror subsided, there is no assurance that the same will happen in America's 'war on terror.'

Globalization: A very old trade

What we know today as 'globalization' has actually been around for tens of thousands of years, says Nayan Chanda in his new book, Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization, reviewed recently in The Economist:

Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, provides background facts for less lazy thinking in a lively book that is packed with incident, anecdote and derring-do.

He points out that globalisation is a new word to describe an old process. The word was introduced in the late 1970s and had gained widespread currency by 1999, the time of Mr Bové's visit to McDonald's. Many thought it described a wholly novel phenomenon. But globalisation really began about 60,000 years ago, when the first migrants walked out of Africa. Human history ever since has been a process of growing interconnectedness.

Mr Chanda organises his argument around what he takes to be the four groups that have done most to bring about this interconnectedness: traders, preachers, adventurers and warriors. Though the motives of these groups—to profit, convert, learn or conquer—have usually been selfish, the overall effect of their actions has been to draw us all closer together.

Globalization has its pros and cons. Pros include the spread of knowledge — scientific/technological as well as artistic/cultural, also the factual and the theoretical — and the trade of goods. Cons include the effects of the trading of goods: the spread of diseases, or non-native plants and animals that damage the environment, or the exploitation of a less powerful country by a more powerful one, or the proliferation of negative ideologies and movements. It opened the door for imperialism and colonialism, but also for the spread of gunpowder from one civilization to another. It brought European diseases like smallpox to the 'New World' while also enabling a vaccine invented in Switzerland and manufactured in America to help people in Indonesia confront the latest pandemic.

Globalization helped bring about today's global warming, but might also be the key to solving it. Cooperation, however, is essential. Part of globalization is of when one party dominates, conquers, or forces another to accept their terms; part is an indirect and/or unintentional (or intentional) spread; part is a mutual acceptance and awareness.

Globalization allows people in Argentina read a blog written by a United Nations peacekeeper in Palestine — heck, without an international network there wouldn't be a true UN. Sure globalization is primarily associated with an economic connectivity ("to profit"), but we also see cultural hegemony ("to convert"), a more pacified spread of ideas ("to learn"), and the most abrasive ("to conquer").

We meet globalization's challenges and reap its benefits, and never do we see it relinquish its status as a controversial phenomenon. If humans are naturally curious, then globalization is our way to connect and spread all aspects of our society, and sometimes to accomplish individual aims — invade country X, seek new riches, convert the people of land Y to religion A.

Nowadays we view globalization as the reason Pakistanis suffer in sweatshops to make our Nikes or why France's traditional fine tastes are being corrupted by American fast-food. We sometimes think only of the traders and warriors. Globalization has an ugly past too, such as the African slave trade, but we are all the more aware of its effects now, ironically because of it: the spread of this knowledge, a result of communication which itself is a result of globalization. Sometimes we miss the bigger picture. Without globalization, would I be writing or you be reading this blog?

My personal bible

The bible:

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

Philosophy is unlike any other subject. It studies the core of human understanding (philosophy of psychology) and knowledge (epistemology), but also how we reason that knowledge (philosophy of logic), and record and communicate it (philosophy of language). It explores our social fabric (social and political philosophy), but also the fabrics of the theoretical: space and time beyond what we see (philosophy of metaphysics); and then some.

I have some fond stories of my 'bible'. Once — late last year — I was quite sick, unable to read anything. Naturally I was bored out of my mind. I eventually picked up my Oxford Companion to Philosophy and began reading. Lo and behold I read for nearly two hours and only stopped once I realized I'd been reading in an awkward position with my neck arched downward. I get lost in this tome of thought all the time. Anyways, the Oxford Companion to Philosophy is full of thought-worthy, provocative, informative, and all around interesting entries ranging from the big names to the small, the widely-known ideas to the lesser-known, and so on.

The Companion features over 2,200 entries, including some 300 new to this 2005 edition (the first edition was issued a decade earlier), 291 contributors, and covers everything and everyone from "animal consciousness" to "David Hume" to "God, arguments for the existence of" (and an entry of "arguments against the existence of") to "zombies". There are some illustrations, and articles can be a small paragraph or several pages. There are also references and books to see for more information listed at the end of virtually every entry. Plus, diagrams chart out the various main branches of philosophy in the back of the book, followed by a complete cross-index, all being preceded by a nice chronology of philosophy.

However not everything can fit in what is seen as the definitive one-volume philosophy reference book. I have compiled a list of entries my bible is lacking — including "negative utopia", "George Orwell", "Big Brother" (yes I like George Orwell, a lot), "A.C. Grayling", "Eric Hoffer" and more — and will email the editor and publisher once I'm sure I have thought of everything.

The website of Oxford University Press (OUP), the book's publisher, states that the book's readership is targeted at:

General readers interested in abstract thought, the eternal questions, and the foundations of human understanding; students and professionals in philosophy and related fields (physical, human, and social sciences, the arts and humanities).

The book runs about US$60, but you can easily find it for cheaper (see Amazon). I keep my bible handy at all times; I take on vacation (when I can). It's a great book; anyone interested in more advanced thought than portrayed by tabloids and celebrity rags, not to mention the often shallow politics of the day, should check it out. It's one of those books that you keep for a lifetime.

Farewell, Harry Potter series

I just finished the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (Wikipedia), released just yesterday. Abiding by the Golden Rule, I shall not give away any spoilers. Although I haven't had time to reflect much upon the overall quality of this much-hyped novel, it was clearly a good read. (The sixth book was also good; it chronicled Voldemort's life as the new book focuses more on Dumbledore's.) The events of this book also illustrated ties to the rise of the Nazis in Germany, with the Death Eaters — followers of the Dark Lord — being the Nazis and the rebels and non-purebloods being the Jews and other hated groups. Of course that connection doesn't totally fit, but the parallels are clearly seen. For a while the story also reminded me of Orwell's epic 1984.

It's too early to say whether this was my favorite of the seven Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, but it is at least among them. The fourth and fifth were a bit weaker than the best; for some time I felt the sixth to be the best, now I am unsure.

I started reading the books nearly a decade ago, when I was at a fairly young age, in a totally different mindset than I am in now. Of the many changes that have occurred in those eight or so years, one thing that hasn't budged is my interest in reading. The Harry Potter books aren't the best written books, but they flow and captivate their readers — child or adult. While they are presumed to be aimed at younger readers this series has attracted a literary following of all ages, the likes of which has brought a rare, all-ages, cultural phenomenon causing people who rarely pick up a book to read.

As a whole this, to use the two words the inside cover flap of the US edition of Deathly Hallows uses, "epic tale" (or rather, series of epic tales) of witchcraft and wizardry will remain a classic in the eyes of mainstream readers everywhere. While I did not don a wizard's outfit and wait in front of the bookstore for three days, I did anxiously await the arrival of this book. It has brought closure to a great series in literature, in fantasy and in the art as a whole for it has made reading more accessible for the general population without dumbing the story down for the rest of us.

At long last, the adventures of Harry Potter are now over. Closure feels good, in a way (I often get too sucked into books of fiction, which is why I'm not always reading fiction, because I would be if I didn't stop myself). The question is, what are people of all ages going to read next? I.e., will there be another Harry Potter? Will more people embrace reading because of it?...

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Grayling brings philosophy to life

As I mentioned in an earlier post on my literary endeavors, I just recently got my hands on a 200-page book full of short essays by philosopher and commentator A.C. Grayling.

The topics covered are listed in this Wikipedia article. The essays are not only philosophically and ethically relevant, but resonate personally. On several occasions I've found myself applying what was reflected in, say, the essay on "moralizing", to something that I was experiencing or thinking about. One thing is sure: the book raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps that is a measure of a good (philosophy) book. Personal reflection — not just pure rationale — is needed for one to truly embark on a journey of philosophical thought and experience.

Out of the few professional reviews of this book, the philosophy expert at About.com sure liked the book, although I hardly warrant that as a true book review (he seems to give five stars or other generous ratings to nearly any book). The book has two editions: one, entitled Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age, is its American edition; and The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life — a far better title, in my opinion — is the title for the British edition. It is a fairly cheap book — but worth far beyond what is printed on the price tag. If you're interested, or just in the mood for not-too-heavy, general philosophical thought, I recommend you purchase this book.

What I'm reading...

The Grapes of Wrath (Wikipedia), by John Steinbeck
It is interesting how Steinbeck's masterpiece touches upon materialism and commercialization, industrialization and the replacing of humans with machines, human emotion and plight, the idea of change and the force of movement and migration, and, of course, history: the Dust Bowl of the American Mid-West in the 1930s. I've been reading this Nobel Prize-winning American classic mostly at night — a good bedside read I guess — and make notes along the way.

Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age (Amazon), aka The Meaning of Things, by AC Grayling
An interesting collection of philosophical essays relating to our life and ethics. I had to get this book after I read about it online, so I picked it up at the bookstore yesterday.
See also AC Grayling's well-penned essays on the Guardian's Comment is Free group blog.

The Economist, 7 July edition
I'm only at the Leaders, after already skimming through other parts of the magazine. Currently reading "Don't mention the GWOT" in reference to "language and terrorism".
See also "The language of war" by Seth Freedman on Comment is Free.

Prospect Magazine, July 2007 issue
Currently reading "The cost of carbon" by Richard Barry, an article on the (pros and) cons of carbon trading as a means to effectively fight climate change.

Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008 issue
Currently reading Mitt Romney's presidential foreign policy essay.

An economist's view of the irrational electorate

The first post in my Ideas about Democracy series, "A voter intelligence test", dealt with the uneducated voter and how best to fix what can best be described as the stupidity of the masses. Mind you I am a bit cynical about the voting public's ability to make good decisions, but after seeing what has happened historically — and even recently: see the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 — I think I have a right to be that way.

A fairly new book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies", written by economics professor Bryan Caplan, analyses the ignorance of the electorate and puts forward some interesting solutions from an economic perspective. I learned about this book from a recent issue of The Economist, and it's now at the top of my Amazon.com Wish List. The Economist article brought up some interesting points of its own.

The world is a complex place. Most people are inevitably ignorant about most things, which is why shows like “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” are funny. Politics is no exception. Only 15% of Americans know who Harry Reid (the Senate majority leader) is, for example. True, more than 90% can identify Arnold Schwarzenegger. But that has a lot to do with the governor of California's previous job pretending to be a killer robot.

Many political scientists think this does not matter because of a phenomenon called the “miracle of aggregation” or, more poetically, the “wisdom of crowds”. If ignorant voters vote randomly, the candidate who wins a majority of well-informed voters will win. The principle yields good results in other fields. On “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”, another quiz show, the answer most popular with the studio audience is correct 91% of the time. Financial markets, too, show how a huge number of guesses, aggregated, can value a stock or bond more accurately than any individual expert could. But Mr Caplan says that politics is different because ignorant voters do not vote randomly.

Instead, he identifies four biases that prompt voters systematically to demand policies that make them worse off. First, people do not understand how the pursuit of private profits often yields public benefits: they have an anti-market bias. Second, they underestimate the benefits of interactions with foreigners: they have an anti-foreign bias. Third, they equate prosperity with employment rather than production: Mr Caplan calls this the “make-work bias”. Finally, they tend to think economic conditions are worse than they are, a bias towards pessimism.

Mr Caplan gives a sense of how strong these biases are by comparing the general public's views on economic questions with those of economists and with those of highly educated non-economists. For example, asked why petrol prices have risen, the public mostly blames the greed of oil firms. Economists nearly all blame the law of supply and demand. ... But since everyone's vote counts equally, politicians merrily denounce ExxonMobil and pass laws against “price-gouging”.
...
The public's anti-foreign bias is equally pronounced. Most Americans think the economy is seriously damaged by companies sending jobs overseas. Few economists do. ... Hence the reluctance of Democratic presidential candidates to defend free trade, even when they know it will make most voters better off, and the reluctance of their Republican counterparts to defend George Bush's liberal line on immigration.

The make-work bias is best illustrated by a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an economist who visits China under Mao Zedong. He sees hundreds of workers building a dam with shovels. He asks: “Why don't they use a mechanical digger?” “That would put people out of work,” replies the foreman. “Oh,” says the economist, “I thought you were making a dam. If it's jobs you want, take away their shovels and give them spoons.” ... Economists, recalling that before the industrial revolution 95% of Americans were farmers, worry far less about downsizing than ordinary people do. Politicians, however, follow the lead of ordinary people. Hence, to take a more frivolous example, Oregon's ban on self-service petrol stations.

Finally, the public's pessimism is evident in its belief that most new jobs tend to be low-paying, that our children will be worse off than we are and that society is going to hell in a variety of ways. Economists, despite their dismal reputation, tend to be cheerier. Politicians have to strike a balance. They often find it useful to inflame public fears, but they have to sound confident that things will get better if they are elected.

We all know the American electorate, though not alone in its ignorance, is, quite frankly, very stupid when it comes to more important issues. Americans care and know more about pointless pop culture than important politics that affect their lives and the lives of those around them. The people are partly to blame, as is the education system and the celebrity- and sensation-obsessed media.

Negative buzzwords and phrases like "cut and run", "support our troops", "freedom isn't free", "tax", "amnesty", and "terrorism" shape US politics more than what the words actually mean. The debate is limited to which side can make the other look worse. Politicians are more elected on their personality than politics. There has been more media-prompted discussion on faith within the 2008 presidential candidates than most other topics politically-relevant to the office one of the candidates will likely hold in a year and a half.

The "liberals" are pro-choice, godless, anti-corporation, Hollywood-saturated, anti-war traitors; the "conservatives" are wealthy, neocon, ultra-religious, blind, war-mongering fascists. That is how each side is labeled, regardless of how they actually act. The apathy of the average Joe and Jane mixed with the fanatical sound-bytes of the irrational political extremes makes for the dangerous state of American democracy. And scaring the electorate after 9/11 into a 'war' mindset sure hasn't killed the apathy like Pearl Harbor and the ensuing entrance into World War II did.

Angelina Jolie is more revered for being a caring celebrity god than the real international heroes — the diplomats, the peacekeepers, the people trying to make things right who don't get the eye of the public. This is partly because Americans know more about Jolie than Ban Ki-moon or even Zalmay Khalilzad. Celebrity activists, often knowing almost nothing about their causes, are hailed as the selfless heroes our planet needs more of. And they get plenty of news coverage too.

Marginal Revolution also took a look at the book and pokes some holes in Caplan's argument, such as

I'm amazed that the public is as rational and smart as it is. Few people demand that our leaders resort, say, to the tools of superstition, even though many people believe in astrology. Our political irrationality is highly selective and self-serving in a "feel good about ourselves" way, rather than indiscriminate. I don't understand what, in Bryan's theory, prevents voters from satiating in irrationality, with truly dire social consequences.
...
Voters are less irrational in many northern European countries. ... What accounts for such a difference?

I believe this is one of those facinating, relevant books that doesn't fade into scholarly abscurity but also doesn't make it into the general public's eye. However, it is — at the time of this post's writing — ranked 390 in books on Amazon.

You can read the introduction of "The Myth of the Rational Voter" also.

This book develops an alternative story of how democracy fails. The central idea is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational—and vote accordingly. Economists and cognitive psychologists usually presume that everyone “processes information” to the best of his ability.6 Yet common sense tells us that emotion and ideology—not just the facts or their “processing”—powerfully sway human judgment. Protectionist thinking is hard to uproot because it feels good. When people vote under the influence of false beliefs that feel good, democracy persistently delivers bad policies. As an old computer programming slogan goes, GIGO—Garbage in, garbage out.
...
This book has three conjoined themes. The first: Doubts about the rationality of voters are empirically justified. The second: Voter irrationality is precisely what economic theory implies once we adopt introspectively plausible assumptions about human motivation. The third: Voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture of democracy.
...
In democracies the main alternative to majority rule is not dictatorship, but markets.

...while the general public underestimates how well markets work, even economists underestimate markets’ virtues relative to the democratic alternative.

So is populism one of the ultimate enemies to democracy? Populists cave into what the people want — but isn't that what elected officials are supposed to do? The perplexity of the government of the people calls into question much of the conventional wisdom on democracy. The forces of populist democracy and good governance often collide, raising a number of conundrums.

Elected officials should work towards the greater good, as well as doing what is best for their electorate even if that means not caving into some of their irrational political ways. But that may hurt come election time. Are good politicians more populist, doing what makes them look best to their electorate; or is a good politician someone who will listen but dare to act against the public's wishes? Human rights are often taken for granted by the masses. Touchy issues requiring expertise in various areas should be left to the politicians the electorate elect, not to the electorate except via referendum. Indirectly, the people vote on issues during election time, and that's democratic enough. Officials and voters both pick their issues, and I doubt a politician would lose an election over the issue of the death penalty.

Lastly, how does the market fit into an irrational public and the conflict between populism and what makes sense? Hopefully when I get my hands on this book I'll find out, at least a bit, how market philosophy can be applied to the democracy.

Sir Rushdie the infidel

A religious row over the knighthood of a controversial writer turns political, on an international scale.

Salmon Rushdie — I mean Sir Salmon Rushdie — has a history of flaring the tempers of more hard-line Islamists (can you say death threats? like the fatwa against the British-Indian novelist by Iran), as well as the Muslim world as a whole. The Iraqi foreign minister has condemned the honoring of Rushdie, whose novels, namely the popular Satanic Verses, often attack Islam (it's fiction!). His knighthood has also sparked large, widespread protests in Pakistan and Malaysia, among other nations. This has even turned into a (minor) diplomatic crisis for the UK.

Whenever any certain group feels it has been attacked at all by a book, a movie, or other works of art — e.g. Catholics and albinos for The Da Vinci Code; Muslims for Rushdie's books; Italian-Americans for The Sopranos — they blame it on mere works of fiction and get all up in arms about it. "Your [type of fiction] makes our people look bad. It is blasphemy to us [group of people]. We will [action taken by aforementioned peeved group]." Get over it people.

Cross-posted with modification; originally from In Perspective's sister blog, In Perspectives.

What I'm reading...

Well I just finished Ian McEwan's masterpiece, Atonement, which I read all of yesterday. I think it has the potential to make a good film, assuming the conversion from novel to script goes fine (books are almost always better anyways). McEwan is indeed a master of a psychological fiction of sorts — creating deep and complex characters with understandable plights and feelings. Read an excerpt and review of his latest book, On Chesil Beach.

I'm also reading the June issue of Harper's Magazine, the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, the May/June issue of Foreign Policy, the latest Economist, and whatever interesting items I find online.

Cloudy thought: the state of "clearthought" (I blame Hosseini and books)

My 'thought' is not as 'clear' as it usually is at the moment...

Right now I am immersed in a book called The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. It is a good book, but when I get into a good fiction book, I become very engrossed in the story. As a result, I am unable to do much else with my spare time — including blogging. I have not read a fiction book in a little while so this could just be a syndrome from withdraw of fine fiction. Anyway, I have made a list of topics I will be blogging about the rest of November. I will try to keep a balance between blogging about those fairly specific topics and the ever-changing current of events flowing through the river of news.

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