If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?
It would be whatever law gave one person the power to unilaterally change a law. That would be a terrible thing.
PROMPT: Power
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Category Archives: Politics
PROMPT: Political Views
How have your political views changed over time?
While pretty much the same place on the spectrum, they have softened with the realization that abstract principles may have value for understanding, but for a system of governance to work it must be in tune with human nature ( which is far too messy for dogmatic principles.) In short, my political views have become more pragmatic.
Most importantly, I have come to believe that the governance we get comes of a dialectical battle of ideas, and – therefore – a wide diversity of views in the fray is beneficial. Far from wishing our political opponents would go away, we should hope they force us to do our best by putting their best argument out there in the most astute and persuasive way. It will always be messy, with some cover hog temporarily stealing the warmth, but ultimately it’s better (less bleak and cold) than sleeping alone.
It does require sound and strong rule of law, select depoliticized domains (i.e. the military and judiciary,) a willingness of people to accept that ideas they hate can only be defeated by engagement and persuasion (not by silencing or canceling – i.e. intellectual courage is essential,) but it will yield something better (if often messier) than any political ideology.
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BOOKS: The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Rikki Schlott
The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution by Greg LukianoffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
This book presents an in-depth exploration of cancel culture in its many varied manifestations, from both the left and the right of the American political spectrum. The biggest part of the discussion is with respect to the educational system, and particularly higher education. Sadly, this is because the institutions that used to be among the most formidable bulwarks of free speech, expression, and academic freedom have increasingly become untenable to multiple points of view. (The authors point out that there have been more dismissals of faculty members for cancel culture speech and expression issues than there were during the McCarthy era for political stance.)
However, the book doesn’t restrict itself to education, but also investigates cancelations in journalism, publishing, the scientific community, standup comedy, and the medical and psychiatric communities. The authors also present cases of the effect that wokeness and other expression limiting activities are having in these areas. One of the most disturbing revelations to me was the role of wokeness in psychotherapy and the negative effect it may have on people getting the help they need.
The book presents a series of cases in detail to advance the discussion. It also has a couple chapters that examine the tactics that are used to apparently “win” debates by silencing / demoralizing the opposition while avoiding any actual contest of ideas. The authors go through tactics favored by the Right as well as those by the Left. (Though it’s clear that, in a race to the bottom, both sides adopt the approaches of the other side that seem to be effective. e.g. the Left is getting into book banning (historically a Conservative tactic) and the Right is getting into cancelling and shout-downs (usually Progressive tactics.)) I think it was smart to have two authors, one from the left and one from the right, in order to help ensure balance in the project. That said, as the Left has been in the cancel culture vanguard, they come up more often.
Some have called this a sequel to “The Coddling of the American Mind,” with which it shares a co-author, Greg Lukianoff. I don’t know that I’d think of it that way. While it does address some of the same issues as background, psychology and child development are not at the fore in this book (Jonathan Haidt – the other co-author of “Coddling” is a psychologist,) but rather are the legal, cultural, and political issues.
This is probably the most important book I’ve read this year (and, being late November, it’s likely to retain that status) and I’d highly recommend it for all readers.
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BOOKS: How Long Can the Moon Be Caged by Suchitra Vijayan & Francesca Recchia
How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?: Voices of Indian Political Prisoners by Suchitra VijayanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
It’s no secret that the Gandhian pluralistic vision for India has been taking some hard knocks under the current administration (and the rise of Hindu nationalism that it represents,) but it’s also not as widely and intensely discussed as it could be. This book represents an attempt to make the stories of dissident political prisoners more widely heard.
For that attempt, I would give it high marks, but the execution is problematic. The middle part of the book does a reasonably good job of telling the stories of these individuals. However, the book comes across far too much like a reference book than a journalistic account for much of its length — particularly in the beginning and at the end. The beginning has a long bullet point account of relevant events that I’m sure is meant to give readers an idea of the scope of the problem, but it also sterilizes the information. At the end there are letters and a chapter that consists entirely of data. Letters can be fine, but they aren’t the most evocative way to convey these stories because they contain a good deal of information that is extraneous to the author’s point, and thus the message is diluted.
I do wish supporting evidence was turned up and gratuitous statements turned down a bit. In other words, I assume the government could present a counter-narrative that these are not just dissenters voicing unpopular opinions but rather individuals actively engaged in subversive operations. Granted, the prominence of poets, the ill, and the elderly does make it hard to believe these are some sort of guerrilla warfare masterminds. True, there is a challenge in disproving a negative that makes it hard to prove a person has done nothing wrong.
At any rate, it’s a book I’m glad I read, and I did learn about the issue, but I wish the execution had been better. Maybe that’s for another book.
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BOOKS: Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson
Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century by Hunter S ThompsonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Kingdom of Fear is part memoir and part commentary on the state of America at the turn of the millennium. As a memoir, it explores Thompson’s bid for Sheriff, his arrest and judicial proceedings for drug and explosives charges that resulted from a “he said / she said” accusation that did not warrant charges in and of itself, a wild and wooly road-trip through Nevada, and Thompson’s position at the center of an investigation of a “threat” on the life of actor, Jack Nicholson.
As a commentary on the decline of America it discusses the battle for Grenada, a trip to Cuba, 9-11 and its aftermath, and the book revisits the ’68 Democratic Convention. It’s all written in Thompson’s drug-fueled Gonzo style, making it incredibly entertaining to read even as the hard walls between fact and fiction seem to dissolve. While the factualness might be at times in question, there is always a kind of truth that can only be received from those who’ve tossed off the shackles of societal convention and are willing to tell it as it is — even the embarrassing bits (especially the embarrassing bits.)
It’s not for those who take life and authority figures too seriously, but otherwise it’s a tremendously compelling and sometimes hilarious in its depiction of pre- and post-Y2K America.
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Language Liquidity [Free Verse]
language is liquid;
meaning meanders.
in the long-run,
meanings are meaningless,
untethered and adrift
in an ocean of possibility.
[political words' meanings
don't drift, but tumble with
whiplash violence through
a desert of the possible.
But, predictably, the first variation
of a political word is the exact
opposite of its original meaning.]
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Orwell’s Politics and the English Language
Politics and the English Language by George OrwellMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Available online at The Orwell Foundation
In this essay, Orwell decries a scourge of weak writing in the English language, writing marked by cliched phrases, imprecise descriptors, meaningless words, and pretension. In short, he tells us that writing is becoming simultaneously more verbose and less meaningful.
While the essay isn’t as fun to read as George Carlin’s rants on the same subject, it’s a clear and well-organized discussion of this flaw. Orwell presents the problem, offering examples of random unreadable passages and discussion of where each goes awry. He also contrasts a clear and concise Biblical passage with how its message would sound translated into this corrupt modern form of the language. (That’s the most comedic portion of the essay.) Next, Orwell offers writers simple questions they might apply to making their writing less bloated and more impactful. The key insight of the essay is that thought corrupts language, but language also corrupts thought.
The essay is almost eighty years old, but the problem persists — particularly among politicians, a class of people who love to both sound impressive but without saying anything definitive, anything that might pin them down. That said, since Orwell we’ve developed new linguistic afflictions unique to the internet age, and the essay could probably use updating. Still, it’s an excellent place to start one’s reflection on what’s going wrong in the English language.
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Under Pressure: Or, A House Divided [Free Verse]
A construction worker once told me -
for a building to last -
depends not so much on
its materials,
nor even on its foundations,
but rather on the building being
in balanced strain throughout.
A building stays up when its
parts press into each other firmly,
or pull at each other strongly,
but never too out of balance.
This web of unseen forces
allows the building stand solid
against any huffing, or puffing,
the world might throw its way.
A democratic society works the same.
It must have an establishment.
It must have a counterculture.
And these two elements must
constantly pull at each other
or mash into each other:
tension & compression,
compression & tension,
tug-of-war & sumo.
If one side is unopposed, or too weak,
the state will crumble into some kind of
authoritarianism by another name.
Destroy your enemies at your own peril.
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Beijing Limerick
There was a bureaucrat from old Beijing who claimed that COVID was in a downswing, "It must be, you see, for it cannot be the rules changed cause of shouts of "Can Xi Jinping!"
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BOOK REVIEW: The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick Groom
The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction by Nick GroomMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Gothicness is the perfect kind of subject for the VSI series because it’s one of those areas about which everybody knows something, and yet knows nothing, really. Goth is [or has been] a people (or some people’s perception of other people,) an architectural style, a literary / cinematic genre, a contemporary lifestyle, and a political motif. Because of this diversity, even people who have a degree of expertise on some aspect of gothicness may have little understanding of other aspects or how these varied forms of gothicness relate (if they do, and – if they don’t — why enough people believe they relate to have made this well-formed, consensus view of connectedness.)
The downside of this diversity is that this book will almost certainly be dry, verging on tedious, at some point in the reading, depending upon one’s interests. For example, I found the portions on Gothic literature and cinema to be fascinating, but the part that dealt with gothicness in Whig politics to be boring. [With the architecture bit somewhere in between.] That said, one needs to follow this throughline to see how so many varied domains came to be Goth. Also, the book is quite short, so one isn’t likely to be bored to death because there’s not enough space spent on any one topic for that to happen.
I learned a lot about what it means to be “Goth” [or “goth”] from reading this book. It covers the history in some detail, but also brings it around to present-day movies and art. If you seek to know more about what “Gothic” means, you should definitely look into this brief guide.
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Tiger Riding for Beginners 