We live with the assumption that our conscious mind is finely tuned to perform rational calculation based on accurate perception and near-perfect rec...more
We live with the assumption that our conscious mind is finely tuned to perform rational calculation based on accurate perception and near-perfect recall. In fact, it is more akin to an evolutionary afterthought that operates on dubious premises, fuzzy memories, and irrational impulses. We are finely tuned to survive in a world where we may be someone's next meal, but the very behavior that may be adaptive under those circumstances may be unforeseen, unnoticed, or ignored in today's world, with consequences that range from the comical to the tragic.
McRaney offers a series of tart essays, each of which illustrates a quirk of the human mind that may be familiar to clinical psychologists but a revelation to the rest of us. If, like the ancient Greeks, one seeks to know oneself, this is an excellent place to start. (less)
My best friend is a person who is, to all appearances, effortlessly organized. When we were roommates in college, he was up early, finished his homewo...moreMy best friend is a person who is, to all appearances, effortlessly organized. When we were roommates in college, he was up early, finished his homework in a demanding scientific discipline (while studying Chinese on the side) before dinner, and went to bed promptly by 9:00 p.m. after a leisurely dinner and a couple of hours of science fiction. This book is not for him.
Being the opposite of my best friend on the organizational scale, much of my life has been spent on a journey to bring life into focus and clean up my act. I am a modest, but not obsessive, consumer of organizational self-help books, from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow to David Allen's Getting Things Done to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project.
J.D. Meier's Getting Results the Agile Way, based on his experience as a program manager at Microsoft, strikes me as a thoughtful and important contribution to the genre. Meier does not despise the minutiae of task management, but he attempts to transcend it. His emphasis is on identifying measurable goals, working toward them systematically, and evaluating the results regularly. In addition, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing that time and energy are finite resources, and he writes at some length about both effectiveness — doing the right things — and efficiency — doing them well.
Part of being both effective and efficient is boundaries and balance. If you work to exhaustion, it affects your ability to perform in every other area of your life. If you do not get at least a minimum amount of sleep, you won't function effectively. If you do not have some fun, your motivation will plummet. And if you do not pay attention to your relationships with other people, they will atrophy. While these observations may seem obvious, it nevertheless takes a certain amount of planning and discipline to ensure that people schedule a ceiling to the amount of time spent at work and a floor to the amount of time spent for fun, sleep, and other people.
Beyond his emphasis on the importance of short and long term goal setting, Meier is also an astute observer of the self-defeating mind games that prevent people from working effectively toward their goals, and he breaks down a number of simple strategies for addressing them, from settling for something less than perfection on a first iteration to plunging into work to escape analysis paralysis.
In all, Meier's book achieves what should be the goal of every good organizational book: it does not settle for tidying our schedules, but insists that we examine our goals in the hope that we will choose to live more meaningful lives.(less)
I am haunted by the ghosts of the breaker boys. At the beginning of the twentieth century, little boys of 10 and 12 worked six days a week for ten-hou...moreI am haunted by the ghosts of the breaker boys. At the beginning of the twentieth century, little boys of 10 and 12 worked six days a week for ten-hour days perched over coal chutes from which they plucked bits of rock. Clarence Darrow, at the time the most famous attorney for the coal miners, described the fate of one such boy as follows:
One day his little companion who always sat beside him leaned too far over as he picked the slate. He lost his balance and fell into the trough where the lumps of coal ran down. He plunged madly along with the rushing flood into the iron teeth of the remorseless breaker.... It took a long while to stop the mighty machine, and then it was almost an hour before the boy could be put together in one pile. Several days thereafter a man in a little town in Massachusetts thought that he saw blood on some lumps of coal that he was pouring into the top of his fine nickel-plated stove — but still there is blood on all our coal — and for that matter on almost everything we use, but a man is a fool if he looks for other people's blood.
Darrow was labor's lawyer early in his career, until his defense of the McNamara brothers for blowing up the Los Angeles Times building collapsed in a guilty plea, albeit one that saved the brothers from the gallows.
At the other end of his career, one of Darrow's more notable cases, tried in the wake of the famous Scopes monkey trial, was the defense of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African American physician who moved with his family into a white neighborhood in Detroit, where they soon found themselves surrounded by a lynch mob numbering hundreds of angry white people. Sweet had taken the precaution of seeing that his family was well armed, however, and they fired repeatedly into the crowd, killing and wounding several people. In the subsequent murder trial, Darrow took on the defense and won a remarkable acquittal.
It was said of Darrow that he was cynical in everything, except that he lacked real cynicism. An atheist, a champion and practitioner of "free love," a lawyer who would defend the most depraved criminals and take on the most hopeless causes, Darrow earned his sobriquet "attorney for the damned" honestly. Convinced that human beings were the products of their circumstances and that free will was a myth, the only thing Darrow truly believed in was mercy. And he was perhaps the century's greatest exponent of mercy, a quality that was all the more remarkable in the astonishingly brutal and corrupt Chicago of his day. Though he was willing to defend the most depraved of criminals if the price was right, he was also highly unusual in his willingness to take up such hopeless causes as those of the breaker boys and Ossian Sweet.
This fine biography by John A. Farrell not only evokes Darrow in all his brilliant, Byronic splendor and fallibility, but also provides a keen insight into America's crippled psyche.(less)
It is not often that the final course of a six course meal is as satisfying as the first, but Dorothy Dunnett serves up a banquet in the Lymond Chroni...moreIt is not often that the final course of a six course meal is as satisfying as the first, but Dorothy Dunnett serves up a banquet in the Lymond Chronicles that pleases more with every volume.
The violence of the sixteenth century court and battlefield sometimes reaches almost cartoonish levels, and the level of intrigue is such that, did we not have a record of such (later) historical events as the Gunpowder Plot, it could hardly be credited. Nevertheless, the novels are beautifully paced and plotted, and Dunnett weaves a rich tapestry depicting the pageantry, poetry, music, literature, and science of the era immediately preceding the cultural explosion of Elizabeth's reign. Indeed, while the novels deal principally with France and Scotland, looming in the background throughout is the rise of English greatness following the ascent of her most illustrious monarch.
To borrow a phrase from As Time Goes By, in the end, it's "the same old story, a tale of love and glory." But what a tale, and how beautifully told!(less)
When Sir Walter Scott invented the historical novel in 1814 with the publication of Waverley, he took Europe by storm. As Georg Lukacs later pointed o...moreWhen Sir Walter Scott invented the historical novel in 1814 with the publication of Waverley, he took Europe by storm. As Georg Lukacs later pointed out, Scott also pioneered the technique of introducing a mediocre fictional character in the midst of the great actors on the historical stage, and used his protagonist to organize the action against the backdrop of major historical events.
Scott's technique has endured, but with the modification in modern historical fiction that the protagonist has become progressively less mediocre and progressively more superhuman. This is evident in such characters as Stephen Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's well-regarded series of nautical novels, and it is apparent in Francis Crawford of Lymond in the Game of Kings, the first book of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. In other words, despite the apparent scrupulous historical accuracy of the novel regarding larger historical events, this novel has to be taken with a whopping suspension of disbelief.
However, if one can master one's disbelief, it is quite easy to seduced by Lymond, the master wit, clever polyglot, indomitable swordsman, incomparable strategist, and irresistible ladies man, whose self deprecating wit, charm, and occasional misstep render him engaging rather than obnoxious.
Moreover, the story is cleverly and tightly plotted, revealing a fascinating complexity but never revealing so much that one is not drawn to turn the next page. A bonus for those with an interest in the history of Scotland is the rich political interplay between the Scots and their larger and more powerful neighbors, England and France, during the infancy of Mary Queen of Scots.
In returning to the historical Scotland that gave birth to the historical novel, Dorothy Dunnett proves herself worthy of her great progenitor.
I picked up Sister Citizen because I am interested from a legal perspective in the implications that stereotyping of African American women has in the...moreI picked up Sister Citizen because I am interested from a legal perspective in the implications that stereotyping of African American women has in the workplace. The book more than rewarded my interest.
The book is a pastiche of literary excerpts, critical essays, news analysis, focus group reporting, and statistical surveys that covers everything from the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the success of Michelle Obama and the shaming of Shirley Sherrod. In between it packs powerful statistical analyses of the attitudes of African American women toward everything from themselves to God.
Unifying the work are several potent themes. One is the way in which the expectation that African American women will live up to the image of the "Strong Black Woman" is both a source of strength for African American women and an obstacle to full political involvement in the community. The obverse of self-reliance is inhibition about seeking help from others. A second is that the way in which women are treated is often determined by which of several stereotypes are imposed on them. A third is the way in which community solidarity can turn into community shame.
A particularly valuable contribution of Ms. Harris-Perry's opus is that not only does it reveal the results of introspection on the part of the women it studies, but it also reflects their attitudes toward the larger white community. As such, it shines a spotlight on some common ground between the two, but also reveals significant gulfs in understanding.
African American women occupy a unique place in the Black Community and in society at large. They are among our most vulnerable citizens both in terms of resources and negative stereotyping, At the same time, the word they used most often to describe themselves was "strong," and they are pillars of their families, churches, communities, and society at large. The aim of this book is to point the way toward their fuller integration into American society, both so that their contributions will be more fully realized and so that they can lay claim to the broad support of the society to which they contribute.
My ancestry does not include much in the way of ethnic color, but the Scots provide most of what there is. Indeed, in the past century the Scottish br...moreMy ancestry does not include much in the way of ethnic color, but the Scots provide most of what there is. Indeed, in the past century the Scottish branch of the family, at some remove, has included a fighter pilot and war hero, a celebrated poet, and two successful movie stars. So it's with a nod to our Caledonian ancestors that we toast each other on the holidays, and I seized on the opportunity to take my bride to Scotland when I got married.
So it was with some surprise that I discovered that, despite Scotland's disproportionate contribution to the modern world, it is not particularly easy to find a good general history of Scotland. Fortunately, Magnus Magnusson's engaging history of Scotland from its early history through the Act of Union makes up in verve what it lacks in sophistication. It vividly recounts the intrigues, murders, and battles of the Royal Court throughout the Stewart Dynasty, explores in some detail the history of the Covenanters and of Cromwell, and limns the portraits of a number of colorful figures in Scottish history such as Viscount Dundee, Rob Roy MacGregor, and Sir Walter Scott. Indeed, the history is loosely structured around Scott's earlier history, Tales of a Grandfather.
The popular tone of the work is often emphasized by a certain guidebook quality, as Magnusson points out the location of current monuments and motor routes, but ultimately this does little to detract from the narrative. At the same time, while the book does give a good general overview of the political forces at work in Scotland, which spent a great deal of time trying to play the French off against the English, one might need to look elsewhere for a theoretical explication of the progress of Scottish history.
In addition, except for a brief coda on the new Scottish parliament, the book effectively ends with the Act of Union and does not address the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century history of the Scottish people after Scotland was no longer an independent country. While it is not really fair to criticize a book for not doing what it doesn't intend to do, it seems a shame in some ways that this very rich and often turbulent era in the history of the Scottish people is not addressed.(less)
This brilliant but flawed work of historical fiction chronicles William Tecumseh Sherman's storied march to the sea and its aftermath until the end of...moreThis brilliant but flawed work of historical fiction chronicles William Tecumseh Sherman's storied march to the sea and its aftermath until the end of the Civil War. The book is brilliant in its insight but flawed by an almost Dickensian sentimentality at times; for example, the noble African American photographer Calvin Harper is afflicted by blindness after he tries to foil an assassination attempt. Although there is death aplenty in this story, the way it is meted out suggests a poetic justice that seems out of place in a modern novel about war, where death takes both the just and the unjust indiscriminately.
The novel does convey admirably however the sense in which the fairy tale life of the Southern planters was sustained by an engine of terrible cruelty and oppression, along with Sherman's sense that the only way to end the War the South had started was to irrevocably smash not only its means for making war but the ties that held the society together. In the wake of the maelstrom that was Sherman's march, neither person, property, nor place survived. Those who were not killed were bereft; it was not so much that they lost their place in society, but that they lost the society in which they had formerly held a place.
The liberation of the slaves was of course an equally important part of the attempt to eradicate the South's institution of oppression, but it seems here to have been carried out with little forethought. Former slaves followed the Army in large numbers, while the Army was constantly trying to shake them off. Some of Doctorow's best writing deals with sentiments of the former slaves and their struggle to find a place for themselves in the postwar wasteland. They were, free, for the moment, but they were also on their own.
My new motto is "145 by July," meaning I would like to trim 50 pounds of fat accumulated over 20 years in approximately six months. In the process, I...moreMy new motto is "145 by July," meaning I would like to trim 50 pounds of fat accumulated over 20 years in approximately six months. In the process, I am hoping to see a reduction in my blood pressure and the level of triglycerides in my bloodstream to a more acceptable level. For anyone who subscribes to the conventional wisdom about dieting, this is a truly Quixotic aspiration.
Gary Taubes, in Good Calories, Bad Calories, attempts to turn the conventional wisdom on its a head. A historian of science and a writer for Science magazine, Taubes argues trenchantly that the fundamental assumptions driving popular wisdom about diet in the United States are based on bad science, and that the studies necessary to draw truly scientific conclusions about diet have not been performed.
Taubes assails the notion that every extra calorie consumed adds to the bulge on the waistline, and that the only way to lose weight is semi-starvation. Rather, he suggests, the root of our modern obesity epidemic is more likely to be found in our consumption of refined grains, refined sugar, and high fructose corn syrup, all of which are comparatively recent phenomena in evolutionary terms.
Taubes posits that weight gain has more to do with hormonal regulation of energy storage than with the simple addition of calories. In simple terms, heavy carbohydrate consumption causes an insulin rush that halts the body's use of fat for energy and encourages the conversion of glucose into fat, which both contributes to weight gain and encourages overconsumption.
Taubes' response is to encourage a high fat, low carbohydrate diet. To critics who suggest that such an approach is fraught with peril in that it increases the risk of heart disease, Taubes argues that the best science suggests that the risk of heart disease has far more to do with being overweight than with the consumption of fat or cholesterol. And, he argues, being overweight has more to do with carbohydrate consumption than fat consumption.
In one sense, Gary Taubes is the Robert Caro of diet writers. His book is so thoroughly researched, tightly written, and copiously annotated that it hard for a layman to contest his assertions. If you find a better explanation of the origin of obesity and effective strategies to counter it, read it.(less)
**spoiler alert** Sentimentality is not an appropriate reaction to the life and career of John Brown. When the question of whether "Bleeding Kansas" w...more**spoiler alert** Sentimentality is not an appropriate reaction to the life and career of John Brown. When the question of whether "Bleeding Kansas" would become a slave or a free state hung in the balance, Brown's gang tipped the balance against Missouri's pro-slavery marauders by hauling five of them from their beds and hacking them to pieces with broadswords. As a result, "Old Brown" not only terrorized the pro-slavery forces, mostly invaders from Missouri who were not above such tactics themselves, but also transformed the the stereotype in the South of Northern abolitionists from "cowardly pacifists" to "murderous fanatics."
In John Brown: Abolitionist, David Reynolds draws a straight line from John Brown's massacre at Pottawatomie through the Emancipation Proclamation to William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea and the tactics of total war that ultimately led to victory for the Union.
Brown was unusual among Northern Abolitionists in his willingness to employ violence against slaveholders; he was virtually unique in his radical passion for complete equality and full integration into American society of African Americans, Native Americans, and women. Brown lived what her preached, spending many of his later years as a member of a largely African American community in North Elba.
In the famous raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859, Brown gave the ultimate expression to his devotion to the cause of liberation of the slaves and full equality for African Americans. With a small company of whites and African Americans, Brown seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and held off several hundred state militia until he was finally overwhelmed by Col. Robert E. Lee in command of some 60 United States Marines.
In staging the raid, Brown was inspired in part by past slave revolts led by such figures as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner. That a white Northern Abolitionist would attempt to raise such a revolt on Southern soil horrified and terrified the South, giving a major impetus toward secession.
In the North, initial reaction was largely negative, as Brown's raid was derided as "suicide" and "folly." So it might have remained, were it not for the perhaps surprising response of New England Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau, who wrote a lengthy Plea for Captain John Brown, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who proclaimed that Brown's execution would "make the gallows as glorious as the cross." In the event, Brown became a hero to the North, thousands of whose troops marched South singing, "John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave." If Brown assumed an almost Christ-like status in the North, in the South he was regarded as the devil incarnate.
Reynolds' history is particularly effective as "cultural history." He deftly explores the religious antecedents to Brown, who was often characterized as an old-style Puritan in the mold of Oliver Cromwell and whose favorite sermon was John Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He persuasively explains how the influences of the New England Transcendentalists helped shape public perceptions of Brown that hardened the nation's attitudes toward war. And he has a thoughtful coda on Brown's influence on such prominent African American figures as Frederick Douglass (a friend), W.E.B. DuBois, and Malcolm X.
White opinion of Brown reached its nadir after the collapse of Reconstruction, and it is no surprise that Southern revisionist historians derided him as a lunatic. Books such as Reynolds', however, suggest that while Brown may have been capable of great brutality (albeit also great kindness), he was far from being insane, and that the nobility of his conduct during and following the raid on Harper's Ferry was a crucial element in galvanizing public determination to end the evil of slavery.(less)
Dee Brown is the conscience of America. This book, which I read many years ago, is one of the few that has stayed with me for decades. Reading Sarah V...moreDee Brown is the conscience of America. This book, which I read many years ago, is one of the few that has stayed with me for decades. Reading Sarah Vowell's account in the Wordy Shipmates of the massacre of the Pequods by the Massachusetts Bay Colony put me again in mind of this American classic, a bloody chronicle of the subsequent history of the ethnic cleansing of the American Indian. I echo the sentiments of those who say it should be required reading in every high school in America.(less)
Ronald Reagan had a great gift for reducing powerful ideas to shallow platitudes. So perhaps it is no surprise that, like some verbal reverse alchemis...moreRonald Reagan had a great gift for reducing powerful ideas to shallow platitudes. So perhaps it is no surprise that, like some verbal reverse alchemist turning gold into lead, he could debase the Puritan fear of accountability to a stern deity to a bland notion of modern celebrity. When John Winthrop spoke of a City on a Hill, it was equal parts aspiration and admonition. Yes, he intended the Massachusetts Bay Colony to be an example of godliness to others, but he was also firmly persuaded that if the Colony abandoned the the path of righteousness, that God could make it an example of another sort after the fashion of, say, Sodom and Gomorrah. Reagan, in contrast, basically viewed the "City on a Hill" as a variation of the Magic Kingdom. Reagan's platitudes are just one of many ways in which modern America has watered down and caricatured the Puritans' high minded, if sometimes oppressive, ideals.
None of which is to do justice to the bitingly funny and deeply compassionate narrative of life in early America recounted by Sarah Vowell in the Wordy Shipmates. Vowell has a keen understanding both of how radically different the Puritan outlook was from our modern sensibilities and yet how deeply ingrained Puritan notions of their special place in the world are in modern America, with both comic and disastrous consequences. And in the end, some of the characters Vowell is most fond of are the rebels and misfits - Ann Hutchinson and Roger Williams -- who were forced out of the Massachusetts to Rhode Island, where they established a precedent for religious tolerance that has been a significant thread in American history ever since.
Contrary to today's secularists, Roger Williams was not concerned with limiting the state's power in matters of conscience because he was irreligious. Rather, he was, if anything, too religious, so scrupulous about his own salvation that at times he would refuse to pray even in the company of his wife and children less they tarnish the purity of his thoughts. Williams recognized, however, that the tyranny of the state in religious matters corrupts both religion and government. False doctrines can be imposed by force, but more importantly religion comes to serve secular ends.
No account of early New England would be complete without confronting the colonists encounters with the Native Americans. Vowell acknowledges that the early epidemics that wiped out huge numbers of the native population were inevitable once initial contact was made between Indians and Europeans. However, she also observes that the subsequent genocide was not, and she vividly describes the incineration of virtually the entire Pequot tribe - men, women, and children - in one monstrous conflagration as a horrifying precedent for the centuries of massacres to come.
For any person willing to take a lighthearted look at early America, and its underside, the Wordy Shipmates is a volume not to be missed.(less)
The only universal experiences are pain and death. Those of us who are lucky experience a minimum of the former and put off the latter as long as possi...more The only universal experiences are pain and death. Those of us who are lucky experience a minimum of the former and put off the latter as long as possible. Sadly, our chances of escaping pain and evading death are not solely determined by the caprices of an indifferent nature but are also subject to the folly and more significantly the cruelty of our own verminous little species. At the outside, the Marquis de Sade was so convinced of the universality of cruelty that he made it a principle that cruelty was not only the shortest route to pleasure, power, fortune, and fame, but itself and inherently sensual and gratifying exercise. Though in our sunnier moments we may doubt the wisdom of the Good Marquis' observations, the dismal history of the past century alone — an unparalleled century of mass murder, global conflict, and exquisite torture that would make a medieval inquisitor blush — is enough to bolster the arguments of even the most faint-hearted pessimist. The recent folly in Iraq, followed by the embrace of torture, secret prisons, and extraordinary rendition, while it may be a peccadillo compared to the monstrous crimes of the mid-century past, nevertheless should quiet any Pollyanna who would exempt us from the general disease of human cruelty. So is there a reason, as Monte Python so memorably put it, to "always look on the bright side of life."
Zorba the Greek is an extraordinarily life-affirming story. It also has an rich appreciation for human folly, cruelty, and narrow-mindedness. Amidst frigid aristocrats, mad monks, brutish villagers, and vain adventurers, Zorba stands like a rock of conjoined masculine power and compassion. A former soldier, he has had his fill of killing. (An inveterate serial romantic, he has certainly not lost his interest in women.) As a mine boss, he is first to share the danger of the miners; as a man, he is the first to stand against the village on behalf of a persecuted woman. Along with his backer, a mine owner tormented by a bookish vision of Eastern mysticism, Zorba cheerfully runs one enterprise after another into the ground with great gusto and joie de vivre, literally extracting every ounce of pleasure from wine, women and song, for he is a master of the Greek instrument the Santuri and is enthralled by dance. Even as the shadow of the First World War looms, Zorba is undaunted. Better than his bookish companion or the cloddish villagers, Zorba understands not only pain and death but life, pleasure, and love. For this, he towers above the Lilliputians who surround him. (less)
Jubal Harshaw is a grumpy old man who surrounds himself with beautiful women and an electric fence in an Edenic retrea...moreSex, Space, and Salvation
For ECD.
Jubal Harshaw is a grumpy old man who surrounds himself with beautiful women and an electric fence in an Edenic retreat in the Poconos in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. This is a good thing, since he has an uncanny talent for irritating almost anybody, redeemed by a keen wit and a nose for the sweet spot in a bargain. When there is blood in the water, Harshaw smells it. The key clue, among quite a few, that this balding contrarian is a stand in for author Heinlein himself is that he largely makes his living by spontaneously dictating short stories. Although his periodic pontifications on the nature and history of almost anything gives the game away almost as easily. Harshaw, among other roles, serves as the chorus expounding upon the themes of sex, freedom, stories, and salvation that comprise the major themes of the book. The book is technologically uninspired but conceptually bold; the space motif liberates the author by allowing him to imagine a radically asexual Apollonian immortal consciousness from Mars with which to contrast short-lived, sex-crazed humanity.
The criticism of a classic, even in such a typically underrated genre as science fiction, is not to be undertaken without trepidation. In this case, Heinlein's magnum opus wears rather better than perhaps his second best-known book, Starship Troopers, in which hyperactive soldiers in futuristic body armor combat giant "bugs" for mastery of the universe after taking control of the earth. Much science fiction, and Heinlein's work is no exception, is rather glandular, driven by the kind of testosterone soaked combination of lust and aggression most typical of young men in late adolescence. The question is whether there is anything more.
For all his vaunted conservatism in other matters, Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange land is an unqualified endorsement of free love, at least, ahem, so long as it takes place between men and women, in fact, the more women the better. Big busted, round hipped, conventionally sexy women, mind you, although there is the occasional deviation, such as the carnival woman who is tattooed with religious imagery from head to toe. She becomes one of the central female figures in the book, a kind of sideshow earth mother who heads up the cult of Mars.
And why not, after all, since the carnival is also one of the central themes of the book? Not the Mardi Gras, but the fairground sideshow. The book is clear that it regards all organized religion as variations on the sideshow, scams run for suckers. The twist is that the book's hero, Michael Valentine Smith, may be expropriating religion's carny methods to lead mankind to a higher truth. Smith, abandoned on Mars as a baby and reared by Martians, possesses uncanny telekinetic powers, bodily self control, and mental discipline beyond the wildest aspirations of an Eastern mystic. In addition, the Martian culture he comes from is one in which communitarianism is so advanced, indeed so intrinsic, that notions of money and property do not exist and radical self-sacrifice is as normal as self-preservation in our society. On the parched surface of Mars, interdependence and intimacy is symbolized through the sharing of water; offering a stranger a drink makes him (or her) a lifelong blood-brother, or rather, water brother.
But the root of the power of the Man from Mars lies in a total comprehension and mental assimilation of ideas and matter under the rubric of "grokking". "Grok," which at least among the readers of science fiction has passed into the common vocabulary, signifies variously completely understanding an idea, experiencing a feeling, assimilating an object. When the Man from Mars reads an encyclopedia as part of his early education, he "groks" it by simultaneously memorizing, understanding, and expounding upon it within days. He "groks" objects so thoroughly that he can either move or disintegrate them at will, thus making him an unusually difficult target for those who wish him ill, to no avail since he is also able to "grok" their intentions while they are well out of range.
In the end, it is no wonder that Stranger in a Strange Land became a kind of "Hippie Bible" (See Wikipedia) when it came out in the sixties: organized religion is revealed as a con game; free love is the order of the day; property is a primitive evil; self-discipline and self-sacrifice are the paramount values. For all its tang of adolescent sexuality, Stranger in a Strange Land leaves one with the sense that humans need to be more loving, giving, and tolerant toward one another, because no one else is going to do it for us. In the end, there are worse words to live by than Jubal Harshaw's favorite toast, "To our noble selves, damned few of us left." (less)
Corporate Irresponsibility was probably destined never to be a popular book from the day it was written in 2001. Not only did it run counter to Ameri...more Corporate Irresponsibility was probably destined never to be a popular book from the day it was written in 2001. Not only did it run counter to American business orthodoxy, but it takes a self-consciously scholarly approach from the outset. Any book the first third of which is devoted to a Kantian analysis of the deontological justification of the corporate form is unlikely to garner a wide audience outside academia. This is a shame, because this book is a thoughtful exploration of deep rooted flaws in American corporate law and practice, flaws which are considerably more apparent now than when the book appeared.
From the outset, Mitchell questions the fiction of corporate personhood, a creation of the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century that endowed the corporation with the same legal rights as individual persons. Mitchell sees this as a tragic mistake. A corporation possessing all the legal rights of a person may incorrectly be thought to share the motivations, inhibitions, and interests of a natural person. In fact, however, the corporation, particularly in its American form, owes but one loyalty and possesses but one motivation, the maximization of short term profits and stock prices.
Mitchell questions the little examined assumption of American culture that short term profit and societal benefit are coterminous, formerly expressed inthe notorious comment that what is good for General Motors is good for the country. (Not such a popular sentiment since the recent collapse of GM.) In fact, an exclusive focus on short term stock price not only blinds the corporation (and the people to run it) to such obvious externalities as pollution, but also even to the financial decisions that would be in the best interest of the corporation and its stockholders, much less employees, customers, and the public.
One example (mine, not Mitchell's) might be the Walt Disney Corporation's relentless pursuit of extension of the copyright term in order to protect its proprietary interest in Mickey Mouse. It has long been recognized, and is acknowledged in the United States Constitution, that copyright is an appropriate temporary measure to ensure that artists and writers are compensated for their work and encouraged to produce more of it. In general, however, works should pass into the public domain as soon as possible so that ideas will be widely disseminated and older works can inspire new ones. (Shakespeare might never have written a line if he had been subjected to a rigorous enforcement of today's copyright laws. The author of the ur-Hamlet would no doubt have sued!) An individual artist only needs to have an artificial monopoly on his creative work for the duration of his lifetime, or perhaps a little longer to provide for his children. This is consistent with the principle of limited copyright, and flesh and blood is likely to demand little more. Only the corporation, which exists in perpetuity, or until dissolution do us part, is likely to demand a perpetual copyright with no regard for the free flow of information or the general welfare, although it may cloak itself in the rights of the very artists it exploits through draconian distribution contracts. The corporation knows no conscience, only profit.
Under these circumstances, the incentives for corporate behavior (or misbehavior) make a real difference in light of the absence of the kind of restraint normally to be expected from individuals. Unfortunately, the corporation in its American form takes to extremes an emphasis on short term stock price and exclusive obligation to shareholders that exacerbates corporate asocial (or antisocial) tendencies. While there seems to be consensus that long-term planning is necessary for the long-term health of corporations, the insatiable demand of stockholders for short-term returns can clearly undermine the long-term health of the corporation. Obvious examples include such cost-cutting measures as slashing the research department and reductions-in-force of necessary personnel. On another level, the focus on short-term profit encourages America's takeover culture, in which companies that do not maximize their short-term stock price are susceptible to hostile takeover and leveraged buyouts that saddle them with massive debt. (The argument that performance is driven by takeover threats is, of course, tautological so long as performance is primarily measured in short-term returns.)
To address the distortions that focusing on short-term stock price imposes on corporate behavior, a central reform that Mitchell proposes is to reduce the influence of stockholders on corporate governance. Ideally, Mitchell argues, one could largely eliminate it by making corporate boards self-perpetuating. The Yale Corporation, which governs Yale University, is largely run this way (although the alumni representative is elected). Shareholders would naturally, retain the power to invest or disinvest in the corporation so as to protect their investment, although on the investor side of the equation, Mitchell also proposes a variety of incentives to curb day trading and other short-term trading that distort the market rather than improving market efficiency. Mitchell's reform of corporate law would ideally act to encourage longterm planning by corporate boards and long-term investing by stockholders. Recognizing that it is unlikely that stockholders would ever completely relinquish the power to elect the board, Mitchell offers as a compromise elections that would occur not annually, but only after the board had served a term of several years. At the same time, Mitchell proposes to extend the amount of time between reports, rather than issuing them quarterly, to encourage a longer view on the part of investors. (However, one might question whether modifying behavior by withholding information is an effective or desirable strategy.)
Although the book is not long, Mitchell does deal with a host of other issues, including the disgusting tendency toward self-dealing that has lately so outraged the public, as managers award themselves massive bonuses even as their companies go under. Mitchell outlines the problem as inherent in the wide scope given board members under the "business judgment rule," under which conflicts of interest on the part of board members can be excused if they are approved by a majority of the "non-interested" board members. Given the reciprocity that characterizes corporate boards, allowing the Courts to abdicate their oversight responsibility in the name of the business judgment rule is a recipe for institutionalizing conflict of interest. Mitchell endorses stricter legal oversight of boards to regulate their conduct, but fundamentally is more concerned with how corporations behave within society than with oversight of the personal conduct of board members.
A short review does not do justice to this dense but penetrating analysis of the tectonic flaws of America's corporate structure, an analysis that has proved as prescient as it is generally unheeded. Timely today, it would have been more timely reading for America's policymakers when it came out. (less)
Christopher Buckley's bittersweet memoir of his final year with his stylish mother and famously conservative father lends a human scale to a couple t...more Christopher Buckley's bittersweet memoir of his final year with his stylish mother and famously conservative father lends a human scale to a couple that so often appeared larger than life. Personally, I was never particularly enamoured of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s politics or even his books, despite being piqued by God and Man at Yale and amused on occasion by the capers of fictional CIA agent Blackford Oakes. However, from the time I was a small boy who loved big words, I was flattered to be compared favorably to the legendarily eloquent Buckley, for whom it was perfectly natural to toss off a word like "postprandial" when one intended to take a stroll after a lunch. (Despite his legendary command of the English language, it was apparently his third language.) In addition, although no sailor myself, I have always had an outsized admiration for anyone who could captain or navigate a wind-borne vessel. Ironically, I have not read Buckley's celebrated sailing books, but I have admired his exploits on the water based on second-hand accounts. Finally, anyone who is able to make a good living through his pen earns a certain amount of admiration from me. As Samuel Johnson famously said, "No one but a blockhead would write except for money."
There are few more difficult ways to grow up than as the son of a famous father and a socialite mother. Winston Churchill is perhaps the most notable example, having admired from afar his imperious, syphilitic father and fashionable, flirtatious mother -- reportedly a consort of no less than than the King of England. Christopher Buckley, similar in kind if not degree, seasons his admiration for his famous parents with a clear-eyed and painful acknowledgment of their many shortcomings public and private. Patricia Buckley, once one of New York's most celebrated hostesses, apparently frequently found it impossible to distinguish between truth and fiction on topics as diverse as her reasons for not finishing her college education at Vassar to visits from the Royal Family in her youth.
Christopher's Buckley's relationship with his mother was often stormy, but his complex blend of admiration and antagonism toward his father is the potent cocktail that really fuels this story and carries it to its poignant conclusion. Bill Buckley's Olympian detachment from quotidian concerns resulted in over 90 books, thousands of pages of articles, hundreds of television appearances, and friends and acquaintances among the most celebrated persons of the day. Coupled with Buckley's steadfast convictions, conservative views, and Catholic certitude, Buckley's sense of himself could be alternately entrancing and insufferable. And his personal recklessness in his boat and in his car whether his family was aboard or not bespeaks a level of self-absorption that contrasts sharply with moments of familial generosity. Ultimately, of course, laboring as an author in the shadow of your more famous father, subject to criticism alternately enthusiastic and capriciously cruel, is a cross no son should have to bear, even if it is assumed voluntarily.
Christopher Buckley, despite the traces of bitterness that lace this confection, writes with wit, grace, and self-awareness of his attempt to reconcile himself to the complex emotional inheritance bequeathed to him by his parents. In doing so, he seems ultimately to come to terms with the repeated betrayals inflicted on him by his prevaricating mother. The wounds left by a half century of fighting and making up with his father require a slower reconciliation, brought about in part by his father's slow physical decline and the constant devotion it evoked. To his credit, the senior Buckley, whose unfailing mental acumen carried him through the completion of biographies of Goldwater and Reagan even as he succumbed to kidney failure, diabetes, skin cancer, and general physical enfeeblement, was mostly good-humored and gracious toward his son as he approached his end. In the end, the younger Buckley's vocation as a humorist and the elder Buckley's personal civility and generosity shine through the tangled emotions of this real life soap opera featuring one of America's first families. (less)
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