30 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 30th, 2008 @ 02:14:30 pm, using 1669 words, 60 views
I’ve frequently referenced the work and thought of Reinhold Niebuhr here, most recently, I think, in drawing comparisons between Lincoln’s perspective and actions and the ethics and philosophy at the heart of Niebuhr’s “The Serenity Prayer.” I also heralded Andrew Bacevich’s recent The Limits of Power in large part for its application of Niebuhr’s realistic realism (as opposed to pretenders in international relations like Kissinger and his orbiting satellites). Bacevich is the foremost spokesperson for Niebuhr in our national discourse right now, not nearly loud or recognized enough at the moment, but reality does have a way of enforcing realism historically, which will bring the world back to Niebuhr sooner rather than later. I also mentioned recently that Obama claims to be an admirer, quoted in fact as saying he got from Niebuhr “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction.”
Well, okay. As I noted before, it’s telling that Obama reads Niebuhr, knows The Children of Light, The Children of Darkness apparently and comes away with only half of Niebuhr’s message, the part that plays best politically. The other half is the explicit awareness that WE are at heart capable of great evil, not just those evil people obstructing us and making realization of our difficulties in righting the world’s wrongs so frustrating. It’s like he’s taken this “we’re all black and we’re all white” unity thing and made us the “good people” and placed the evil somewhere out there “in the world” rather than inside us all, which is Niebuhr’s real point and constant battle. And the theme of his The Irony of American History, the book the Obama quote above came from as a blurb and a book that Bacevich provides the new intro to in its reissue from its original 1952 edition, pointing out its remaining extraordinary relevance to today, both in the mess we’ve made of virtually everything and in the direction it gives for the way out. One of Niebuhr’s shorter books, and written in his easily handled style, unlike his theological works, it’s worth all the time you can give it and more. To give you a sense of how it plays and to back up what I’m saying, I’ll drop a few of its better known and/or more prescient paragraphs on you below. It’ll be up to you to go get the book and fill in the gaps. And Obama.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
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Perhaps the real difficulty in both the communist and the liberal dreams of a “rationally ordered” historic process is that the modern man lacks the humility to accept the fact that the whole drama of history is enacted in a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or management. It is a drama in which fragmentary meanings can be discerned within a penumbra of mystery; and in which specific duties and responsibilities can be undertaken within a vast web of relations which are beyond our powers.
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The second weakness in the American political and economic situation is that the lip service which the whole culture pays to the principles of laissez-faire makes for tardiness in dealing with the instability of a free economy, when the perils of inflation or deflation arise. They are finally dealt with pragmatically; but not before the consequences of inaction have become very apparent. Some believe that the lessons taught in the great depression of 1929 have been so well learned that a recurrence of such a catastrophe is impossible; but it is not altogether certain that this is true.
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As a religion this faith generates what in Christian terms is regarded as the very essence of sin. It identifies the interests of a particular self or a particular force in history with the final purposes of the God of history.
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Democracy in the West is both a political system and a way of life. It requires a high degree of literacy among its citizens, a sense of the dignity of the individual but also a sense of his reponsibility to a wider community than his family. The bourgeois versions of the concept of dignity of the individual are frequently defective. Sometimes they unduly subordinate the sense of community to the idea of the worth of the individual; sometimes they illicitly identify the dignity with the virtue of the individual. Therefore our preaching of democracy frequently seems highly irrelevant to broken or partially reconstructed communities who are desperately seeking for a viable structure for their common life.
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It is characteristic of human nature, whether in its individual or collective expression, that it has no possibility of exercising power, without running the danger of overestimating the purity of the wisdom which directs it.
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Such a measured judgment upon the virtues and perils of America’s position in the world community accurately describes the hazards of our position in the world. Our moral perils are not those of conscious malice or the explicit lust for power. They are the perils which can be understood only if we realize the ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too complacently relied upon; and of power to become vexatious if the wisdom which directs it is trusted too confidently. The ironic elements in American history can be overcome, in short, only if American idealism comes to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historic configurations of power, and the mixture of good and evil in all human virtue. America’s moral and spiritual success in relating itself creatively to a world community requires, not so much a guard against the gross vices, about which the idealists warn us, as a reorientation of the whole structure of our idealism. That idealism is too oblivious of the ironic perils to which human virtue, wisdom and power are subject. It is too certain that there is a straight path toward the goal of human happiness; too confident of the wisdom and idealism which prompt men and nations toward that goal; and too blind to the curious compounds of good and evil in which the actions of the best men and nations abound.
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We might be driven to hysteria by [the tortuous course of history’s] inevitable frustration. We might be tempted to bring the whole of modern history to a tragic conclusion by one final and mighty effort to overcome its frustrations. The political term for such an effort is “preventive war.” It is not an immediate temptation; but it could become so in the next decade or so.
A democracy can not of course, engage in an explicit preventive war. But military leadership can heighten crises to the point where war becomes unavoidable.
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Nations find it even more difficult than individuals to preserve sanity when confronted with a resolute and unscrupulous foe. Hatred disturbs all residual serenity of spirit and vindictiveness muddies every pool of sanity. In the present situation even the sanest of our statesmen have found it convenient to conform their policies to the public temper of fear and hatred which the most vulgar of our politicians have generated or exploited. Constant proof is required that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor. . . . For naive idealists are always so preoccupied with their own virtues that they have no residual awareness of the common characteristics in all human foibles and frailties and could not bear to be reminded that there is a hidden kinship between the vices of even the most vicious and the virtues of even the most upright.
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All subsequent human actions are infected with a pretentious denial of human limits. But the actions of those who are particularly wise or mighty or righteous fall under special condemnation. The builders of the Tower of Babel are scattered by a confusion of tongues because they sought to build a tower which would reach into the heavens. The possible destruction of a technical civilization, of which the “skyscraper” [or “Twin Towers"???] is a neat symbol, may become a modern analogue to the Tower of Babel.
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There is, in short, even in a conflict with a foe with whom we have little in common the possibility and necessity of living in a dimension of meaning in which the urgencies of the struggle are subordinated to a sense of awe before the vastness of the historical drama in which we are jointly involved; to a sense of modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of its perplexities; to a sense of contrition about the common human frailties and foibles which lie at the foundation of both the enemy’s demonry and our vanities; and to a sense of gratitude for the divine mercies which are promised to those who humble themselves.
Strangely enough, none of the insights derived from this faith are finally contradictory to our purpose and duty of preserving our civilizaton. They are, in fact, prerequisites for saving it. For it we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a great nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.
26 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 26th, 2008 @ 05:57:23 pm, using 268 words, 50 views
As you gorge tomorrow in thanks of food, please keep in mind that, although other presidents had proclaimed days of Thanksgiving, it was Abe’s proclamation that basically made the day a holiday. And as you finish the food and vow to fast for several following days, please note that Abe also proclaimed a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation (back in the pre-Oprah days when humility and even humiliation were seen as ways of keeping us from saying stupid things like “I have to be my own best friend” and “I can’t love someone else until I love myself"). Before you go wild proclaiming yourself that this proved that Abe was a Believer and such, please note that “Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln’s son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.” (The Thanksgiving proclamation, with its references to God, was written by William Seward.) Still, it does fit with Abe’s general disposition of not asserting human knowledge beyond human knowledge and the importance of a basic humble stance in facing the world. And finally, ask yourself what it says about us that the Thanksgiving holiday took off, the one where we marvel at all the things we have to be thankful for, but the one emphasizing the need to be humble and to pray and think about our place within the planetry never did.
Happy Thanksgiving.
24 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 24th, 2008 @ 05:39:45 pm, using 81 words, 45 views
Just a quick note of the new list up at My Mind on Books giving us the basics on a whole lot of new (just out there and about to be out there) books on cognitive science that you might be interested in. My Mind does a very nice job keeping us up-to-date about the cognitive literature, with some quick reviews and notices. You should check it out regularly, but, for now, go see what might be your next mind-blowing read.
21 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 21st, 2008 @ 07:36:32 pm, using 268 words, 47 views
I mentioned the neuroNARRATIVE blog the other day as a great place to find some good book reviews, and they have a quickie on Seth Godin’s Tribes that makes it sound worth looking into. But the best reason to go over there right now (!) is the interview they have with Mary Roach, the way too cute author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which we originally posted on here and apparently features her own sex scene with her hubby, while monitored by researchers. Very interesting young woman. Below is her answer to a question about that scene, which gives you a nice feel (sorry) for the way she does her work. Dare you not to pick it up and peruse the next time you’re in the bookstore.
You’ve been called “a writer impervious to embarrassment,” and no doubt you’ve earned the title. While working on Bonk, was there anything that turned you a few shades of red (or even came close)?
The obvious answer would be the 4-D coital ultrasound imaging that I volunteered Ed and myself for. It actually wasn’t embarrassing; because it honestly didn’t seem like sex. It felt like some strange, awkward medical procedure that you know will be over in 20 minutes, and you’re just going to get through it. Mostly I felt guilty for dragging Ed into it. He was the one with the burden of performance. I was taking notes through it all. Also, I knew how much fun it was going to be to write up the scene, and that helped mitigate the embarrassment.
11 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 11th, 2008 @ 03:58:29 pm, using 521 words, 88 views
Boy, talk about timing your book’s debut at the right time. Jeff Madrick, one of the few consistently sensible econ writers around, has dropped his The Case for Big Government into the swirl of talk about what Obama should be doing, and it should be required reading for everyone in the new administration and for anyone who wants hope that we can deal with the waves of difficulties sweeping in for the next several years.
Madrick has a secret weapon–he deals with reality. And the reality of American history is that Big Government involvement in our economy, the kind that regulates effectively, builds solid and secure infrastructure and networks for development, and takes cares of its best resources, its people, has made us what we are, and has always created the seed corn that Republicans and “little government” (except for us and what we want) people have subsequently squandered time after time. The temptation to listen to the usual, clueless Beltway yappers will be strong, but the Madricks of the world may have found their time. We tried the Hoover approach before, and talked FDR into doing far less than was really needed until WWII forced him to think big, not just mildly different. The case is there for those who want to listen and to prevent a repeat. This review will get you interested, as will a couple of quotes to read the whole review:
Author Jeff Madrick argues that government involvement in economic affairs is not only beneficial in times of crisis, but can also enhance long-term economic growth by giving incentives for industries and households to prosper.
Rather than being ashamed of government, Madrick says Americans should encourage significant federal spending in areas like health, education and infrastructure – things that are not often adequately provided by the markets.
“Active and sizable government has often been essential to growth and prosperity among the world’s rich nations,” writes Mardick, who is the editor of Challenge Magazine and director of policy research at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis in New York.
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“Writers alarm the public merely by telling them how large government is,” he says. “It reflects a willful misreading of history. A complex economy requires such a government to function.”
We may be blundering fortuitously into a good kind of perfect storm, a time in which we desperately need to junk old ideas and investments for those able to transition us into the world of changed energy, weather, food, water, and culture that we face in the coming decades. That has been virtually impossible to get done without all the crap and Treasury looting that the Big Business types and their enablers in the current administration have been perpetrating. But, as reality becomes clearer even to the reality-challenged, or some of them anyway, and the masses suddenly wrenched away from “Survivor” and Britney, the need for change has been recently spoken (except in Oklahoma and Utah). Obama will be getting tons of free advice. He might have to pay for this book, but it will be worth every bit as much as he’s getting gratis. Probably more.
09 November 2008
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mdconnelly (
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Published on November 9th, 2008 @ 07:54:42 am, using 770 words, 86 views
One of the points I make here frequently in these Abe reviews is that current lit on him often echoes previous works, not that that’s unusual for a subject like Lincoln over time. I do have problems with people ignoring the fact, though, and heaping praise on a well-networked Doris Kearns Goodwin when her thesis about Lincoln’s “genius” in keeping friends close and enemies closer has been discussed by many others. Likewise, the current efforts by people like Michael Lind and Allen Guelzo to claim Lincoln for the more conservative side of our national family in the face of the Obamas who look to Abe for guidance have been reflected for years in works by John Patrick Diggins (conservative) and J. David Greenstone (liberal) (seriously, what’s with all the three name authors???).
One of the very major points along that line is that the present infatuation with the possibility of Abe being more religious and even born-again than anyone found serious evidence for in nearly 200 years. Yes, Abe had imbibed a deterministic, fatalistic view of the world from his religious upbringing and developed a view of an awesome force in the universe that had purposes far beyond human comprehension. Not unique to “nonbelievers” of what passes as religious in this world, though. Yes, Abe cited Biblical references frequently, just as anyone whose major media growing up were Biblical stories and catchy King James-isms. But those who cite those references are being highly selective, for whatever purposes. Abe was clearly influenced by more of what he read and absorbed over his life than simply Bible verses and tales. He also frequently quoted Robert Burns and other poetry, morals found in raunchy jokes, and, most importantly, Shakespeare. You might as well claim that he believed in Shakespeare as in Jesus. Those who find Lincoln becoming more “spiritual” as he deal with the world up to his final years were undoubtedly right, but also wrong if they insist that the spiritual can only be found in religion.
A new book by Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, makes the point better than I do and probably more believably since I’m just a doof writing on a blog. This review captures the book and the points well. Here are just a couple to get you going. The full picture is in the whole review.
Kaplan does a good job of tracing the young man’s reading habits, identifying favorite books and noting their influence on the mature politician. Lincoln began with the Bible and John Bunyan’s religious allegory, “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Despite the Christian background, though, he was hardly devout: He learned from Christian classics a prose style that swells into poetry, but, as Kaplan explains, “any faith he had had in the literal truth of biblical claims slipped away.” He was never a churchgoer and, though he knew the persuasive power of a citation from Scripture, he didn’t take theology seriously.
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Poetry, on the other hand, was a lifelong passion. He adored the moody atmosphere of Thomas Gray, the satiric bite of Alexander Pope, the earthy and folksy language of Robert Burns, the lyric beauty of Lord Byron. He also had favorites among more recent American poets: A friend reported that, as a young lawyer, he “carried Poe around” as he traveled, “read and loved the Raven – repeated it over & over.”
One writer, though, dominated Lincoln’s mind: Shakespeare, whose works he read until he learned many passages by heart. Kaplan chronicles Shakespearean echoes in many of his writings, referring to political speeches like his famous second inaugural address ("With malice toward none, with charity for all") as “Shakespearean soliloquies of a sort.” More important, Lincoln used the plays to make sense of the world. He thought about the U.S. Civil War with the aid of Shakespeare’s “Henry VI” plays, viewed racial difference through the lens of “Othello” and human nature itself through “Hamlet.”
Keep all this in mind the next time you read biographers pulling out snippets here and ax-grinding quotes there to prove that Lincoln would have gone to their church or couldn’t have been as nonChristian as the people who knew him said he was. The greatness of Lincoln was his openness to the equality of human frailty, his own and others, and his humility about human intention, tempered by the realization, fostered by his passion and topics for reading, that we have to go on anyway and try to do the best we can as we can know it. Yes, you get that from the Bible. And Robert Burns. And Shakespeare. Let’s be fair to them all, okay?
08 November 2008
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Published on November 8th, 2008 @ 08:12:46 am, using 976 words, 88 views
Brian Dirck, notable Lincoln scholar and biographer, continues his admirable work at his blog on Abe as Lincoln’s bicentennial comes up next year with a lot of good posts you should check out, including some interesting insights on the Obama/Lincoln connection. A couple of them right now deal with new Abe books. This one, on John Soto’s The Physical Lincoln Complete, is a nice, quick review about Abe’s ailments, speculated and real, as analyzed by a real doctor, the physician kind. We’ve heard a lot over the last several years about possible illnesses, physical and psychological, that Lincoln may have had, and Soto adds to the list while apparently debunking pretty well the other contenders. Here’s a bit of what Dirck has to say, although, as always, you’re missing a great deal if you don’t read the whole thing:
Sotos is a physician who has devoted a great deal of his time, energy, and expertise to investigate the exact nature of Lincoln’s physiology. He concludes that Lincoln did not have Marfan’s Syndrome (a popular diagnosis these days), nor did he suffer from the acute, chronic clinical depression identified by Joshua Shenk and others. Instead, Sotos argues, Lincoln suffered from a very rare genetic disorder that resembles Marfan’s, called MEN2B. Sotos also concludes that Lincoln would likely have died within a few months of his being shot (1865 or 1866).
In addition to this, the second half of Sotos’ book provides an exhaustive physical and medical history of Lincoln, which ties together in one place the available primary source evidence concerning everything from Lincoln’s childhood mishaps, to his wartime bout with smallpox, to his family’s available medical history.
This section of the review gives you more detail while tipping you off to the good writing that Dirck himself brings to the blog and to his own work on Lincoln:
At least as far as my limited medical knowledge can help me judge. I’m a rank amateur at such things, of course–heck, I can’t even stand to watch the surgery scenes in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy–but Sotos seems to be on strong ground here. As a Lincoln expert, I can say that I don’t think Sotos misuses or distorts the available historical evidence; he’s aware of the weaknesses and the strengths of that evidence, and says so in a forthright fashion.
I also found his assessment of Lincoln’s depression interesting, and likewise fairly convincing. He suggests that Lincoln’s depressive episodes did not meet the criteria for clinical “chronic depression,” and I think this is about correct. That is to say, Lincoln’s depressions, while severe and at times debilitating, weren’t lifelong or persistent in nature.
What’s his bottom line on the book? Did you not read that “go read the whole thing” thing?
Another post provides us an interview with Richard Lawrence Miller, one of those three name academics, whose Lincoln and His World: Prairie Politician, 1834-1842 sounds like its a valuable addition to the pre-president campaign and administration that most of the literature deals with. Most Americans don’t know much if anything about Abe’s career in the Illinois legislature where much of his considerable skill and learning as a politician were developed. So much of what we focus on with Lincoln deals with the Civil War that we don’t come away with a full understanding of his total philosophy and perspective or of his non-War achievements. Going back to his state legislative days fills in much of this gap and shows the foundation for how the rest of him got to be. Miller provides his own takes on Lincoln’s relationships with Ann Rutledge and with Mary Todd and discusses the far more democratic nature of the political process then than now. Here are a couple of other quotes, but don’t make me have to tell you about reading the whole thing again:
My latest book concentrates on Lincoln’s state legislature years and reveals a lot about his actions. The revelation comes partly from deep examination of primary sources, and partly from interpretations influenced by my political experience. (I’ve worked with many a state legislator, and they seem no different now than in the 1830s.)
For example, Lincoln and colleagues created a government-sponsored railway project that ruined state finances by expending millions of dollars without producing more than a few miles of railroad. Generally that project is portrayed as a folly and a failure. If you view its purpose as railway production, that judgment is correct. My political background helps me to see the project differently, as having little to do with railroads. I portray it as a means of redistributing wealth and of capturing the recipients’ votes. From that perspective the program was a rousing success.
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I cannot overstate the contempt and hatred I feel toward Douglas. He was so dishonest. In public debate his specialty was to indignantly deny something he had never been accused of, twist an opponent’s statement into something the person never meant, and change the definition of terms so as to escape accountability. By those techniques he would win an argument, his lies being unapparent in the heat of the moment.
Douglas was a creature of blind ambition. He had no political beliefs. Anything he proclaimed, no matter how fervently, was subject to instant modification if the change would increase his personal power. He wasn’t immoral. He was amoral. That made him anyone’s potential tool. When the Slave Power wanted the Kansas–Nebraska Act, they knew who to turn to.
I like this guy, even with his three names. Douglas really was a tool to the highest degree. It’s refreshing to see an historian who isn’t blinded by “greatness” and afraid to issue a judgment on immoral politicians. Might just buy that book. Owe Dirck a thanks. Have you gone over there to read more yet?
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