March 2004 Bookshelf
A biography of Lenin, an excellent analysis of power by Noam Chomsky, a not-so-hot analysis of 9-11 by Noam Chomsky, a good piece of mind-candy, a Nobel Prize winning economist’s treatise on globalization, some of the questions of athiests in relation to Christianity, C.S. Lewis’ The Weight of Glory, a wonderful book about life in Afghanistan and others in the March 2004 Bookshelf.
Lenin: A Biography by Robert Service
Having spent a good amount of time in the last six months studying Stalin and the gulag system, I felt it was important to begin tracing back how Stalin came to power, and what precipitated the social revolution that left Communism in power within Russia. In order to pursue such an analysis, it was necessary to explore the man who was Lenin.
This biography is incredibly thorough, and is entirely fixated on Lenin. In fact, that would be my one complaint. The book was so thoroughly focused on Lenin (and I can appreciate how silly this must sound as the book was a biography of Lenin), that it missed properly characterizing what was going on in Russia as Lenin came to power. In certain sections the book did discuss what was taking place in Russia, but usually only within the very limited scope of how Lenin was responding to the problem. I felt the narrative on Lenin would have benefited from an expanded discussion of what was going on socially within Russia as Lenin came to power. This weakness of the book is perhaps exacerbated by the fact (something I did not know) that Lenin lived for 18 years outside of Russia as an adult man. As his ideology was developing he was fully outside of Russian culture.
Lenin was an average ideologue, but he was an above-average politician. His works on political philosophy, as Service says, were barely above the standard of a college student. They were not insightful and were not worthy of prominent distinction. Lenin was a consummate politician who did believe in the essential goals of socialism.
I wonder if Lenin would have been troubled at what Stalin did with the gulag system knowing that Lenin was a political pragmatist. He did not allow Stalin to rise to power on accident. Did he see Stalin as a balance against Trotski who Lenin may have feared would be more willing to compromise on the core Marxist principles he held so dear? The life of Lenin illustrates the core problem of socialism: it has never been embraced by people who did not prove to be brutally totalitarian and completely unwilling to allow individuality. My next step is to explore the writings of Marx for myself.
While waiting for a flight from London to Chicago I picked up this book from an airport bookshop. Perhaps one of the best books I have read in the last year. Thoroughly provocative but very centered on social activism, individuals making a difference, and a meaningful analysis of how powerful people act to preserve power.
The book is a compilation of speaking engagements Dr. Chomsky gave around the US and Canada and is written in a question and answer format. The format was ideal for me as most of the time a question would be in response to something he said, and most of the time the question was the one I had myself.
I am not going to attempt to offer a detailed analysis of his book here because it covers too many topics to make a review meaningful. What I would suggest is that the book is worth reading for all who claim to be educated on world affairs, politics, and “understanding power.” Dr. Chomsky goes to quite some length to footnote his work; his notes can be found here.
Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz
This book was an interesting follow-on to my recent reading of Understanding Power. Stiglitz is suggested to be one of the economists who are offering a viable economic policy in contrast to Keynesian economics (”…lack of sufficient aggregate demand explained economic downturns; government policies could help stimulate aggregate demand. In cases where monetary policy is ineffective, governments could rely on fiscal policies, either by increasing expenditures or cutting taxes.”). I would disagree that the point of Stiglitz’s book is to provide an alternative view of Keynesian economic policy in the form of a fundamentally new economic theory; rather, what Stiglitz suggests is that we must fundamentally rethink the policies of two international organizations: the IMF and World Bank.
His book supports this foundational argument by showcasing the IMF and World Bank’s responses to the 1997 East Asia Crisis and the Russian attempts at becoming a quasi-capitalist state. In both of these cases his arguments are very persuasive and very damning. Stiglitz does a superb job of balancing his discussion with the good against the bad of globalization - this book should serve as a cautionary tale about how the IMF and World Bank is not really being driven from any sense of altruism. If that is the case, it again reinforces those people who believe both institutions act only to protect the powerful and to maximize the wealth of those already in positions of enormous wealth.
What I resonated most with, especially given my limited but personal experiences in Romania and Moldova, is the argument he presented about gradually but methodologically staging transitions from centrally controlled economies like those in Communist Eastern Europe and Russia, to genuine capitalist market economies like those in Western Europe, parts of Asia and America. His primary argument in these parts of the book is to take the locals into the policy discussion early and often, and to be reasonable about how to make the transition given the local political, cultural, social and economic status.
If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists? By R. C. Sproul
R.C. Sproul completes an introductory analysis of the primary arguments put forward by four atheist thinkers in their complaints against the belief in God. The four positions he evaluates are Sigmund Freud (religion is based in personal guilt), Karl Marx (religion is the “opiate” of the masses), Ludwig Feuerback (religion is man’s way of achieving his own wishes) and Friedrich Nietzsche (religion is because man is weak and unwilling to become the ubermenscht he is capable of becoming).
The book is very charitable in its evaluation of these four positions, in large part because each of them are rebelling largely against religion as an institution. In each of these four positions, I have to admit I find much to agree with regarding their anger, frustration and disillusionment with religion. It is a mistake not to view these thinkers as the “canary in the mind” with respect to the toxicity of religion in a life of spirituality.
Where I believe these post-Enlightenment, rationalist, atheist-existential thinkers go wrong is in the belief that it is somehow wrong to embrace thoughts of religion that are predicated on faith. Where they see a need to believe as a weakness, I would suggest this need is common to all of mankind (them included if you read their works and study their lives in totality), and that an admission of weakness is perhaps a sign of wisdom. I am reminded of those who have known what being a sacrificial hero means - within their discussion is never the absence of fear, dread and horror. In a similar vein, I do not believe my need to belief is necessarily a sign that I am not a rational thinker.
Sproul has a wonderful discussion of guilt and nakedness that has spiritual truth within it that I am still pondering.
“Is it any wonder that such a God is intimidating to man? Kierkegaard’s words are words of comfort, yet there is no getting around the fact that God can bless us and cover us with His love. We must be seen - completely - by Him. Sartre was right when he spoke of the awkward position man is in if he is observed by God. But Sartre’s argument has little to say about whether this ‘Unviewed Viewer’ actually exists. It has much to say about the mind of Sartre and others who, living on wishful thinking, deny the reality of the God whose gaze they cannot escape.” (page 128)
In God We Trust: But Only As a Last Resort by Daniel Owens
This was a good reminder of the essentials of the Christian life. When wrapped up in theological discussions, it can be too easy forget that the pursuit of God is not purely intellectual and ethereal, it is practical and immediate. Books like this serve to bring us back to the basics of a life of faith.
Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard
This book was a challenge to get through in part because it makes no effort to hide the fact that becoming Christ-like is a process, one that requires constant monitoring, re-evaluation and is a journey born of a conscious decision to make day-to-day choices that either draw us closer to Christ or push us farther away. Willard has obviously given much thought to what it means to become Christ-like, and I am thankful for his investment in putting his thoughts and experiences on paper. At times I felt that he was somewhat guilty of employing reductionism in his arguments - suggesting a methodological sequence to how one becomes like Christ. I do not know if I would follow his steps, and I think we have to be careful to make sure we do not over-simplify what becoming Christ entails for people with disparate backgrounds, challenges, and problems.
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
Little works of literature resonate with me more than those of C.S. Lewis. In them I am challenged, uplifted and frustrated at a man whose insight into the Christian life is both simple but complex. It is simple in that it is as straight-forward as Christ telling the rich young ruler to sell all he had in order to be pure of heart. It is complex in that such a sacrifice does not come easily to someone whose sense of self-worth and ambition has not been replaced with a Christ-centric view of this life, and of the next.
In his essay “Learning in War Time” an excerpt of warning to people such as myself:
“The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the impulse pure and disinterested. That is the great difficulty. As the author of the Theologia Germanica says, we may come to love knowledge - our knowing - more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar’s life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived.” (page 57)
In a speech given to a pacifist society within England during the advent of World War II, Lewis gives an insight into Christ’s command to “turn the other cheek”: “I think the meaning of the words was perfectly clear - ‘Insofar as you are simply an angry man who has been hurt, mortify your anger and do not hit back.’” (page 86)
Lewis sounds a note of caution relative to what issues we allow ourselves to be divided over within the Church. It is a worthwhile point to make relative to the stresses the Church finds herself struggling with currently:
“What did the early Christians believe? Did they believe that God really has a material palace in the sky and that He received His Son in a decorated state chair placed a little to the right of His own?-or did they not? The answer is that the alternative we are offering them was probably never present to their minds at all … But still the question was raised, of course, people believed neither the one answer nor the other. There is no more tiresome error in the history of thought than to try to sort our ancestors on to this or that side of a distinction which was not in their minds at all. You are asking a question to which no answer exists.” (page 131)
Lewis’ defense of mystery and miracles in lieu of pure rationalism and scientific reductionism is profound:
“…I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole. Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of that primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come, by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I Not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.” (page 139)
Perhaps my favorite part of this book reflects why I love Lewis: his heart was that of the eternal child, the lover of stories, the embracer of mythology. And to his sense of spirituality he brought his love of lore. He viewed the Bible as ultimate truth, but he also recognized the potential for portions of it to be mythology used to communicate truth.
“We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great Pagan teachers and myth makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story - the theme of incarnation, death, and rebirth. And the differences between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and the Christ Himself is much what we should expect to find. The Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage, whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other. It is like watching something come gradually into focus; first it hangs in the clouds of myth and ritual, vast and vague, then it condenses, grows hard and in a sense small, as a historical event in the first century Palestine. This gradual focusing goes on even in side the Christian tradition itself. The earliest stratum of the Old Testament contains many truths in a form which I take to be legendary, or even mythical - hanging in the clouds, but gradually the truth condenses, becomes more and more historical. From things like Noah’s Ark or the sun standing still upon Ajalon, you come down to the court memoirs of King David. Finally you reach the New Testament and history reigns supreme, and the Truth is incarnate. It is not an accidental resemblance that what, from the point of view of being, is stated in the form ‘God became Man,’ should involve, from the point of view of human knowledge, the statement ‘Myth became Fact.’” (pages 128-129).
I found this book, more of a pamphlet (128 pages) to be honest, somewhat uneven and repetitious. Perhaps this is because it was simply the result of a combination of interviews Dr. Chomsky provided to various media outlets. As a result of this forum, it became tedious to review the same themes again and again. Also, the uneven handling of 9-11 may be somewhat the result of the timing of this book - not sufficient time after the events being analyzed to offer Dr. Chomsky’s typical insightfulness.
The book is not without comments that more Americans need to hear and reflect upon, in particular the answer to the question of “why do they [your definition of “they” will be your own personal prejudice - mine included] hate us?”. One section of the book is worth repeating:
“It is convenient for Western intellectuals to speak of ‘deeper causes’ such as hatred of Western values and progress. That is a useful way to avoid questions about the origin of the bin Laden network itself, and about the practices that lead to anger, fear, and desperation throughout the region, and provide a reservoir from which radical Islamic terrorist cells can sometimes draw. Since the answers to these questions are rather clear, and are inconsistent with preferred doctrine, it is better to dismiss the questions as ‘superficial’ and ‘insignificant,’ and to turn to ‘deeper causes’ that are in fact more superficial, even insofar as they are relevant.”
Those familiar with Dr. Chomsky’s work will find little new in this book; those who are unfamiliar with Dr. Chomsky’s work, or who feel that Sean Hannity constitutes well reasoned geo-political dialogue will be well-challenged to review this book.
Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson by Gore Vidal
This was an impulse buy at Barnes & Noble on the Saturday after watching Gore Vidal mop the floor with David Frume (An End to Evil) on HBO’s “Real-Time with Bill Maher.” I had not read any of Vidal’s work and had just been given a copy of Frume’s book from a friend. In the interest of being able to compare the writing of each, I purchased this book along with Vidal’s Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.
Vidal brings the gift of prose and story-telling to a brief history of our nation being born. His focus on Washington, Adams and Jefferson contrasts three leaders that could not be more different in their personalities or gifts, but were each necessary parts of our nation’s foundation. Vidal’s treatment of the characters is even handed, balanced and avoids the mythology that too much history of early-American reeks of. The book shows the inner workings of both the ideologues and the politicians, but also the moments of humanity and selfless leadership that made America unique.
An End to Evil: How To Win the War on Terror by David Frum and Richard Perle
This book is an apology for the current Bush-administration’s policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. It suggests a path forward in dealing with nation-states that sponsor terrorism or in those that are pursuing WMD programs. The book does not provide back-up or arguments that go beyond those that supporters of the policies already know; nor does it make those said arguments in a way that challenges those that disagree to re-think their policies. A more complete review of the book can be found here.
The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
This book, written by a Swedish journalist, is a wonderful insight into life in Afghanistan. It is non-political, making its only point to poignantly tell the story of one family living through the Russian invasion, the Taliban, and now the American invasion. What makes this story interesting is two dimensions Asne develops well: first, she lived with the family and saw the incredible tension within a middle class Afghani family relative to the social strains unique to a post-fundamentalist Islamic society. The tension and issues are difficult to appreciate for an outsider, and Asne develops the personalities and the issues well in the book. The second dimension the book develops is the role books played throughout the various Afghani governments. The book seller had seen his books burned, pages torn out and pictures blackened (it is wrong to have any image in print according to Islamic law). A wonderful read - I am thankful to Asne for being willing to live with this family to allow me to appreciate the complexities to Afghan society.
God Outside the Box: Why Spiritual People Object to Christianity by Richard Harries
Can someone be a spiritual seeker, but foundationally object the the core beliefs and tenets of Christianity? Richard Harries asks this question, which is another way of asking “do good people have to be Christians?” The book is not afraid of dealing with very difficult issues that have caused people to lose their faith, and for this candor I am thankful. The book is slightly simplistic in its answers and at times, I wished for more in order to better understand his arguments. A more complete write-up will be published soon.
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated by Gore Vidal
This book was an interesting read, but it fails to come up with an answer to the question of “how we got to be so hated.” The book touches primarily on the loss of civil liberties relative to new laws various US administrations have introduced. The book is distressing to read as it offers a plainly alternative perspective to the conventional news.
Vintage Baldwinby James Baldwin
James Baldwin stands as one of the more provocative and prolific race relation authors in the United States. Having seen racism in various parts of the US, at various times during his life, Baldwin struggled to reconcile his identity as a black male with his identity as an American. While both were the products of birth, one identity ensured he would feel and be treated like less than a native born American. It is a pain I will never know, and one I can only make veiled attempts to understand.
This book, a collection of short stories, essays and one play, are primarily focused on the issue of racism in the US. His comments are worth sharing:
“What it comes to, finally, is that the nation has spent a large part of its time and energy looking away from one of the principal facts of its life. This failure to look reality in the face diminishes a nation as it diminishes a person, and it can only be described as unmanly. And in exactly the same way that the South imagines that it ‘knows’ the Negro, the North imagines that it has set him free. Both camps are deluded. Human freedom is a complex, difficult - and private - thing. If we can liken life, for a moment, to a furnace, then freedom is the fire which burns away illusion. Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.” (page 96)
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“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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