Places of Interest

Keen eyed readers of this Blog will have already noticed that I tend to focus on particular themes, people, time periods and places in my reading. What you, obviously, won’t be aware of is the types of books I own but have yet to read/review as well as the books I continually add to my ever growing Amazon Wish List. Even I have been not exactly surprised by but intrigued by where my attentions mostly are especially when it comes to places of interest.

As I’ve already stated on several occasions I have limited my historical reading to British and European examples. Despite the fact that my interests extend beyond the borders of Europe I can’t dedicate myself to the history of an entire planet whist doing (or reading) anything else. I just wouldn’t have the time. As my ancestry is from Ireland I have a focus on that troubled land too. So starting with those two reasonably obvious examples where else does my interest reside?

UK and Ireland
France
Germany
Spain
Italy
Russia
North Africa
The Middle East
Afghanistan
India
Japan
China

That probably covers over half the world and is more than enough to be getting on with I feel. I have minimal interest in most of Africa except that bordering the Mediterranean with the possible exception of South Africa at the time of the Boer War. I do have an interest in South-East Asia, and in particular Vietnam, but I’m going to restrict myself typically to the French occupation/empire in Indo-China before the US became involved. As to America itself, despite its relatively short history, I imagine that I could spend years trying to understand that continental player on the world stage but, yet again, really don’t have the time to focus any great energies on it. No doubt American history will be touched upon – as in my reading of Civil War blockade runners – just not exclusively. All of the above will, generally, apply to my reading of history. My fiction reading will continue to range across the globe and, hopefully, to other worlds too. My non-history reading, likewise, will be global in nature. With my underlying attempt to understand just how we got here I can’t very well edit out half the globe without seriously throwing any subsequent judgements into doubt. I think it’s going to be an interesting journey. I’m particularly ‘pumped’ about my future Middle East reading but that passion will probably fade over time and my focus will be somewhere else. Such is the bane of having a butterfly mind….. [lol]

Cartoon Time.

'Adolescence now lasts from 10 to 24'

By Katie Silver for BBC News

19 January 2018

Adolescence now lasts from the ages of 10 to 24, although it used to be thought to end at 19, scientists say. Young people continuing their education for longer, as well as delayed marriage and parenthood, has pushed back popular perceptions of when adulthood begins. Changing the definition is vital to ensure laws stay appropriate, they write in an opinion piece in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal. But another expert warns doing so risks "further infantilising young people".

Puberty is considered to start when the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus starts releasing a hormone that activates the body's pituitary and gonadal glands. This used to happen around the age of 14 but has dropped with improved health and nutrition in much of the developed world to around the age of 10. As a consequence, in industrialised countries such as the UK the average age for a girl's first menstruation has dropped by four years in the past 150 years. Half of all females now have their period by 12 or 13 years of age.

There are also biological arguments for why the definition of adolescence should be extended, including that the body continues to develop. For example, the brain continues to mature beyond the age of 20, working faster and more efficiently. And many people's wisdom teeth don't come through until the age of 25.

Young people are also getting married and having children later. According to the Office of National Statistics, the average age for a man to enter their first marriage in 2013 was 32.5 years and 30.6 years for women across England and Wales. This represented an increase of almost eight years since 1973. Lead author Prof Susan Sawyer, director of the centre for adolescent health at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, writes: "Although many adult legal privileges start at age 18 years, the adoption of adult roles and responsibilities generally occurs later." She says delayed partnering, parenting and economic independence means the "semi-dependency" that characterises adolescence has expanded.

This social change, she says, needs to inform policy, such as by extending youth support services until the age of 25. "Age definitions are always arbitrary", she writes, but "our current definition of adolescence is overly restricted. The ages of 10-24 years are a better fit with the development of adolescents nowadays." Prof Russell Viner, president-elect of the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health, said: "In the UK, the average age for leaving home is now around 25 years for both men and women." He supports extending the definition to cover adolescence up until the age of 24 and says a number of UK services already take this into account. He said: "Statutory provision in England in terms of social care for care leavers and children with special educational needs now goes up to 24 years," as does provision of services for people with cystic fibrosis.

But Dr Jan Macvarish, a parenting sociologist at the University of Kent, says there is a danger in extending our concept of adolescence. "Older children and young people are shaped far more significantly by society's expectations of them than by their intrinsic biological growth," she said. "There is nothing inevitably infantilising about spending your early 20s in higher education or experimenting in the world of work." And we should not risk "pathologising their desire for independence. Society should maintain the highest possible expectations of the next generation," Dr Macvarish said. Prof Viner disagrees with Dr Macvarish's criticism and says broadening adolescence can be seen as "empowering young people by recognising their differences. As long as we do this from a position of recognising young people's strengths and the potential of their development, rather than being focused on the problems of the adolescent period."

[Well, that explains a LOT. I think that people are definitely maturing emotionally later than in previous decades. Even back in the 1960’s what we would regard as teenagers were out in the world holding down poorly paid jobs while either still living at home of living in a bedsit or some such. I can understand why the leaving home age is so high at 25 (although I was 23 when I left). The young, either saddled with student loans or simply low paid, can’t afford to buy a house and can barely afford to rent anywhere – especially in the big cities. The average age for the first marriage did surprise me though - 32.5 years for men and 30.6 years for women. That’s high I thought! But then again I suppose that it’s also financial without leaving it too late if children are part of the equation. Interesting….] 

Just Finished Reading: Fright by Cornell Woolrich (FP: 1950)

Prescott Marshall has a plan. It’s a good plan. It’s a simple plan where nothing can go wrong. He’s young, a man about town, he’s popular a fun to be with and he has a girlfriend with family connections. After they get married he’ll be a member of that family too, her connections will become his clients and the money will start rolling in. It’ll be perfect, it’ll be easy. He has a ring, he has the speech all ready and he’s waiting at the restaurant ready to go…. And the phone rings and the waiter says it’s for him. His girl is in tears, her aunt and uncle have just been killed and she needs to comfort her mother. She hopes he understand. He does and promises to be there for her and her mother whenever they need him. At a loose end he has a drink at the bar, and then another angry at his bad luck. Moving onto another bar and another drink he picks up a woman and then another. Soon the night is a vague memory and he wakes in his bed, in his apartment fortunately alone except for a pounding headache. Getting ready for work there’s a knock on the door and a girl waiting outside. Without being invited she walks in and smiles. Marshall has never seen her before but she knows him alright. About last night, she says. We has a swell time didn’t we, she says. So how about $50 just to cover expenses. Angry at her crude hustle Marshall starts to through her out and then he starts to remember and starts to worry. What if his real girl found out? What if the hustler ruined his plans? Surely $50 is worth it just to get her to leave him alone? Months pass and the young hustler is just a bad memory. It’s the wedding day. The Best Man is on his way and there’s a knock at the door. It’s her again, the hustler. Its $250 this time and a lifetime of blackmail ahead of him, each payment more and more as his fortune grows. There’s only one way out. The only way to make the girl go away – permanently. Before Marshall knows what he’s done the girl is on the floor, dead and the Best Man is knocking. With a body in his bedroom there’s no way Marshall can stay in New York. It’s only a matter of time before the police catch up with him. All of his plans are in tatters. Everything he does, everywhere he goes, and everything he says to everyone he meets needs to be filtered through the memory of that body in that city. He needs to be constantly on alert for strangers asking questions, funny looks, and mention of other women and a host of other things both trivial and profound. He needs to be his guard. Now, always, forever…..

I have a thing, a problem you might say, with the idea of the unreliable narrator. If a story or movie is being narrated and the viewer/reader is being directed in certain ways then it behoves the narrator to be truthful. They can leave gaps for the reader to fill in, they might mislead or misdirect (especially if they’re the villain of the piece) but the actively lie, to fabricate things that do not exist doesn’t sit well with me – especially when you can’t tell if anything in the story actually happened or is the fantasy of a fevered imagination. This is how I felt for well over half the book. I constantly asked myself – did that actually just happen? Is this real? Or is it just paranoia? I must admit it did get rather wearing after a while! The ending didn’t really help as it threw everything I thought I knew about the narrative up in the air never to come down again. Honestly, I struggled at times to finish this. It wasn’t particularly badly written – except that none of the characters were actually likable and none of them seemed to deserve my attention much less my sympathy. The only one who had much of a character to be honest was the hustler and she didn’t last too long! Overall, despite the very positive write up, and the fact that the author apparent wrote ‘Rear Window’ this was a slow and painful ready which barely kept my attention. Not really recommended except, maybe, if you have trouble sleeping. 

Cartoon Time.

Good advice............. You can also stab stupid people with your head.

An Attempt at Future Significance

As some of my readers may be aware I have a somewhat surprising ‘inferiority complex’ where my reading is concerned. OK, it might be a bit on the strong side (being actually quite proud of my reading achievements) but I am moderately haunted by the whisper of an idea that my reading just isn’t ‘up to snuff’. Maybe at some point in my long lost youth I was told that I was ignorant, ill-informed or some such because I hadn’t read a particular obscure book? Who knows? But I do have a nagging feeling that, although the quantity of the books I read is good – and at over twenty times the national average I’d hope so – but that the quality falls short. Maybe it’s because I haven’t (yet) read a great many of the classics that come up in conversation. I mean, until a few months ago I’d never read Dickens! I’m yet to read Woolf or Hemingway or Tolstoy or Steinbeck. Classically I’m barely literate (working on that) and in other ways I’m ignorant of many of the books that have changed the course of human affairs. I call these books ‘Significant’ and have, lately, been trying to increase my knowledge of them. My aim is to read at least three significant books every year. So far I think I’m doing OK despite the fact that I’m starting from a very low level and from a deep ignorance of what actual books I should be reading to address my perceived inadequacy. The list as it appears presently is this (with the latest additions in bold):

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton
Seize the Time – The Story of The Black Panter Party and Huey P Newton by Bobby Searle
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
The Autobiography of Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley
Achtung Panzer! – The Development of Tank Warfare by Heinz Guderian
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
About Looking by John Berger
A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
War on Wheels – The Evolution of an Idea by C R Kutz
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
Design as Art by Bruno Munari
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz
The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
The Rebel by Albert Camus
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
A Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara 

All in all that’s not a bad list. It’s not a great list but it’s not bad. There’s quite a few obviously significant books that have yet to make it on there and I’ll see about addressing that as soon as I can. I do have one significant book in my review pile and another two coming soon so I’ll definitely make my minimum again this year. I might even get around to reading some classical philosophy from cover to cover. It’s high time I did. I might, just might, sneak in come classic political texts – from the Left naturally…..

Cartoon Time.

I'm guessing an isolated spot???

Light shed on mystery space radio pulses

By Paul Rincon for BBC News

10 January 2018

Astronomers have fresh insight on a mysterious source of recurring radio pulses from space. Fast radio bursts (FRB) are one of the most persistent puzzles in astronomy. While usually short-lived, one source in the sky was sending out repeated flashes. Now, a team says the emission may be caused by a dead star located in a very powerful magnetic environment. Details were reported here at the 231st American Astronomical Society meeting. The first FRB was discovered in 2007, in archived data from the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Astronomers were searching for new examples of magnetised neutron stars called pulsars, but found a new phenomenon - a radio burst from 2001. Since then, 18 FRBs - also referred to as "flashes" or "sizzles" - have been found in total. The mystery surrounding their nature has spawned a variety of different possible explanations, from black holes to extra-terrestrial intelligence. Only one of these sources of radio energy has erupted more than once - a so-called burster catalogued as FRB 121102. This FRB has sent out around 150 flashes since its discovery in 2012. Now, in the journal Nature, a team of scientists explains how the emission might come from a neutron star, perhaps one near a black hole or one embedded in a nebula.

The researchers found something interesting about the polarisation of the radio waves - which describes the direction in which they vibrate. When polarised radio waves pass through a region with a magnetic field, the polarisation gets "twisted" by an effect known as Faraday rotation. And the stronger the magnetic field, the greater the twisting. "The only sources in the Milky Way that are twisted as much as FRB121102 are in the galactic centre, which is a dynamic region near a massive black hole. Maybe FRB121102 is in a similar environment in its host galaxy," said Daniele Michilli, a co-author from the University of Amsterdam. "However, the twisting of the radio bursts could also be explained if the source is located in a powerful nebula or supernova remnant," he added. Vishal Gajjar, from the Breakthrough Listen project and the Berkeley SETI Research Center, commented: "At this point, we don't really know the mechanism. There are many questions, such as, how can a rotating neutron star produce the high amount of energy typical of an FRB?" The team used the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia to probe the source at higher frequencies than ever before.

Andrew Seymour, a staff astronomer at the Arecibo Observatory, said: "The polarisation properties and shapes of these bursts are similar to radio emission from young, energetic neutron stars in our galaxy. This provides support to the models that the radio bursts are produced by a neutron star." A year ago, the research team pinpointed the location of FRB121102 and reported that it lies in a star-forming region of a dwarf galaxy at a distance of more than three billion light-years from Earth. The enormous distance to the source implies that it releases a monstrous amount of energy in each burst - roughly as much energy in a single burst of one millisecond as the Sun releases in an entire day.

[The Universe is indeed a very strange place and chocked full of strange phenomena like this. I’d never heard of FRB’s until today. They are truly bizarre events. I can see why some people immediately jumped on the ET bandwagon. But if they are natural phenomena as suggested at least we still have hope that at some point in the future they’ll pick up a message or a warp signature or something and we’ll finally know we’re not alone…. At least we can hope….. [grin]]

Stimulating conversation but terrible waiter service........

High Five....!

Just Finished Reading: The Empire of Necessity – The Untold History of a Slave Rebellion in the Age of Liberty by Greg Grandin (FP: 2014)

With the world still staggering from the American and French revolutions and the Haiti slave uprising the Spanish slave ship Tryal is spotted by an American sealer obviously in distress. Offing any assistance he can Captain Amasa Delano of the Perseverance becomes increasingly annoyed at his Spanish counterparts standoffish nature and is glad to leave the ship hours later and return to his own. Strange as the experience has proven so far Captain Deano is completely unprepared when the Spanish captain jumps into his boat and demands his help. For the past weeks the remnants of the Spanish crew have lived under the threat of death. The slaves on board had revolted and had managed to kill most of the crew and passengers only leaving enough men alive to sail them back to Africa. Hoping to be approached by a friendly ship Captain Benito Cerreno had only pretended to sail back across the Atlantic until finally, at the end of his tether, rescue arrives in the guise of an American ship down on its luck and approaching mutiny itself. Giving chase in the expectation of prize money the badly damaged slaver is quickly captured and the slaves aboard either killed or recaptured. Their long trial and even longer journey away from their homeland has only just begun as they find themselves back in captivity and fought over in the courts of South America.

This was, to be honest, a complete impulse buy. I think the thing that really ticked a few boxes for me was the word ‘rebellion’ in the title and it being (yet again) a tale based at least in some part at sea. What I didn’t really expect was just how completely gripping the story was. The backbone of the tale was the rebellion aboard and recapture of the Tryal. But it was much, much more than that. Not only did the author discuss in some detail the biographies of the two captains (originating from very different cultures – imperialist Spain and newly confident revolutionary America) and well as the background to the despicable trade in human life and human misery of which I was reasonably familiar (or at least I thought I was) but the author also delved into the revolutionary changes occurring at this time across South America as the countries we are familiar with today fought for their independence against Spain and Portugal.

Several thing surprised me during this riveting narrative. One was the number of Muslim slaves taken from Africa and deposited (at this time) mostly in South America to work in mines and in the sugar cane fields. Indeed followers of Islam amongst the slave population was so common, and growing through importation and dissemination of the faith amongst existing non-Muslim slaves, that slave runners were advised not to take captives from certain areas because they were known to be educated, speak multiple languages, be resilient and resistance to forces and to be capable to organising sophisticated rebellions. The other thing that really struck me was the hypocrisy of both the French and American traders who regularly espoused on the virtues of Liberty and Fraternity but still traded in human life – even when they had black members amongst their own crews. The cognitive dissonance must have been so thick you could’ve cut it with a cutlass. There is far, far too much in this 270+ page book to even gloss over in passing. The narrative throughout is strong, directed and endlessly fascinating. Covering most of South America, the Caribbean, Africa and the American East coast this is a richly detailed look at an age at once familiar and yet very strange indeed. Highly recommended and, although it’s too early to tell, definitely one of the highlights of the year. 

Cartoon Time.

Spring is Coming.... (eventually).

Reading Plans for 2018 (and Beyond!)

As I have no doubt said before, many years ago when I was a lot younger and a lot less wise to the ways of the world, I hardly planned my reading at all. Whenever I finished a book I’d look around to see what else I had immediately available that looked good and I’d read that. OK, it was almost exclusively SF back then but the point stands. Needless to say it meant that some books hiding at the bottom of the TBR pile never got read and I drifted along without a care in the world. It actually got a bit boring. So I began planning my reading – at first I’d plan the next book, and then the next few until I’m now planning my fiction reading (at least) quite a bit ahead. Presently I’m about half way through my Hard Boiled Crime 10 set so that’ll be finished fairly soon. After that I have the much mentioned 20th Century Classics 10, followed by 10 Historical Crime novels. Both of those should be completed this year all things being equal and if I keep on track for my aim of hitting 75 books this year. Depending on how things go I might start the 10 after that which are all novels based in and around WW1.

Now, as to non-fiction triple reads I made big predictions last year of which very few came to fruition. They were as follows:

The Less than Special Relationship (Completed)
Days at the Beach
War: What is it Good For?
Reporting from Afghanistan
The Weak Fight Back (Possibly this year)
Women @ War
Early Royal Naval engagements in WW2 (2/3 complete)
Things Fall Apart
The City, the City (1/3 complete)
The Starting Gun: 1914
Mother Russia (Soon)
Investigating Murder
Curiosity
Intelligent Agents: The Psychology of Economic Behaviour
Something on the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s.

So, whilst not a complete failure on my part it came pretty close. What’s actually going to happen this year – rather than any grandiose plans – will be as follows:

I’ll finish the Early Royal Naval engagements in WW2 (2nd book finished on Sunday) as well as The City, the City triple. Then I have a few filler volumes before moving on to Russia (finally) and a triple on how technology is affecting our culture and us as individuals. I fully expect to read a much talked about triple on China and, as it’s the 100th anniversary of the founding of the RAF this year, a handful of books on that organisation (exclusively in WW2 presently). I do hope I can finish all of those this year and if I do I’m going to try to shoehorn in at least three books on a much neglected (and much promised) area – WW1. I’ll cover ‘Significant’ books next Monday. There’s one in the review pile sitting next to my PC and a few others scheduled for later in the year. Again we’ll see how successful I am in getting them off the shelves (or actually off my floor) to be reviewed here.

Oh, I almost forgot: R4. There should be a lot more activity in this category (Revolt, Rebellion, Resistance and Revolution) with 2 books already in my review pile and at least 2 more in my ‘Read Next’ pile sitting at one end of my sofa. Future activity will mostly be in the rebellion and resistance area and, generally, based from the 19th century onwards. Finally I had really hoped to schedule in something about the Middle East after being inspired by my reading of ‘Blowback’ last year. The way things are going this might have to wait (in any substantial sense) until 2019 – not that I’m planning too far ahead! Lots happening and, hopefully, lots to look forward to both for me and for you. 

Cartoon Time.

Tories must come clean on membership figures - ex-chairman

By Brian Wheeler, BBC Political reporter

5 January 2018

The Conservative Party should "come clean" about how many members it has, its former chairman has said. Grant Shapps said "transparency" on membership numbers was vital even if the figure appeared to be "embarrassing". The party last published figures in 2013, when it had 149,800 members but has refused to publish an update since then. Activists and academics have estimated it has fallen to 100,000, or less. That would make the Conservatives the fourth largest party in the UK, behind Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats, according to politics professor and party membership expert Tim Bale, assuming their rivals have "held above 100,000".

Labour's membership has surged to more than 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP and Lib Dems have also seen increases in recent years, although the SNP, with an estimated 118,000 members, have slipped back slightly from their post-independence referendum peak. The Conservative Party said it did not comment on membership figures. Mr Shapps said David Cameron had "taken some convincing" to release the figures at the end of 2013. The then Tory leader believed it would be a "difficult and embarrassing figure to publish", said Mr Shapps, who was party chairman at the time. But the Tory MP said he had argued, in a written submission to Mr Cameron, that it would be "embarrassing not to publish the figures and it will help us increase the membership - and it did". Mr Shapps said "coming clean about membership is step number one" in rebuilding the Conservative Party's campaigning strength ahead of the next general election.

He said prospective members had to be given a reason to join the party - and he called for them to be given a say in policy formation, as they were in the Lib Dems and Labour. He also argued for the post of party chairman, currently held by Sir Patrick McLoughlin, to be made an elected position. John Strafford, of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, said he had heard from local party sources that the membership could be as low as 70,000, although a Tory source has told the BBC it is "substantially higher" than that, without saying what it was. Mr Strafford said a full picture would not emerge until March when people had renewed their subscriptions. He said more than half of local associations had fewer than 100 members - and he warned that if nothing was done to make members feel more involved "Labour will wipe the floor with us at the next general election". A post-mortem on the party's 2017 general election campaign, by former cabinet minister, Sir Eric Pickles, called for urgent action to increase membership and the party has said it is "in the process of taking forward his recommendations".

Latest available membership estimates:

Labour - About 552,000 as of June 2017
Conservatives - About 149,800 as of December 2013
Scottish National Party - About 118,000 as of August 2017
Liberal Democrats - About 103,000 as of September 2017
Green Party of England and Wales - 55,500 as of March 2017
UK Independence Party - 39,000 as of July 2016
Plaid Cymru - About 8,300 as of 2017

Source: House of Commons Library briefing from September 2017

Some Tory activists have expressed concern about the party's membership profile, after a report by Tim Bale's Mile End Institute at Queen Mary University of London suggested at least 44% of members were over 65 and 71% were male. But, the report stressed, "none of the parties has got much to write home about when it comes to young people" and "Labour members aren't, on average, that much younger than grassroots Tories". A more worrying issue for the party, it suggested, was that Conservative members appear to be the most disillusioned about how they are treated by their leadership. Just 28% of Conservatives believe they have a significant say on policy compared to three quarters of Lib Dems and SNP members and 61% of Labour members, the survey found. Conservative members "did less on almost every count than their counterparts in other parties" to help their party during last year's general election and the difference was "particularly marked" for use of social media, the report said, which may help to explain Labour's "surprisingly impressive performance".

Political parties are under no obligation to publish membership figures - and the Conservatives are not the only party to refuse to do so when the numbers are thought to be falling. UKIP last published a membership figure in July 2016, when it stood at 39,000. According to grassroots website Conservative Home, the Conservative Party's membership may have fallen by a quarter from whatever it was in 2016, caused in part by Tories who voted for Remain in the EU referendum not renewing their subscription. But, the site adds, calculating a membership figure is difficult because the data is held by local party branches and there is not a central register.

[I found this interesting on several points – that the numbers, especially for the Conservative Party, are so low, that the figures aren’t normally published (what are they trying to hide?) and that the Tories used such a weak excuse for not having a central register. This is the 21st century. We have computers now with information on them that can send that information anywhere at the touch of a button….. Pleasingly of course it looks like the Conservatives have taken a huge hit – membership wise – both because of their arrogant disregard for their supporters and because of the Brexit Effect whereas Labour has, apparently, gathered supporters in droves despite also backing Brexit in Parliament. If nothing substantially changes it’ll make the next election even more interesting than usual and encourage me in my now entrenched habit of staying up all night watching it live on the BBC.]

The Door into Summer (or at least Spring).

The expected cold snap starts to really bite....!

Just Finished Reading: Political Hypocrisy – The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond by David Runciman (FP: 2008)

My first thought on receiving this book in the post was that I imagined it, given the subject matter, to be much longer than the 226 large format pages than it turned out to be. But that was my first mistake! Of course if it had been about the history of political hypocrisy – which would have essentially been the history of politics itself, it definitely would have been. Fortunately the subject matter was rather more constrained – views on hypocrisy (mostly of the political persuasion) from various authors over the last few hundred years and what we can learn from them today.

The one thing that came through loud and clear throughout the book was that hypocrisy and democratic politics are deeply interwoven. Dictatorships (and indeed Empires) have no need to be hypocritical about their motives, their means or their methods. With no electorate to appease and little care for international opinion they can do what they need to do without the need for window dressing, fake persuasion or playing to the gallery. They need to do something they go right on and do it. Democracies have a problem with such things as they are bound by niceties such as the law, public opinion and the need to get re-elected. In order to do that they need to be not wholly truthful about what they need to do and why they need to do it. The big question is this: Is that level of potential hypocrisy a bad thing or just something that we just need to live with? Indeed would we know what to do with an actual honest politician if such a thing exists (or even could exist). After all aren’t we all, at one level or another all hypocrites from time to time – haven’t we agreed that babies are far more attractive than they actually are? Haven’t we lied about our beliefs to fit in, avoid arguments or to protect ourselves? Aren’t politicians just doing on a larger stage what we all do every day on a smaller one? Or are some hypocrisies worse than others or is it a case that a public hypocrisy is bad whilst a private hypocrisy can be forgiven – at least more easily. Should we just cut politicians some slack for being human after all?

Here’s the rub of course. Is someone a hypocrite for pretending to be straight or a believer in their cultures religion when the alternative might well be a painful death? Now compare that with a politician who actively and knowingly deceives an electorate for their own or their parties gain by pretending to believe or be something they quite clearly are not and using that pretence to prosper. Are they simply both hypocrites and equally subject to condemnation or can we separate one from the other and rank them accordingly? That, according to the author of this intriguing and well thought out piece of political philosophy, is exactly what we need to determine with the help of some of the greatest political thinkers of the past 500 years.

I did actually struggle a bit through the early parts of this book, partially because my philosophical brain ‘muscles’ have been allowed to atrophy and partially because I’ve never been a fan of Thomas Hobbes. I was much more at home as the narrative moved on to the 18th century political commentator Bernard Mandeville and his Fable of the Bees. As we moved forward in time I found the thoughts of the instigators of the American Revolution most interesting as they dissected British hypocrisy whilst defending themselves against the same charge. I felt that I needed to know more of the thoughts of these long ignored (from my point of view) political thinkers. A section on Utilitarianism barely raised a ripple of comment and then we were on to the great hypocrites of our age – the Victorians. Here the author surprised me somewhat by throwing in the thought of an author rather than a political philosopher – in the guise of Anthony Trollope and his political novels of the age. This most certainly put Trollope on my future reading list. Jumping ahead again to the almost contemporary age we ended (almost) with the great George Orwell and his thoughts on the whole thing. Still pretty knew to Orwell – having only read 4 of his books so far – I need feel motivated to read more of them.

Whilst not coming to any conclusive answer to the evident problem of political hypocrisy I did feel that the author made a very good fist at defining the problem as well as defining exactly what type of hypocrisy we should be most vexed with. I think he was right that we should never expect our politicians in a democracy to be completely open and honest with us because, to be honest, democracy just doesn’t work that way. So trying to fix that particular problem – in effect trying to ‘fix’ politics, is simply a waste of time. We need to know where to draw the lines and be aware when politicians step (or sometimes leap) over them in order to hold them meaningfully to account. Overall a very interesting read and a must for anyone increasingly jaded by the actions of our so-called representatives.

Cartoon Time.

Make a Wish..................

The Best Books of 2017

I reviewed 69 books in 2017 (and no rejects this year) which is 2 more than last year but 1 less than my target of 70. My target for 2018 is 75. I think that’s achievable. I have a new method in place which is speeding things up a little so we’ll see. As usual I’ll split the Fiction and Non-Fiction with the BOLD titles being the best of the best.

Fiction:

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Good German by Joseph Kanon
Pure by Andrew Miller
The Good Father by Noah Hawley
A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton
The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory
Embedded by Dan Abnett
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas

Non-Fiction:

A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan
Wild – A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed
In the Heart of the Sea – The Epic True Story that Inspired Moby Dick by Nathaniel Philbrick
Bosworth – The Birth of the Tudors by Chris Skidmore
The End of Average – How to Succeed in a World that Values Sameness by Todd Rose
Stand Firm – Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze by Svend Brinkmann
Waterloo – The History of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles by Bernard Cornwell
Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P Newton
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
To Hell and Back – Europe 1914-1949 by Ian Kershaw
Where do Camels Belong? – The Story and Science of Invasive Species by Ken Thompson
Her Majesty’s Spymaster – Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage by Stephen Budiansky
The War of the Flea – A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory & Practice by Robert Taber
Stranger Than We Can Imagine – Making Sense of the Twentieth Century by John Higgs
Blowback – How the West f*cked up the Middle East (and why it was a bad idea) by Michael Luders
The Shallows – How the Internet is changing the way we think, read and remember by Nicolas Carr
The Battle of the River Plate by Dudley Pope

This pretty much reflects the fiction/non-fiction split in my reading presently. I’m definitely pleased with the range of books displayed here and certainly by subject and, indeed, publication date. There are fewer female authors than I’d like but on the whole I’m pleased with the final result. I’ll post my plans (or at least my aspirations) for this year next Monday. I’m conscious that I only completed 1 of the 15 triple reads and started 2 others mentioned as my goals for 2017. So much for completing half to be happy! But I’ll leave that to next week. I’ll also discuss my ‘significant reads’ at a later date too. Finally a new category: Best Title of the Year. This has to go to Blowback – How the West f*cked up the Middle East (and why it was a bad idea) by Michael Luders with a runner up prize to Where do Camels Belong? – The Story and Science of Invasive Species by Ken Thompson. Definitely more off-the-wall and eyebrow raising titles to come. 

Works For Me..............