books (for me) to read

RT @duke_sam: Interesting top 20 Sci-Fi books of the decade list: http://is.gd/5n72y

My picks from that list:

• Acacia: The War with the Mein 
• Glasshouse 
• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
• Look to Windward
• The Mount (maybe)
• Perdido Street Station
• Rainbows End
• Stories of Your Life And Others

Voluntary Simplicity duplicity

My new book is Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. I'm only part way through the first chapter, but I'm already loving and hating every other paragraph. One will summarize most of my current thoughts on life and the next will coat the idea in such blatantly proselytistic, existential, spiritual unity fluff that I'm almost put off from my own ideas.

For instance, Table 1 contrasts the Industrial-Era View's belief that "Identity is defined by material possessions and social position" with the Ecological-Era View's belief that "Identity is revealed through our loving and creative participation in life." Well, no shit that sounds better. Or "The individual is defined by his or her body and is ultimately separate and alone" versus "The individual is both unique and an inseparable part of the larger universe; identity is not limited to our physical existence." My reaction, Mr. Elgin.

The seemingly good chance of finding a holistic presentation of the principles I've gathered and developed as I struggle for my own two feet in this world is certainly enough to keep me reading. Hopefully he stops switching between drab and pastel palettes during his contrasts. And hopefully he doesn't use spirituality as the ultimate source of purpose. I'm looking for thoughtful, illuminating, applicable expressions of these notions, not a one-size-fits-all Hallmark card.

... That sure sounds caustic. I am looking forward to reading more.

I fail my words

I feel a bit like an ass when I link a word to its definition as I do in some of my posts. When I do so, it is my way of saying, "Hey! Did you know this word? I didn't." Just had to get that out there.

I mentioned Benjamin Barber's book Consumed in one of those lifestyle posts. He's smart. He used big words. Here's the ones that were new to me. While I "had a feeling" for some of them, there was never much confidence.

1. Something exhibiting exigency is something urgent.
2. A depredation is a raid.
3. Succor is synonymous with relief.
4. A crass person has less than honorable intentions.
5. To redress is to make right.
6. By dint of means the same as because of.
7. A paean is an expression (a song, it seems) of triumph.
8. Someone with fealty has some serious loyalty.
9. To limn is to describe.
10. Mendacity is untruthfulness.
11. Something coterminus has the same boundaries as the primary subject.
12. A coeval is a contemporary, and anything coeval is also contemporaneous.
13. Seditious words support rebellion.
14. Establishing hegemony attains a strong position of control.
15. Something facile is too simple, too easy. [An ironic definition considering this post, eh?]
16. Something fustian is presented as if it's really important, like inspirational and grand words.
17. Imprimatur is one's approval, the "go ahead."
18. Something fecund is fertile or prolific, especially with regard to intellectual matters.
19. A polemic is an ardent refutal of an opinion or principle (or the author of such a counter argument).
20. The commonweal is the public well-being. Weal can also occur by itself just as would well-being.

I'm glad there was a round number of these words. I Googled for these definitions, so they are gleaned from Merriam Webster, the free dictionary, and others. Merriam Webster was pretty awesome.

The end of The End of America

The best quote was a quote.

When America gets fascism it will be called anti-fascism.

attributed to Huey Long

Ten sounded like an awful lot of steps. But – including such resonant moves as surveilling citizens (check), invoking an external threat (check), establishing a paramilitary force (check), targeting journalists (double check), and establishing secret prisons (double check) – all of Naomi Wolf's steps in The End of America raised my eyebrows ten distinct notches.

Wolf presents each step by juxtaposing recent and historic fascist government actions to reveal analogy. Quite persuasive, but it's that crafty persuasion that's hard to share with others and doesn't offer any solutions. "Regain our civic society" – but how? I see the problems, Wolf has cataloged evidence, but I don't know what to do. This happy fluffy crap is useless, because politicians don't need to listen. I emailed my senator two weeks ago via the address on his "contact" page and I have received no response. I shrug. The Daily Show shows back-to-back clips of Bush contradicting and excusing himself. We laugh. Accountability is just a buzz word.

(Transition? What?)

To her credit, Wolf rescues the Founders from the evil clutches of textbooks and wipes off the dust. She writes them as struggling revolutionaries, not fixtures of history. In their time, few people were politicians and politicians alone; it was a duty separate from one's career. The system they built was fresh, malleable, hopeful, and crafted to distribute power. Times have changed and so has the system. Career politicians are entrenched in a broken and stale corporate-government complex that I don't believe I can affect from the outside. And I can't afford (the money or the time) to be a politician, so what should I do? How can I be part of a civic society without it being a second job? Maybe it needs to be second job. Err – back to the point – it was neat to see the Founders in a humanizing light.

I found evidence to support my extant questions and even some new ones, but no answers. Hmm? What's that you say? Well, how am I suppose to know what you'll get from it? Ha!

(Tidbit: I shake with frustration at the utterance of the price of freedom. I much prefer this line by Wolf, though it trips me up without any prosody.

The price of liberty, the generation that debated and created the Constitution understood, is eternal vigilance.)

The beginning of The End of America

Posting about books can be disastrous. I'll do a before and after; we'll see how it goes.

Naomi Wolf visited the Report to publicize The End of America. She claims to identify the ten steps for converting a democracy into a dictatorship. She further notes that the US is already part way down that very path. Colbert's satire derailed this interview a bit, but she certainly piqued my interest with a strong final statement.

Within the first couple chapters, Wolf's choice of hooks raises red flags. "American citizens have been forced to drink their own breast milk at airports. Mussolini made people drink vomit-inducers! The German SS made people drink castor oil and urine! Coincidence? I think not." (I paraphrase... heavily.) Such comparisons are too disparate to be meaningful; they are just loud and catchy. She does, on the other hand, deliver some winners. Consider that Rice and Cheney originated the phrase war footing (that'd be tough to prove). Nazi leaders similarly used kriegsfusz, which literally translates to war footing. Coincidence? I think creepy and scary.

If the sensationalism doesn't subside, I'll be putting the book down. Thankfully, there is much promise that more sturdy content awaits.

These echoes [à la the two mentioned above] are worth noticing–but are not ultimately that important. What is important are the structural echoes you will see: the way dictators take over democracies or crush pro-democracy uprisings by invoking emergency decrees to close down civil liberties; creating military tribunals; and criminalizing dissent. ¶ Those echoes are important.

Ignorance is OK, indeed

Ignorance is OK. My newest mantra. It's a refreshing thought. Obviously, it can be misconstrued, but it's memorable, eh?

The notion is intended to help you relax when making decisions of any kind. It is not intended to let you claim, for example, that purposefully not reading warning labels excuses feeding puppies drain cleaner (cf. Sarah Connor's technique, 0:30 mark). I'll elaborate while you rid yourself of that visual. (The puppies are happy. Wagging tails. So trusting.)

Donald Rumsfeld said it best, emphasis mine.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

I quote Rumsfeld just to paraphrase him. There are things that we know we don't know but we refuse to acknowledge it. There's so much pressure to make a decision nowadays. I'll take "WMDs" for the win, Peter. Take a moment and consider how awesome it would be if high ranking civil servants admitted to not know what was best for us all. Of course we ought to attempt policies, just stop assuring me that it's a sure shot.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has two popular books, Fooled by Randomness (didn't read it) and The Black Swan (did read it). This is the first place I saw the notion presented on its own. Taleb's work is rooted in the stock market, where people are payed fat cash to make decisions. There is uncertainty à gogo, but people can't resist claiming to have conquered it. (... fat cash? Who am I?)

To be fair, sometimes it's tricky to know what we don't know even in simple situations. Daniel Gilbert writes in Stumbling on Happiness about results of psychology experiments related to making decisions, big and small. One notable result: we are hard-wired to be unaware of our ignorance (à la our blind spot) about some things. Not only is it a habit to make decisions, it's an instinct. I'm sure it's served us well for millennia, but I think it helps to be aware of that automatism.

Next time you're weighing the alternatives and it's looking too close to call and they're breathing down your neck, consider shrugging your shoulders and smiling. It could be the most professional, mature, honest choice.