One of his most pointed books looking at modern society, how we got here and what the serious problems are.
He looks at both how the two World Wars and, most interesting, the 60s social revolution have landed us where we are today.
He explores and defines the idea of social democracy, as opposed to socialism, and why it rose to prominence after the horrific social fallout of the two world wars. He also looks at how the 60s obsession with self-expression and individual freedom led to the demise of social democracy and the rise of social relativism.
He underlines the continuing need for strong government, and democratic participation, in the face of the challenges and social upheaval heading our way from both ecological causes and the effects of globalization. He underlines the impossibility of big business dealing with crisis issues (even like the crash in 2009 which was exclusively economic). He points out that, while we have allowed much of our economy to become global, government is still local, and cannot be any other way.
One issue he brings up that I am not sure I see the way around is that much of the social democratic benefits were enacted in a time when people had a much stronger cohesive national identity. We have to have something to build the concept of "group" on if we are going to work together as a society. Consumerism and the fragmentation of social life through the internet has tended to minimize these larger local group identities.
Worth rereading.
Saturday 31 October 2015
The Left Side of History - Kristen Ghodsee
One of the few books on Bulgaria at the TPL. It is the account of the lives of two partisans during WW II, a British officer and member of the British Communist party, and a young Bulgarian girl who ends up joining the communist partisans with her brothers and father.
It is a bit jumbled, with historical elements and also personal elements as Ghodsee relates the people she meets and interviews she conducts as part of her research. It creates both an historical document (of narrow scope) and a human document of lives lived and remembered.
The books brings up some interesting points:
1) The history of Communism in Eastern Europe is now being written by the winners ie. Americans and western Europeans, and when the winners write history there is always a strong danger of bias contamination. She brings up the idea that everything about Communism as a form of governments was not all negative and that it accomplished some positive or important things in many countries. These are now totally ignored. It is an area of historical research that needs to be explored.
2) Through her interviews with Elena Lagadinova you also get a sense of how pirate capitalism managed to grab so many State assets when the Communist government fell.
3) Through personal interviews you gain an understanding of why some people are nostalgic for the old days - most of the public had a more secure, stable life under Communism. It is the corrupt that have benefited most from regime change.
4) Through Lagadinova you also get a sense of how states rewrite history to create mythologies that both justify the new regime and also work to discredit the old regime. The story in the book is about the monument to the innocent victims of Communism that is erected in Sophia (and in many other formerly Communist countries - as well as Ottawa???) Some of the names on the monument include former government officials who were allies of the Nazis, former army officers that committed barbaric war crimes against civilians and partisans. This type of "history" is dangerous, unethical and undemocratic.
5) In the account of Bulgarian Communist leadership over the decades, you also see how the greedy and the power hungry corrupt a system to protect their power, wealth and privileges. This is true regardless of the system. The same could be said of current American "democracy" and, to a degree, of the European government bureaucracy.
A lot of threads to follow from this book.
It is a bit jumbled, with historical elements and also personal elements as Ghodsee relates the people she meets and interviews she conducts as part of her research. It creates both an historical document (of narrow scope) and a human document of lives lived and remembered.
The books brings up some interesting points:
1) The history of Communism in Eastern Europe is now being written by the winners ie. Americans and western Europeans, and when the winners write history there is always a strong danger of bias contamination. She brings up the idea that everything about Communism as a form of governments was not all negative and that it accomplished some positive or important things in many countries. These are now totally ignored. It is an area of historical research that needs to be explored.
2) Through her interviews with Elena Lagadinova you also get a sense of how pirate capitalism managed to grab so many State assets when the Communist government fell.
3) Through personal interviews you gain an understanding of why some people are nostalgic for the old days - most of the public had a more secure, stable life under Communism. It is the corrupt that have benefited most from regime change.
4) Through Lagadinova you also get a sense of how states rewrite history to create mythologies that both justify the new regime and also work to discredit the old regime. The story in the book is about the monument to the innocent victims of Communism that is erected in Sophia (and in many other formerly Communist countries - as well as Ottawa???) Some of the names on the monument include former government officials who were allies of the Nazis, former army officers that committed barbaric war crimes against civilians and partisans. This type of "history" is dangerous, unethical and undemocratic.
5) In the account of Bulgarian Communist leadership over the decades, you also see how the greedy and the power hungry corrupt a system to protect their power, wealth and privileges. This is true regardless of the system. The same could be said of current American "democracy" and, to a degree, of the European government bureaucracy.
A lot of threads to follow from this book.
The Lives of Animals - J. M. Coetzee
A radical exploration of animal rights and the eating of animals in the form of a story and two lectures or debates. A look at several sides of the question of the nature of being of animals, of equivalency between animals and humans. Extreme positions from animals are essentially objects to such a rejection of animals as food that would lead to the extinction of cows, pigs, etc. as we know them.
There are also three or four short essay responses to Coetzee's work. One dryly academic, one in the form of another story and the last one which is the personal reflections of someone who has spent a great deal of time studying animals, in particular baboons(Barbara Smuts). Her reflections are very interesting. She explores the relationships that animals have formed with her in her long study of a particular troop of baboons. She talks about personhood as a willingness to form a singular relationship with another being, animal or human, based on mutual respect and an effort to understand. She convincingly argues that baboons (and dogs) possess personhood as that kind of relationship exist between humans and nonhumans. Interestingly, she argues that when animals are seen solely as something "other", it is not the animal that loses personhood but the human exhibiting this attitude. It is an interesting concept, one that challenges the "species centrism" of us humans It defines human as a willingness to engage and form relationships with the world around us (which would clearly place current social trends especially in the West as non- person and inhuman or unhuman...)
There are also three or four short essay responses to Coetzee's work. One dryly academic, one in the form of another story and the last one which is the personal reflections of someone who has spent a great deal of time studying animals, in particular baboons(Barbara Smuts). Her reflections are very interesting. She explores the relationships that animals have formed with her in her long study of a particular troop of baboons. She talks about personhood as a willingness to form a singular relationship with another being, animal or human, based on mutual respect and an effort to understand. She convincingly argues that baboons (and dogs) possess personhood as that kind of relationship exist between humans and nonhumans. Interestingly, she argues that when animals are seen solely as something "other", it is not the animal that loses personhood but the human exhibiting this attitude. It is an interesting concept, one that challenges the "species centrism" of us humans It defines human as a willingness to engage and form relationships with the world around us (which would clearly place current social trends especially in the West as non- person and inhuman or unhuman...)
A Beam of Light - Andrea Camilleri
An Italian mystery writer who sets his stories in a small town in Sicily. Creates a nice atmosphere. Storyline is good (not great) but the real focus is the atmosphere and lives of the characters. I would read more.
Sunday 18 October 2015
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
One of McEwan's early novels. First the father, then the mother dies. The mother is buried in the basement so the children won't get picked up by the social services. This is the story of the children's life as it slowly spins out of control. A daughter about 18, a son about 16, a younger sister and a young boy, age 5 or 6.
It is a kind of Lord of the Flies tale. What is interesting is the amorality of it all, of the complete lack of social norms or limits.
It is a kind of Lord of the Flies tale. What is interesting is the amorality of it all, of the complete lack of social norms or limits.
Black Dogs - Ian McEwan
A reread of the book that first introduced me to McEwan. I still find this short novel an engaging read. Essentially a novel of ideas but well-integrated into the lives of the characters in the book. Nothing dry about it. He sets two different approaches to evil and social good against each other within the confines of a failed marriage, and then explores the accomplishments and pitfalls of both these approaches through the lives of the two main characters. His book remains a reflection, a rumination, rather than a resolution of this dichotomy. The fall of the Berlin Wall is part of the action in this book, and somehow this seems a part of the issue he is exploring - is evil fought and good enacted through the social and political field, or through the work of an individual life.
I will have to go back and look at some of his other books. I wonder if a central idea like this sits at the centre of some of his other novels.
I will have to go back and look at some of his other books. I wonder if a central idea like this sits at the centre of some of his other novels.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams
By the author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Same tone, same feel but less successful perhaps because as pseudo-detective fiction, less open to the whimsy and craziness of the Hitchhiker series. Not as much scope for his wild imagination.
Sunday 4 October 2015
East of the West - Miroslav Penkov
A collection of short stories by a younger writer from Bulgaria now living in the States and writing in English. A collection of stories of disordered lives sidetracked by irrational intrusions, some random, some self-created. Another reflection of the disordered times of Bulgaria in the post Communist period?
Circus Bulgaria - Deyan Enev
A collection of short stories set in Bulgaria. Stories teetering on chaos, edged with irrationality. Set in insane asylums, zoos, peasant villages, booze. Definitely an underbelly fiction. Bulgaria went through some hard times and big shifts after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think these stories reflect the chaos, confusion and hard times of that period.
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