Tuesday 23 October 2012

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt has to be admired for taking on a huge, complex and highly contentious intellectual area of investigation such as this, which is essentially not just an analysis of the social and moral philosophies of politics and religion, but also it's inherent psychological issues [and conflicts] too.

It's therefore not surprising that the book on occasion misfires but on the whole it is a cogent, at times thought provoking work. It is often a very dense,'academic' work though, that is probably more suited to a psych or political science student as it quite comprehensively assesses past and present intellectual thought in those areas.  In fact for me, as a relative layman more interest in the broader but still 'intellectual' issues pertaining to what it says on the book’s tin- why good people are divided by Politics and Religion- it only ever really got clearly addressed in the last thirty or so pages, which was a shame.

So a good course read more than anything else.  It's also written from an American perspective- which is painfully obvious at times, particularly when Haidt explores and supports [in a way] the libertarian argument for free markets in health care, which is embarrassingly over-simplistic- but he is at pains to give an explanation of certain issues and US-centric viewpoints/terms of reference to those readers outside of the US, which is good.  He's also honest enough to admit to being a 'failed' liberal who has moved into more of a 'conservative' appreciation of the socio-political situation in the 21st century west, which is admirable in it's honesty.  The book still feels a little inconclusive to my mind though, perhaps reflecting the authors own inner political uncertainties as he tries to resolve his new found RW neoliberalism with his more traditional Leftist past. It's a conflict that would have made for a great read actually, if he'd concentrated more on that as it's probably a process many more academics than would care to admit have actually gone through themselves this past thirty or so years, and real 'answers' to the books over-riding sub-text could have been developed rather than a surfeit of rather dry, specialist chapters, but there you go.  A lost opportunity perhaps.

Whatever, worth a look for the good bits scattered through it, just don't expect an overly thought provoking piece of intellectual journalism if you pick it up. Haidt cannot be faulted for his erudition [and nerve], however.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

The Fix by Damien Thompson

The Fix is a fascinating 21st century investigation into addiction, which has of course been eternally part of the human condition.

What Damien Thompson so successfully charts however, is the argument that western contemporary culture has produced a society in which its participants are particularly susceptible to succumbing to their addictive impulses; as Thompson points out often, their continual search for and hanging on to things that materially replace people in our lives.

Our materialistic economic system has of course made it all the more possible for us to indulge in these impulses, and a culture that encourages us to celebrate who we are by what we wear, possess and achieve as economic actors within an individualistic, free-for-all capitalist economy produces addictions, splurges and a need for a fix from cupcakes as much as cocaine and alcohol.

I must admit I had approached this book with a bit of scepticism- I'd expected another relentless reiteration of the 12 step programme- but it is refreshingly far from that.  Thompson has the guts and gumption to actually offer a much needed critique of that programme, developed of course by AA and picked up by hundreds of 'addiction' causes across the world.  This is brave and much needed.  Now don't get me wrong, AA and the wider twelve step programme is a vital, very effective system for dealing with substance abuse, that is beyond doubt. Even the simplistic criticism that the programme merely substitutes one addiction [to the programme] in place of the substance [notably alcohol or drugs] is pretty hollow, as it is clearly better for the person to be 'addicted' to a mental self-improvement programme than a corroding physical one.

The Twelve Step Programme does have it's limitations though and Thompson outlines them well.  It need not necessarily suit everyone and it's 'one-size-fits-all' approach can be over-bearing and in many cases counter-productive. The reliance on an outside agency to 'save' you from your addiction has it uses, but again, may not be as effective in the long run as the 12 step hype may lead one to believe. In fact the 12 step programme can also be decidedly anti-social and too 'life-structure' dictating, a dark underside rarely mentioned. Thompson also points out one of my greatest reservations about the 12 Step programme too- the argument that if you don't get it, you are a still suffering and your incapabilities to do so are just a symptom of the mental debilitations of your addiction.  I have never thought this circular logic was ever particularly useful and even a little sinister, and it's quite heartening to read a writer like Thompson, a recovering addict himself, so deftly explore his own reservations too in this area.

The bottom line that emerges from this book, is that essentially, addiction needs to be tackled from within ourselves.  Of course it is a connection with the outside world and its influences that makes us addicted to something in some way at least at some time in our lives, but that addiction is always more of a result of a 'lack' in our lives, even as a retreat from that life, as we cling to our [largely technically pointless] iphone upgrade to the detriment of real relationships with the real people around us.  In that way, addiction is as much a social as a 'spiritual' illness. But only we, as an individual person, can face up to our addiction, face it down, and deal with it in the long term.  Of course group help can assist and is often vital, but at the end of the day, the will and continual strength is entirely up to us as that one, capable individual.  The buck stops inside our own heads.

This is an extremely unfashionable viewpoint at the moment I know, in our largely hollow, 'group-hug' culture, but it is unfortunately an unpalatable truth, and this book goes some way to explain why.  Give it a go.

Monday 1 October 2012

Winner Takes All by Dambisa Moyo

Winner Take All: China's Race For Resources and What It Means For Us is an interesting book which tackles the on-going development of China as both a political and economic global power in the 21st century, but is so packed full of facts and figures in places it should perhaps be approached as a study textbook- full of juicy hard info to pile into an essay on globalisation- than a simple cover-to-cover work of academic 'journalism.'

That's not to say there aren't some great insights in this book, you just have to plough through chapters of dry facts and figures to find those nuggets and, tellingly, it's only the last couple of chapters that really get to any 'intellectual' analysis of the issue.

It's intriguing that I suspect many will pick up this book worried about the rise of China on the world stage, but will leave it with a feeling of a] if there is a problem, what is Moyo's take on tackling it from a Westerner's self-interested point of view [an issue she doesn't really tackle head-on] and b] that the West's problems lie fairly and squarely within our own systems, which are too short-termist and arrogantly/ignorantly based on increasingly creaking- and discredited- socio-economic models.

Because the overwhelming success of this book, for me, was a greater understanding of the political and socio-economic make-up of China, and very impressive it is too to be honest.  Modern China has managed, within a broadly communist framework, to develop a highly effective system of centrally controlled, command 'capitalism,' that is now completely out-performing the more laissez-faire, 'small-state' obsessed western systems and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.  In fact China is a shining example of what well organised, 'Big' government can achieve; China is not an example- as western commentators would have us believe- of a communist state having to capitulate to the logic and efficiencies of capitalism, but of a communist state being intelligent enough to adapt the dynamics of capitalism to its own ends, and morphing it into a wholly different-and much more effective- economic model completely.  Just don't of course, expect to hear that from any one in- particularly- the West's 'Anglo-Saxon' establishment.

The bottom line is the fact that the Chinese government is not afraid to have a vision for it's country that stretches beyond the next 12-18 months.  China is prepared to PLAN- not just a few years ahead, but ten, twenty perhaps even fifty years hence, with a clear idea of where it wants the nation to be as this century unfolds.  This is in stark contrast to the West- the US and UK being the prime offenders- where the word 'vision' has become a dirty word and the idea of the state has been reduced from helping and improving the lives of it's citizens, to being merely an institutional prop for privately owned corporations. 

So I left this book very impressed by China's modus operandi, which holistically includes both it's domestic framework and global aims as one, national package.  Whether this was the aim of the book I'm not sure, but I certainly understood China much better after reading it.  It also made achingly clear just ineffective and out of time the West has become on the world stage; we are living on borrowed time, basking in past glories and what's left of the power base we gleaned from those glories, and now with a blindfold on and ear plugs in, we actually hold in our hands a busted flush and are trying to make a clearly inefficient free market economic model work, that is no longer fit for purpose.  It is up to us to change and adapt this century and the sooner we do it, the more chance we have of maintaining some influence in the world because countries like China just aren't going to stand still, particularly as it's political system becomes much more attractive to emerging nations than our currently broken one.