Phi Beta Iota: The videos are vastly better than the book at cutting to the chase. In our view his subtitle was poorly chosen–this is not about love, it is about trust and emotional or spiritual intuition. On that point, as a supporting note, see our review of The Hidden Wealth of Nations as well as our review of Pedagogy of Freedom–Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had moved 37 times by the time he reached his 14th birthday. His mother didn’t enroll him in the local schools because, as Raffi Khatchadourian wrote in a New Yorker profile, she feared “that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy respect for authority.”
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She needn’t have worried. As a young computer hacker, he formed a group called International Subversives. As an adult, he wrote “Conspiracy as Governance,” a pseudo-intellectual online diatribe. He talks of vast “patronage networks” that constrain the human spirit.
Far from respecting authority, Assange seems to be an old-fashioned anarchist who believes that all ruling institutions are corrupt and public pronouncements are lies.
Phi Beta Iota: We like David Brooks. He's less submissive than David Ignatius, less pretentious than Fareed Zakaria, and generally has something interesting to say. In this piece, most revealingly, he displays his limitations to the fullest. We are quite certain that David Brooks means well, but the depth of his naivete in this piece is nothing short of astonishing. The below lists of lists of book reviews will suffice to demonstrate that David Brooks is not as well-read as he needs to be, not as intellectual as he pretends to be, and not at all accurate in his assessment of Julian Assange. We share with Steven Aftergood of Federation of American Scientists (FAS) concerns about Assange's judgment in releasing some materials that are gratuitous invasions of rightful privacy, but we also believe that Assange is finding his groove, and the recent cover story in Forbes captures that essence. WikiLeaks is an antidote to corporate fascism and elective Empire run amok. It meets a need.
From Bill Clinton’s bridge to the 21st century to President Obama’s new foundation, the next American century is often described vaguely. Here’s why. November 9, 2010
Phi Beta Iota: In a very generic sense, what David Brooks proposes is perfectly aligned with the concept of a Smart Nation and the need to nurture a World Brain and Global Game.
Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal? Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?
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If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.
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If you want to find a good place to live, just ask people if they trust their neighbors. Levels of social trust vary enormously, but countries with high social trust have happier people, better health, more efficient government, more economic growth, and less fear of crime (regardless of whether actual crime rates are increasing or decreasing).
It is a substantive contribution, important, but second tier in terms of clarity and utlity and comprehensiveness.
The authors do a fine job of setting the stage for why this book matters in relation to policy, putting forth three overarching questions worth quoting:
1. Can the United States sustain an expansive range of security commitments around the globe?
2. Is the United States well positioned to reshape the international system to better advance its security interests?
3. What are the general costs of unilateralism?
I have mixed feelings about this book for three reasons:
My good friend Werther had this to say about David Brookes' op-ed, “The Tenacity Question,” in the 29 October 09 of the New York Times, which argued that the solution to Afghanistan was a simple question of mustering willpower.
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Sola Fide
“The sleep of reason breeds monsters.”
Francisco Goya
By Werther*ElectricPolitics.com
As yet more evidence for why the newspaper industry is in an apparently terminal decline, yesterday the New York Times published neoconservative columnist David Brooks' justification for more quagmire in Afghanistan.
There are so many things wrong with his reasoning that we can only skim the surface.
Erudite, Itself Out of Balance, Secoond Tier Reading
