God & Gold

[GameTheory]

I recently read this book by Walter Russell Mead:

God & Gold (http://www.amazon.com/God-Gold-Britain-America-Making/dp/0375414037/)

It blew my mind. One of the best books I've ever read. It was not a casual read -- 400 some pages of dense history, policy, religion, etc -- but boy, what insights. It is a rare thing to read something and feel your mind has gotten bigger by the end of it. I loved this book.

[Warning: Mr. Mead does claim to have been inspired somewhat by George Soros' ideas about "open society" (around Mr. Soros' dinner table, no less), and I know many consider Soros to be evil incarnate -- I don't know much about Soros, but I don't believe his so-called radical hidden agenda is in play here. Mr. Mead may have been influenced, but he is clearly an independent voice. I would not label this book as either liberal or conservative.]

[PaceAdvantage]

If you're giving it two thumbs up, that's good enough for me...thanks for the recommendation...

[JustRalph]

I will check it out.

I am working my way thru this one right now.........

The Age of American Unreason.



I am only half way through it. The writing style is very interesting and her vocabulary is vast. After all she has to convince us she is an intellectual. It's about the dumbing down of america etc.....etc.......

http://www.amazon.com/Age-American-Unreason-Susan-Jacoby/dp/0375423745

From The New Yorker
Identifying herself as a "cultural conservationist" (but by no means a cultural conservative), Jacoby laments the decline of middlebrow American culture and presents a cogent defense of intellectualism. America, she believes, faces a "crisis of memory and knowledge," in which anti-intellectualism is not only tolerated but celebrated by those in politics and the media to whom we are all "just folks." The Internet, for all its promise, is too often "a highway to the far-flung regions of junk thought." Meanwhile, twenty-five per cent of high-school biology teachers believe that human beings and dinosaurs shared the earth, and more than a third of Americans can’t name a single First Amendment right. In such an environment, Jacoby argues, the secular left and the religious right can have no fruitful dialogue on issues like the separation of church and state. She offers little hope that the situation will improve, opining that, despite increasing levels of education, "Americans seem to know less and less."

[Gibbon]

Soros is a man of great contradiction. His fondation (http://www.soros.org/about) claim to promote democracy and individual rights. Soros himself play up his humble beginnings as a poor child in Eastern Europe. Yet, Soros tramples on the very rights he purports to hold true.

Neil Clark, writing in an incisive article the New Statesman (June 2, 2003), points out that Soros “made billions out of the Eastern currency crash of 1997,” and that he was fined last year “for insider trading by a court in France.” In fact - currency speculation is his modus operandi and if this contradicts his pronouncements against “market fundamentalism” and in favor of “civil society,” well, so be it. In fact, Clark reported that when queried about the turmoil his speculation caused to Far Eastern economies in 1997, Soros replied: “As a market participant, I don’t need to be concerned with the consequences of my actions.”

Publicly, Soros pretends to be at odds with Bush on foreign policy yet Soros' Quantum Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Fund) of Funds has a tight business alliance with the Carlyle Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group) - one of the world’s largest private equity funds, which makes most of this profit from defense contracts. They include the former secretary of state James Baker and Frank Carlucci, former defense secretary and George Bush, Sr. This is most curious considering Soros penned a book on America's fall from global dominance.

In a move that would make Adnan Khashoggi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Khashoggi) blush, Soros' Open Society Institute channeled more than $100 million to the coffers of the anti Milosevic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milošević) opposition, funding political parties, publishing houses and “independent” media paving the way for Clinton's air campaign throughout the Baltics.

I wish I could conduct my own foreign policy independently of official channels.






_________________________________
Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman. ~ George Soros

President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values. ~ George Soros

I think they got the facts wrong. There was no case of insider trading {referring to himself}. ~ George Soros

[chickenhead]

what is the most interesting idea/thought/knowledge you took away from it?

[jballscalls]

I am working my way thru this one right now.........

The Age of American Unreason.

"

sounds like the one i'm reading right now, Pace Handicapping by Brohammer.

[DJofSD]

To extend the thread and hopefully not taking it off-topic, I found Clive James' Cultural Amnesia (http://http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cultural-Amnesia/Clive-James/e/9780393061161/?itm=1) a thought provoking read. It is not an essay, per se, but a collection of essay's from numerous famous and infamous people that taken as a whole, provides an interesting commentary on Western Civilization and culture.

From the Barnes and Noble page for this book:
Synopsis

Forty years in the making, a new cultural canon that celebrates truth over hypocrisy, literature over totalitarianism.

Echoing Edward Said's belief that "Western humanism is not enough, we need a universal humanism," the renowned critic Clive James presents here his life's work. Containing over one hundred original essays, organized by quotations from A to Z, Cultural Amnesia illuminates, rescues, or occasionally destroys the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the twentieth century. In discussing, among others, Louis Armstrong, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, James writes, "If the humanism that makes civilization civilized is to be preserved into the new century, it will need advocates. These advocates will need a memory, and part of that memory will need to be of an age in which they were not yet alive." Soaring to Montaigne-like heights, Cultural Amnesia is precisely the book to burnish these memories of a Western civilization that James fears is nearly lost. 110 photographs.
The Washington Post - John Simon

… James is a master of aphorism and wry humor. Brevity, we have it on good authority, is the soul of wit, and wit is the salt of the aphorism. A page without several epigrams is a rarity; a page without one, nonexistent. They range from tickling irony to stinging insight, often simultaneously … Despite no particular interest in jazz, I was completely won over by the entries on Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Furthermore, James possesses the magic touch for knocking usurpers like Sartre off their pedestals, reaffirming our love for the likes of Camus and making sure we don't overlook a heroine like Sophie Scholl. And how could we resist Tony Curtis sandwiched between the great philosopher Benedetto Croce and the distinguished scholar-critic Ernst Robert Curtius?
More Reviews and Recommendations
Biography

Clive James, the author of numerous books of criticism, autobiography, and poetry, writes for the New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker. He lives in London.

CSPAN2/Book TV should have an hour long interview of James and a discussion of this book.

[chickenhead]

If we're throwing out rec's, the central idea of this book, while simple, was eye opening to me:

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016146)

I've always been somewhat in awe of the immense framework than underlies our private property system, every square inch, and several realms of ownership all meticulously documented and recorded, so that by and large everyone can agree on them (and therefore borrow against them), and a working court system to figure it all out in the case of dispute. The investment required to put that together is mind boggling, and the author argues the primary reason why third world countries have such a hard time creating capital.

[ddog]

what is the most interesting idea/thought/knowledge you took away from it?


Speaking only for myself and to but in.

What I took from it is the basic understanding(i think?) of the role of the underlying cultural belief systems of the English speaking peoples that allowed the rise of free thought and capitalist systems in those societies and why it is folly to think that one can impose those systems and thoughts on other peoples with a very different cultural understanding,much less drop our structures and institutions on top of them and expect them to like and accept them as we do.

Also, the vast amount of time and effort that these forces have been at play in contrast to the time between "pigs in the streets of New York" and "men on the moon".

In that regard, China has a fairly decent space program going?


I think a good companion book to this is

A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell.

Many may have already been exposed to this or something close to it but I found it a helpfull refresher.

[ddog]

If we're throwing out rec's, the central idea of this book, while simple, was eye opening to me:

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016146)

I've always been somewhat in awe of the immense framework than underlies our private property system, every square inch, and several realms of ownership all meticulously documented and recorded, so that by and large everyone can agree on them (and therefore borrow against them), and a working court system to figure it all out in the case of dispute. The investment required to put that together is mind boggling, and the author argues the primary reason why third world countries have such a hard time creating capital.

Sounds like a lot of what Mead is saying in his book.
China is creating capital and I think their courts are non-existent as we would see them.
I suspect stability either in court or at the point of a gun is the precusor to markets.

[bigmack]

What I took from it is the basic understanding(i think?) of the role of the underlying cultural belief systems of the English speaking peoples that allowed the rise of free thought and capitalist systems in those societies and why it is folly to think that one can impose those systems and thoughts on other peoples with a very different cultural understanding,much less drop our structures and institutions on top of them and expect them to like and accept them as we do.
In addressing the anglo/American system and its origins in Dutch society and the Adams idea of "The Invisible Hand" whereby order is brought by the chaos of disperate actions working within capitalism, the stone cold truth is that it has been a resounding success. What Mead talks about is that within the cultural fabric of many societies this type of system can either come easily or that it may never come to them. The example of Japan adapting to it and China, heretofore, struggling to change is apt. Now look at China.

For me, it wasn't as you put "why it is folly to think that one can impose those systems and thoughts on other peoples with a very different cultural understanding,much less drop our structures and institutions on top of them and expect them to like and accept them as we do", it was more of a comprehensive understanding of differing cultures and their acceptance or rejection/resentment of something that works awfully well.

[Tom]

400 pages huh?
Maybe if 10 of us each took 40......:rolleyes:

[ddog]

In addressing the anglo/American system and its origins in Dutch society and the Adams idea of "The Invisible Hand" whereby order is brought by the chaos of disperate actions working within capitalism, the stone cold truth is that it has been a resounding success. What Mead talks about is that within the cultural fabric of many societies this type of system can either come easily or that it may never come to them. The example of Japan adapting to it and China, heretofore, struggling to change is apt. Now look at China.

For me, it wasn't as you put "why it is folly to think that one can impose those systems and thoughts on other peoples with a very different cultural understanding,much less drop our structures and institutions on top of them and expect them to like and accept them as we do", it was more of a comprehensive understanding of differing cultures and their acceptance or rejection/resentment of something that works awfully well.

I was not passing judgement on the merits of the "hand".
I think you are saying what I was in a different way.
You would urge them all to adopt it as it works.
I would not urge them all to adopt it as it worked for us, but maybe the tradeoffs for THEIR cutlure would have a different set of priorities and thus they can pick from us what fits for them but stick to their roots so to speak.

One other thing on that "hand" business.
I am not so sure of the invisibilty of it in the first place.
It seems to get plenty of help at certain times.

[bigmack]

I would not urge them all to adopt it as it worked for us, but maybe the tradeoffs for THEIR cutlure would have a different set of priorities and thus they can pick from us what fits for them but stick to their roots so to speak.
His illustration of the South African slaughtering of 300,000 cows to adhere more closely with their cultural roots and belief in gods to eshew the influence of the Brits, that caused 1/3 of their population to die in the ensuing famine spoke volumes.

I've always felt that cultures can't help but be what they are. Certain decisions to maintain cultural adherance (or is it cultural ways that make for decisions), without regard for a movement forward can be lousy decisions sometimes.

What would the world look like without the Anglo/American effect?

[Gibbon]

Adams Has anyone seen HBO's new miniseries “John Adams” played by the laudable Paul Giamatti?
Dust off your TIVO or DVR manuals. This is must see TV!





_________________________________
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. ~ John Adams

[ddog]

His illustration of the South African slaughtering of 300,000 cows to adhere more closely with their cultural roots and belief in gods to eshew the influence of the Brits, that caused 1/3 of their population to die in the ensuing famine spoke volumes.

I've always felt that cultures can't help but be what they are. Certain decisions to maintain cultural adherance (or is it cultural ways that make for decisions), without regard for a movement forward can be lousy decisions sometimes.

What would the world look like without the Anglo/American effect?

That one I can't hazard a guess.
But, I will.
The Middle east now but with swords?

Hey,in the long long run, maybe that would be a plus.

[bigmack]

That one I can't hazard a guess.
But, I will.
The Middle east now?
Correctillioso. Jolly good.

In conclusion, why do I still struggle to tell the difference between James McMurtry and Bruce Cockburn?

[ddog]

Correctillioso. Jolly good.

In conclusion, why do I still struggle to tell the difference between James McMurtry and Bruce Cockburn?

Cockburn was always a little too high brow for me anyway.
Can't envision BC doing "Choctaw Bingo" but ......


JM has a line about a "Good ole boy can become an Intellectual , but an Intellectual can never become a good ole boy".

Out here in the sticks we like to think that's true.

[Pace Cap'n]

"Invisible Hand" = Adam Smith

[GameTheory]

Here is an interview with Mead discussing the book:

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