The 10 Books I Finished in October
Richard Hanania, Fredrik deBoer, Iain McGilchrist, Todd Herman, Jonathan Rosen, Audie Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Bill Watterson, Vic Davis, David John Seel Jr.
Should you prefer to listen rather than read this post click here.
The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics by: Richard Hanania
How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement by: Fredrik deBoer
The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Volume 1) by: Iain McGilchrist
The Alter Ego Effect: Defeat the Enemy, Unlock Your Heroic Self, and Start Kicking Ass by: Todd Herman
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by: Jonathan Rosen
To Hell and Back by: Audie Murphy
The Ministry for the Future by: Kim Stanley Robinson
The Mysteries by: Bill Watterson
A Desert of Vast Eternities (Pilgrim's Path Book 2) by: Vic Davis
The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church by: David John Seel Jr.
For those who’ve been following along, I have not been producing as much writing as usual. This summer was six years of doing this blog (in various venues) and rather than take a sabbatical, which is probably what was called for, I doubled down, moving things to Substack and starting a Patheos blog as well.
I justified this decision by calling it an experiment, and indeed that is what it has been. As an experiment, success has been mixed. Substack has been very enjoyable, even though I have posted less than I intended. Patheos has also been interesting, but while my excitement with Substack continues to grow (possibly because I’ve wanted to write more than I’ve been able to) my excitement for Patheos is waning. As someone who was on the internet before it even had ads—at least that’s my memory, it was a long time ago—seeing my writing surrounded by them is always going to feel a little bit icky. I think it would be a good idea to keep it going for a little longer, at least until the end of the year, but I have a history of making rash decisions when I’m annoyed, so we’ll see. Also each weekly post is a little bit more difficult, and takes a little more time. Which increases the opportunity cost.
Nor is that the only thing making writing more difficult. After ten years of asking my doctors. “Do I have sleep apnea? I snore like a chainsaw. And nearly everyone else in my family has it” And getting back, “no we sent you home that one time with an overnight pulse oximeter test, and you’re fine.” I finally got a real—albeit at home—sleep test and suddenly the answer was, “You have severe sleep apnea and we need to get you on a cpap machine immediately. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” So not only was the tardiness of the diagnosis annoying, but also getting used to the cpap machine has been nightmarish (literally). In particular it’s wiped out my mornings because I’ve had to sleep in to make up for the sleep disruption caused by cpap acclimation (or lack acclimation as was the case for the first week). As mornings are when I write, that endeavor definitely suffered, and it was already suffering.
This is a pretty whiny monthly recap. I plan to do better with posts, but I’ve been planning to do that for a while. I appreciate your patience, and even more so your loyalty.
I- Eschatological Review
The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics
By: Richard Hanania
Published: 2023
288 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The critical role played by the federal courts and the bureaucracy in establishing cultural dominance of leftist ideas on discrimination and equality. What we now call “woke”.
What's the author's angle?
Hanania has said that he doesn’t think anyone other than he could have written this book. That seems unlikely, but it results in him giving his interpretation of things an importance which it doesn’t quite merit.
Who should read this book?
Anyone interested in making a real impact on this issue, particularly those running for federal office. Beyond that if you’re interested in the topic this is a reasonably though not entirely unique treatment of it.
General Thoughts
We often imagine that “wokeness” has come about in a great ideological wave; that it represents the latest development in the vast expansion of individualism and rights which has been going on since the Enlightenment. Such is its force that it carries all before it, including federal laws. Certainly this is the story told by its champions—wokeness is inevitable, and just the latest example of humans making positive progress. Hanania makes the point that in some very important respects it’s the opposite: rather than laws being a reflection of changing attitudes and behaviors, that often laws came first and behavior followed.
This is not an entirely new idea. Christopher Caldwell’s book The Age of Entitlement makes a similar point when he identifies the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a second constitution (see my review of that book here). Hanania acknowledges Caldwell while at the same time claiming his work is more important. It is both more detailed and more prescriptive, but it’s unclear if that makes it more important. In the end will it be more consequential to realize that we actually have two constitutions—one from 1788 and one from 1964—and they’re in competition? Or will it be more consequential to have a list of actual rulings and executive orders (i.e. EO 11246 and 11478) with a detailed explanation of what they do and why they should be reversed? Hanania makes an argument for the latter as it’s far more actionable. And though I see his point, I was not entirely convinced.
It is true that all of these orders, rulings, and laws created the incentives which led to corporate governance and HR’s default leftist view. These incentives both grew HR headcounts and incentivized left-leaning individuals to fill those additional spots. Hanania argues that these initiatives and the incentives they created explain much if not most of the shift to wokeness at the corporate level. As such, the forces of anti-wokeness don’t have to triumph in the culture war, they just have to elect a sympathetic President who will reverse some of these executive orders and appoint like-minded individuals to the Supreme Court.
This plan is attractive for its feasibility. Arguably something along these lines has already happened with the Supreme Court. And while Trump might have missed the opportunity for executive action, another opportunity will eventually come along if Trump is re-elected or another Republican ascends to the presidency. It’s appealing to think that if they just follow Hanania’s advice we will find ourselves closer to reasonability..
This seems too good to be true and most of the book’s criticism argues that Hanania grants far too much power to this bundle of laws and rulings and not enough to changes in culture. I echo that criticism. One of the key points he makes is that the people who passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, when asked whether it would result in exactly the kind of thing we’re seeing, said, absolutely not. To make sure of this they added the following clause:
Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any [employer or labor union] to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which may exist…
Yet, when it came to its interpretation, bureaucrats, judges, and employers did so in a manner which contradicted the plain text of the law. This came about because of the culture of the elites making the decision, and precisely because of the overarching progressive ideology Hanania dismisses as unimportant.
To take some more recent examples, did Budweiser partner (however briefly) with Dylan Mulvaney because it was worried about getting in trouble with the EEOC? Is Disney’s disastrous re-imagining of Snow White merely an attempt to avoid Title IX lawsuits? The answer is no in both cases, they pursued these efforts because of ideology. It was an ideology which led them to believe (incorrectly) that such moves would be profitable, but it was ideology nonetheless, not an attempt to compile with federal standards.
Best case scenario for Hanania we have a chicken and egg problem. Put plainly, is wokeness elite cultural signaling (see the next review) which translates into companies and courts making dumb decisions because they’re run by those elites? Or have companies and courts ended up incentivized by laws to attract people sympathetic to this ideology who then rise through the ranks to become the people making the dumb decisions? Hanania is arguing for the latter, however, it’s unclear that the cause and effect is quite as straightforward as he claims.
Still, even if Hanania cannot explain everything by reference to governmental pressure, it is an under-examined part of the phenomenon; one to which more people should pay attention, particularly politicians. In this endeavor Hanania provides an excellent roadmap for action, alongside a very specific list of executive orders and precedents to target and how best to do so.
In Hanania’s more candid moments he admits that it’s unclear how well his advice will work, but that it’s worth making an attempt. Most of the time, his attitude is more confident (overconfident in my opinion). I think he’s too optimistic about how effective a President or a Republican-controlled legislature can be. Note how much sturm und drang accompanied Trump’s decision on transgender individuals serving in the military. Trump took two years before even issuing the decision. Once he did, implementation was subject to numerous delays. It was challenged from nearly all sides, and ended up being significantly watered down when it was implemented. It lasted for less than two years, because almost the instant Biden was inaugurated he got rid of it. When we compare the enormous difficulty experienced by Trump and the ease experienced by Biden, that should tell us something. None of this is to say that Hanania doesn’t have a point, merely that I think he pays insufficient attention to the bureaucratic headwinds that still exist.
Finally, I think he makes a classic mistake with his recommendations: they’re all directed at Republicans. That’s not how these things work. If Trump tries to do any of the things Hanania recommends, the pushback will be enormous—as the transgender ban illustrates. He’ll be opposed by every last Democrat and possibly a few Republicans. However, if a Democrat tries it, they’ll have the support of quite a few Republicans and presumably most people from their own team. This is why Bush Senior passed the ADA and Clinton passed welfare reform (and only Nixon could go to China.) Traditionally if a roll-back like the one Hanania describes is going to happen it has to come from the other side (which is why so few government programs get rolled-back).
At least that’s how things used to work. I’m not sure how they work now in our era of hyper-polarization. Perhaps these days the only way to get it done is to elect someone like Trump and pass things on a strict, party line vote. And then hope that, when challenged, you’re able to eke out a victory in the Supreme Court (anything less than a 6-3 conservative majority is not going to cut it). Having passed those hurdles, you still have one more: dealing with the protests which will inevitably erupt in every major city. Depending on how those go, more important than control of the government is control of the military.
Speaking of which…
Eschatological Implications
Hanania references the Russian Revolution in defense of his politics over ideas:
To understand why Russia was communist in 1960, it is more useful to study 1917 and the years immediately after than it is to look at the doctrines of the Russian Orthodox Church and the culture of eighteenth-century peasants.
This is a fair point, and again to the extent that Hanania is arguing that government and laws have been understudied facets of the woke phenomenon he’s providing a valuable service. Nevertheless I think he ascribes too much power to the government in many of his examples, including the one above.
Yes, if you want to know why Russia was communist in 1960 then it’s important to study 1917. But what are we to make of the fact that a year after Tsar Nicholas abdicated (and a few months after he was killed) Kaiser Wilhelm II also abdicated, less than a week after the Austro Hungarian empire ended? Regardless of what Lenin and company were doing, it does seem like there was something in the air, and that even if the Bolsheviks hadn’t succeeded, something would have happened to the absolute monarchy of the Tsar between 1917 and 1960. Hanania continues:
Long before wokeness was a cultural phenomenon, it was law.
Really? He’s combining a very narrow definition of wokeness with a very broad definition. “Stay woke” was first used by blacks in the 30s, and was featured prominently in an article in the NYT in 1962, two years before the CRA was passed. So when Hanania talks about “wokeness as a culture phenomenon” coming after the law, he must be using a narrow definition of wokeness as what happened in the 2010’s. But then when he says “long before” that it was law. He must be using a very broad definition of wokeness when examining the law, which in many cases explicitly banned what we call wokeness. The next little bit is illuminating.
Rather than having a government that loudly and boldly proclaims a certain set of beliefs and then goes and locks up dissenters, civil rights law involves constantly nudging institutions in the direction of being obsessed with identity and suppressing speech, all while it speaks in the language of freedom and nondiscrimination. Enforcement is not carried out by the state itself, but mostly outsourced to trial lawyers and the human resources industry, at the expense of private institutions, which end up absorbing much of the cost of and backlash to political correctness.
I’d like to focus on the word “nudging”. Why was the CRA being nudged away from the actual text which forbade preferential treatment, towards an interpretation that demanded it? Certainly Hanania is correct to point out that this nudging flowed through a channel carved by the laws which had been passed. It is important to note, as Hanania does, that France ended up with a far different civil rights regime than America, but in both cases people were nudging things in the same direction.
For me the broader story of wokeness has always been a story of the nudging, and the direction of that nudging. As Hanania points out, most elements of the current situation are the results of judicial, bureaucratic, and HR interpretations of the law. Together they have all been nudging things for decades to the point where the actual text of the law is almost entirely superfluous. Is this nudging going to continue to operate, and in the same direction? If so, changing the law or revoking some executive decisions will only temporarily slow things down. Our arrival might be slightly delayed, but the eventual destination will remain the same.
With this in mind if we want to change things we really need to figure out the ultimate source of the nudges. At what point were they locked in? If wokeness is the result of intersectionality being combined with the internet that’s a far easier problem to deal with then if wokeness (or some form thereof) is the inevitable result of the Enlightenment.
II- Non-Fiction Reviews
How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement
By: Fredrik deBoer
Published: 2023
251 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A class based analysis of the social justice movement which blames the upper class (i.e. the elites) for derailing it into performative wokeness rather than actually useful change.
What's the author's angle?
DeBoer is a well known Substacker with a garrulous and combative streak. He’s a self identified Marxist which means his “class first” analysis of justice is at odds with the “identity first” which currently holds sway on the left.
Who should read this book?
Having followed deBoer for quite a while, nothing in the book struck me as being particularly novel. One of the big questions is whether you should read this book or the last book if you’re looking for an anti-woke take. I think this book is better written, but less unique in its claims. I guess if I was forced to choose I’d go with this one because I find deBoer less annoying than Hanania.
General Thoughts
In certain respects this a book length retort to Hanania’s claims. If the elites want something then what the law actually says becomes somewhat, thought not entirely, superfluous. The law is distorted to reflect their opinion because they’re the ones interpreting the law and enforcing the law and lobbying for new laws. It could be argued that the difference between social justice in America, and social justice in France has less to do with differences in law and more to do with differences between elite American culture and elite French culture. These differences are reflected in their laws not caused by them.
In any case that’s enough about what deBoer might say about Hanania, what does deBoer say more generally?
The book is focused on the enormous upheaval which followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020. In the wake of that event and with protests breaking out all over America people talked about a “reckoning”. Things were going to be different! And then nothing substantial really happened. No major legislation was passed. When the smoke cleared poverty, crime, squalor, and a lack of education all remained unaddressed. Very little of any note was even attempted. Some municipalities voted to reduce police funding, but nearly all of them have walked it back. And in any case reducing police funding — to say nothing of defunding them entirely — promised to make the problem of crime worse, not better.
Instead of addressing material issues, everything was moved into the realm of the ephemeral and the intellectual. Instead of government spending we got navel gazing. Instead of Eugene V. Debs we got Robin DiAngelo. Here’s what deBoer said about her, and similar people:
There’s another kind of profiteering that arose from the 2020 moment, a special kind of race hustler who looked at the horror and rage and saw a market opportunity. Some lucky people made a lot of money selling books, for example; the (conspicuously white) author Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility, while written before Floyd’s death, became a towering bestseller in 2020, as untold hundreds of thousands of white people looked to be psychically punished for their privilege. White Fragility is something like a textbook for treating racial inequality as a matter of interpersonal niceties rather than as a flesh-and-blood reality that is embedded in the structures of American life. Not to be undone, the “racial educators” Saira Rao and Regina Jackson began an endeavor called Race2Dinner in which white women paid upward of $5,000 to sit through a dinner party during which they were ritualistically flogged for failing to interrogate their white privilege. (The doctrine of racism as a matter of manners is obsessed with white people interrogating their privilege, wrestling with their privilege, reckoning with their privilege, and doing other vague things with their privilege.) In a 2021 story about Race2Dinner in New York magazine“, the company’s token white-woman employee Lisa Bond was quoted as saying, “This idea that we, as white people, need to go out and make these big external actions—that’s just white supremacy…. This internal work is the hard work; it’s the work that never ends.”
This is something like my worst nightmare: a white woman insisting that fighting racism is a predominately internal affair, that fighting Black poverty or cleaning Black environments of lead or preventing crime against Black victims is all subordinate to white people feeling guilty. This is what 2020 amounted to for far too many white people, an endorsement of their psychodrama. All of that righteous anger, all of those days of rage in the streets, led to this: a white person insisting, with impeccable confidence, that to want to end the material oppression of Black people was itself a vestige of white supremacy. And while plenty of people made fun of that quote and the article in which it appeared, to this day there has been no accounting for—no reckoning with—how we fell so far, so fast.
This elite capture happened because that’s what elites do, turn every social trend to their own benefit, but even so, this example seems particularly egregious in its impotence. DeBoer points out that the labor movement was able to accomplish all sorts of things from the 40 hour work week to health and safety standards. Why were they so successful while the current movement has been so unsuccessful? DeBoer mostly blames the shift from focusing on class to focusing on identity. Class naturally excluded the elites, while identity doesn’t. I think this is a very important point, and it might very well be the biggest reason, but I wonder if there are others.
DeBoer doesn’t mention this, but it seems likely that we’ve already plucked all the low-hanging fruit of effective government interventions. It’s not like we haven’t thrown money at the problem of poverty, or created programs to address racial disparities (i.e. everything mentioned in Hanania’s book). Certainly, I can’t think of many policy suggestions to come out of 2020 other than defunding the police, which should probably be taken as a sign that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Beyond that I wonder if communication technology has played a role. DeBoer points out that the people controlling the discussion are all elites, people who are very worried about racism as a “matter of manners” and not at all worried about where their next meal is coming from. Of course elites mostly controlled the media back when the labor movement was notching up all of its victories, but there were a limited number of media outlets they could control, which made fighting or discrediting those outlets easier. These days the conversation is far more diffuse. There aren’t a few big elite newspapers, there are millions of individual elites posting on instagram or curating their TikTok feed. The impoverished underclass doesn’t have the time or the skills to compete in this arena. And combining their efforts doesn’t do much because as it turns out modern discourse is far more about quantity than quality.
The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Volume 1)
By: Iain McGilchrist
Published: 2021
812 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A deep and scientific examination of hemispheric differences in how the brain operates. These differences are expressed in dualities elsewhere, for example reason and intuition, though if you’re thinking of the pop-science version of these differences, toss those aside. Things are much weirder, and we’ve only made it through volume one!
What's the author's angle?
McGilchrist previously wrote The Master and His Emissary which covered much of the same territory. This follow-up would appear to serve two purposes. First, it’s an outpouring of his love for this subject, with everything he’s ever thought about it and every paper he’s come across. Second, he’s responding to criticism about his first book by burying it in a mountain of evidence.
Who should read this book?
Recommending an 800 page non-fiction book (actually 1600 when you include volume two which I’ve only just started) is a far more consequential thing than recommending a 300 page book. If you’re interested in this subject, I would read The Master and His Emissary first. If you LOVE that book, then I think it’s worth reading these books. Though be warned the hardcover version is $165 and even the kindle version is $40 (that’s for both volumes).
General Thoughts
The topic of hemispheric specialization is vast — McGilchrist has devoted 2400 pages to it — but you probably want at least a brief overview of what each hemisphere does. To use the analogy of the Master and His Emissary which provides the title for McGilchrist’s first book. The right hemisphere (RH) is the Master, it’s in charge of correlation, managing the overall picture, combining and synthesizing things. The left hemisphere (LH) is the Emissary. It goes out and collects things, breaking them down, examining them, grasping pieces. The left hemisphere by itself is easily misled because its focus is too narrow.
Beyond that brief overview I’m going to save my in depth examination for when I finish the second volume, which probably won’t be till December. For now I will just focus on the question of epistemology which hangs over McGilchrist’s entire endeavor: What is the brain’s relationship to Truth? And how is this impacted by hemispheric specialization?
In order to explore this, let’s use an example from the book: Einstein’s ideas about space and time. Einstein was clear that his insights here took the form of intuitive leaps, which McGilchrist identifies as evidence that the right hemisphere was heavily involved. If we assume that McGilchrist is correct then we’re left with several possibilities:
Whatever process the LH follows, it would never have arrived at Einstein’s elegant solution. Intuition is required and the LH just doesn’t have it.
The LH would have eventually arrived there, but it would take much longer, and various adjustments would have to be made, but in a world without the RH we’d still eventually know about relativity.
The LH would take us somewhere and we’d think it was the truth, but in reality without the RH we’d be embracing delusions and calling them truth. Some incorrect version of the universe would be embraced as canonical.
As above but the exact opposite. Einstein’s theories are all wrong, but a certain sense of elegance provided by the RH convinces us that they’re True.
The RH is evolutionarily bound. It’s subject to biases and the limitations of how it developed. It’s either stopped working (see previous option) or it will soon. It’s taken us as far as it can, but we’re going to have to develop some other method of discovery to get any farther.
McGilchrist is at pains to emphasize that nothing happens entirely in one hemisphere or another, but it’s clear from work done with patients where the hemispheres have been separated (by severing the corpus colostrum) or patients with severe hemispheric strokes, or even just by using certain techniques for suppressing the hemispheres that the left hemisphere on its own is subject to all manner of delusions, and is frequently absolutely certain it’s correct, despite being obviously wrong.
For example people with severe RH brain damage will often think that their left arm (the one controlled by the RH) is not their arm, and will invent elaborate explanations for its presence. That it belongs to a woman who sleeps in the same bed and disturbs their sleep. If you attempt to bring up the fact that the arm is connected to their body they become aggravated and defensive. This is more evidence of the LH not being intuitive than the RH being intuitive, but those examples are harder to summarize.
Returning to the subject of epistemology, the options I listed cover most of the possibilities, but based on the book it seems likely that we’re confronted by one of the first three options. Why does this matter? Because there’s strong reason to suspect that the AIs we’ve developed are much more like the LH than the RH. (See for example LLM hallucinations.) And in fact I’ve never heard of any AI company attempting to take account of hemispheric differences in their design.1 Perhaps this won’t matter. Perhaps the design is different enough that just because the brain needs two complementary hemispheres doesn’t mean that AIs do.
My bet is that something along these lines is necessary, and until we take it into account we’re going to shortly reach a dead end. When I say this is my bet, I mean that literally. I have a bet that no AI will solve one of the Millennium Math Problems by the end of 2026. This is in part based on the idea that it needs some degree of RH creativity, which no LLM has, nor is likely to develop in the next three years. But, I guess we’ll see.
The Alter Ego Effect: Defeat the Enemy, Unlock Your Heroic Self, and Start Kicking Ass
By: Todd Herman
Published: 2019
272 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Mentally assuming the identity of someone else (generally a fictional character of your own creation) as a way of overcoming your weaknesses.
What's the author's angle?
Herman makes a living helping people to develop and flesh out these alter egos, so he definitely has a financial stake in things.
Who should read this book?
Self-help books are an interesting category of reading. On the one hand they all end up being pretty similar. On the other hand they don’t have to make much of an impact in order for reading them to be worthwhile since they all promise to make your life easier. This book is seven hours long on audio.2 Do I think it will eventually equate to more than seven hours of benefit? Yeah, plus the act of imagining an alter ego is pretty enjoyable all on its own.
General Thoughts
Herman offers up many examples of people using alter egos to succeed in sports and business. Perhaps the best known is Kobe Bryant’s Black Mamba alter ego, but he mentions numerous others. I don’t know if my alter ego of squishy turtle3 is going to bring me quite as much success as all that, but as I said the process was enjoyable, which isn’t always the case with these books.
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
By: Jonathan Rosen
Published: 2023
576 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The story of Michael Laudor — the Yale Law School grad with schizophrenia who ended up stabbing to death his pregnant fiancée — as told by his childhood best friend.
What's the author's angle?
When you’re this close to a horrible tragedy you probably have many angles, but I think one of the big one’s is Rosen’s hope to keep something like this from happening again.
Who should read this book?
More and more mental illness is being treated performatively. I never get on TikTok, but I hear that there is a whole genre of people turning their disabilities into stage shows or, just as often, superpowers. One extreme example is dissociative identity disorder, a subgenre which has racked up billions of views. If you want a book length example of how that can go horribly wrong, this is a great one. Also it’s a fascinating story all on its own even without considering the larger connotations.
General Thoughts
This book operates on two levels: the first and most obvious is Michael’s story as an individual matter. Much is made of his brilliance. It’s clear from early on that he’s fantastically smart. The second level is an examination of society. How attitudes around mental illness changed, with a particular emphasis on deinstitutionalization.
If one were going to combine those two threads you might say that both concern what to do about edge cases. First there’s the edge case of people with mental illnesses. Then there’s the more extreme edge case of that person having schizophrenia. And in Michael’s case, really extreme schizophrenia. At what level should we involuntarily commit some of these people? Is it inappropriate if they’re on meds? Okay what if they refuse to take their meds? Should we force them to but not involuntarily commit them? What does that look like?
Does anything change if they’re brilliant and charming and graduated from Yale Law School? What if they have a group of people who are super dedicated to providing maximum charity. People who really, really care about them a lot and are willing to do whatever it takes? How are we to draw the line between enough support and not enough support?
Of course all of these things applied to Michael. He had tons of support.. He was brilliant. He was well loved. He also refused to take his meds. Those around him decided that the former things made up for this last bit, and that they shouldn’t involuntarily commit Michael. And as a broader matter we’ve decided it should be really hard to involuntarily commit anyone. In the first case it turned out they were wrong, and Michael did something horrible. In the second case it also appears that people were wrong. But if so what then are we to do with these really tough edge cases? In order to answer that fully I think it will require a blog post, assuming I can find the time I’ll write it.
It is interesting that I was reading this book at the same time as The Matter With Things. McGilchrist makes the point that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive left hemisphere. (I realize this is a vast oversimplification.) The LH sees things in black and white. It’s bad at nuance, and when it comes up with an answer it clings to it stubbornly. Michael killed his fiancée because he thought she was a wind-up doll. Later he wasn’t so sure, but at the moment he killed her, despite the pleading and the blood, and everything else. He thought she was an automaton.
To Hell and Back
By: Audie Murphy
Published: 1949
274 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The World War II experiences of Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated American combat soldiers of the war. It was later made into a movie actually starring Audie Murphy.
Who should read this book?
If you’re at all interested in World War II, especially the experiences of the average infantry man this is a really great book.
General Thoughts
Over the summer my wife and I took a Rhine River cruise. One of the shore excursions we went on was a World War II Colmar tour. As part of the tour we went to the Audie Murphy Monument where he climbed aboard a flaming American tank and used its machine gun to single handedly hold off a German tank and infantry advance. Killing or wounding 50 Germans in the process. He was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions.
After seeing that I resolved to read the book, which was great, and of course then I also felt like I had to see the movie as well. There might be a few people out there who have watched the movie, but never read the book. If so you should definitely read the book, it was much better than the movie. Partially this is due to the fact that the book is always better than the movie. Partially this is due to the fact that movies made in the 50’s don’t look as good as movies made today. Speaking of this movie specifically, I felt like they made some odd choices when translating it to film, choices that, in my opinion, made the film worse.
As one example, the movie version of that heroic stand in the Colmar pocket is less exciting in the movie than in reality. In the movie he’s only on the tank for a few minutes and he stays behind being treated by medics when the American’s counterattack. In reality he was on the tank for an hour and he led the counterattack.
Audie Murphy’s story is one of those rare examples where reality is more exciting than fiction.
III- Fiction Reviews
The Ministry for the Future
Published: 2020
576 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A speculative account of the next several decades from the perspective of the fight against climate change.
Who should read this book?
Ezra Klein said, “If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future.” My recommendation is significantly weaker. The more I read of Robinson the drier I find him. If you just want an engaging book about the near future that prominently features working to solve climate change I would recommend Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock instead. If instead you’re looking for solutions and you find that seeing them executed via fiction makes them easier to digest, then my recommendation for this book would be a little bit stronger, but even there I would give it a mild “thumbs down”. His suite of solutions is… unusual.
General Thoughts
Anytime someone discusses global warming, I first want to understand their philosophy. How do they approach the situation? What do they think of the problem? Is it the end of the world? And then on the other side of things, what's the best way of solving the problem?
To give a few examples: There are my friends at the Deep Green Resistance who think the situation is so apocalyptic, the only solution is to forswear all industrialized power. Then there are the less hardcore environmentalists who are opposed to fossil fuels, nuclear and geo-engineering, and think wind and solar will solve it. Though interestingly they consider the situation no less apocalyptic than DGR, which means of the two I think DGR may have the more coherent narrative. On the extreme other side of things there are accelerationists who think the problems of progress and technology can only be solved with more progress and technology. If we’re really serious about solving global warming, nothing should be off limits: not nuclear, geo-engineering or any other technology you might imagine.
I tried this exercise with Robinson and I had a hard time pinning him down. He never once mentions nuclear power as part of the solution. The people in the book use military nuclear reactors — aircraft carriers play a big role in mitigating the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, but there is no mention of civilian nuclear power anywhere in the book. This would normally put him in with your standard environmentalist, but he has no problem with geo-engineering, including adding a mild carcinogen to the whole of the Arctic Ocean in order to change its color.
When it comes to the nature of the problem, the book is noticeably woke. Climate change is a crime inflicted by white people upon brown people. It’s not enough to lower the temperature; we need to bring about climate justice and climate equity.
So what lane is Robinson in? What is his philosophy?
He’s an advocate for eco-terrorism.
Obviously, I shouldn’t say that Robinson is in favor of anything. This is a work of fiction. The opinions expressed by the characters in the book are not necessarily those of the author. Though you would expect that with an issue as important as climate change that Robinson would be careful about possibly misleading people. Still it’s probably hasty to say this is Robinson’s position, but the position of the book is definitely pro-terrorism. Air travel only stops after a massive drone attack by terrorists, and something similar happens with shipping, one of the protagonists is a terrorist (albeit one who’s mostly unsuccessful). The terrorists come across as the good guys. Everywhere you look in this book terrorism is part of the solution. To be fair not the whole solution, but a necessary component.
Perhaps the book is correct about that. I hope not. In the book the terrorism always goes well and produces the desired outcome. It never spirals out of control in some unforeseen fashion. That’s not how it works in reality. In fact the book has a noticeable lack of black swans. China never makes a move for Taiwan. There are no wars in the book. The migrant crisis is a big part of the book, but it’s almost entirely non-violent, and is easily solved the minute the Europeans decide to be nice rather than mean.
All of which is to say it’s an interesting book, but despite Robinson’s best efforts (and his reputation for the same) I didn’t find it to be very realistic.
The Mysteries
By: Bill Watterson
Published: 2023
72 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A short picture book of less than 500 words about the taming of Mysteries.
Who should read this book?
This is a book by the author of Calvin and Hobbes, though he did collaborate on the art. (Which I quite enjoyed.) His first new work in nearly thirty years. Lots of people, myself included, LOVED Calvin and Hobbes. If you liked Calvin and Hobbes for its hilarious hijinks, clever wordplay, and exquisite characters, understand that this book will probably appeal more to those who appreciated Calvin and Hobbes for its art. In other words it is not Calvin and Hobbes, it’s something much different. If you’re going to read it, I would recommend approaching it as an interesting experiment being conducted by Watterson.
General Thoughts
I enjoyed the book, and I liked the art. Also I agree with his pro-Cthulhu message.4 So while it’s not Calvin and Hobbes, I’m glad I picked it up.
A Desert of Vast Eternities (Pilgrim's Path Book 2)
By: Vic Davis
Published: 2020
350 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A group of interdimensional exiles trying to stop the re-emergence of a trio of implacably evil beings.
Who should read this book?
If you’re of a mind to support interesting self-published fantasy and science fiction then you can do far worse than this series.
General Thoughts
The premise of this book is interesting enough that it’s just about worth the price of admission all by itself. It takes place in what might be considered the final dimension where a group of god-like beings, the Exiles, have chosen to make their last stand against another group of god-like beings of ultimate evil. In this effort the Exiles summon creatures from numerous other dimensions. The story takes place much later when the Exiles have disappeared, and a few creatures from the other dimensions remain to prevent the evil from breaking out and destroying the final dimension along with all of its native inhabitants. Among the beings on this quest is a new addition — from Earth.
IV- Religious Reviews
The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church
Published: 2018
224 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Christianity is in crisis, and only one thing can save it, the New Copernicans! Who are the New Copernicans (NCs) you ask? Millennials! What makes them NCs? Through a process Seel never bothers to explain, millennials have been granted the super power of right-brained thinking! This will allow them to sweep aside the sclerotic remnants of left-brained evangelical dogma and usher in the Age of Aquarius. (He doesn’t actually use this term, but he might as well because the exact same claims were being made about youth in the late 60s.)
What's the author's angle?
Seel is a self-described “cultural-renewal entrepreneur and social-impact consultant with expertise in the dynamics of cultural change”. So it’s entirely possible he wrote this book because he’s trying to sell you something. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than my initial interpretation that he wrote this book because he’s an idiot.
Who should read this book?
No one! This book is so bad I have decided to crown it “The worst book I have ever read.”
General Thoughts
Where to start? This book was recommended to me. I won’t tell you by who, lest it besmirch a wise, if somewhat guileless individual, and his great organization. The person who recommended it to me, did so because he had decided to make it the inaugural selection for his book club, so he hadn’t read it either. Nevertheless it was recommended to him, so somewhere out there are people who like it. And if you don’t think too deeply about it, there’s some chance Seel has a point. To the extent that he does it’s not a novel one. And to the extent that it’s novel it’s incoherent.
Let’s start with the point he might have. Young people are leaving all religions at an alarming rate. Everyone agrees with that. At the book’s most basic level Seel opines that perhaps they wouldn’t leave if we paid more attention to their opinions. As I said this is far from novel, and beyond that, there’s evidence that it doesn’t work. Liberal denominations have shrunk over the last decade while more conservative denominations have grown. Still you could imagine that it might work. And if Seel’s book stuck to that premise it would be boring but unobjectionable.
Unfortunately Seel goes much farther. It’s one thing to say we should listen to Millennials, it’s quite another to grant them quasi-mystical powers, which is what he’s doing by granting them the label of New Copernicans. For those who need a refresher on their history of science, Nicolaus Copernicus was the scientist who put forth the first coherent model placing the Sun at the center of things rather than the Earth. This was a massive reframing of the way the universe worked. Seel’s contention is that Millennials are poised to bring in a similar reframing with respect to Christianity, and religion more broadly.
The Millennials do this by being the first generation to have shaken off the shackles of left-brained thinking which has chained down society ever since the Enlightenment. They are the first right-brained generation, and if we step back and allow them to work their magic, they will completely revolutionize religion.
There are numerous problems with this contention. Here’s a brief, but by no means exhaustive list:
The book contains next to no supporting data. There were lots of statistics about how many Millennials are leaving organized religion, but very little in support of his actual thesis. Really about the only thing I could find was this line: ““Seventy-eight percent of millennials prefer experiences to things. Eighty percent said experiences help shape their identity.” It might be possible to overlook this except…
The book is completely devoid of anecdotes. Just some examples of actual Millennials actually doing interesting things would have helped out enormously.
Seel was very specific about Millenials. He wasn’t talking about young people in general, he was talking about people born between 1980 and 2000. This book was published in 2018, what about Gen Z?
In support of the whole left-brained/right-brained separation he mentioned the work of Iain McGilchrist. At this point I’ve read 1500 pages of stuff by McGilchrist (see review above), and nowhere does he say that Millennials have an unusually strong right-hemisphere. If anything he says the exact opposite, that left-hemisphere dysfunction just keeps getting worse, and the younger people are the worse that dysfunction is. (Beyond this every time Seel quoted an author I was familiar with, he appeared to distort what they were actually saying.)
To the extent he does sketch out a new religion it bares only a slight resemblance to Christianity. Seel offers up Burning Man as the ultimate example of a New Copernican movement. It is a movement, and there is an air of spirituality to it, but directionally it’s at best orthogonal to Christianity. I’d be very surprised to hear that anyone was converted to Christianity through attending Burning Man.
Yes, churches of all stripes have a problem keeping younger people engaged and active within the church. We can agree on this. The problem with Seel’s solution is that it’s too easy. If this problem could be solved by just turning the keys over to Millenials and letting them run with things someone would have already done it. Unfortunately the problem is significantly more complicated, and solutions, if they exist, are going to be similarly difficult to find and implement.
I agree we need to do better at engaging with millennials and young people in general. But treating them as semi-divine beings takes things in exactly the wrong direction. No one is born magical. We’re all born broken, and when we join as a community to deal with that brokenness that’s when magical things happen.
I believe this is a new record for my longest post. If you made it this far I have no other message than congratulations! Pat yourself on the back. Well done!
Oh, you’re also here for an explanation of the pro-Cthulhu message of Bill Watterson’s new book? Well Cthulhu is one of H. P. Lovecraft’s elder gods and Watterson’s book isn’t specifically pro-Cthulhu, it's more pro-elder gods. These elder gods are outside of human comprehension, they existed long before we did and will continue to exist long after.
In any case, in the book there are scary mysteries. Through the power of science and investigation humans gradually tame and vanquish these mysteries until none are left and humans are “in control of everything”. At this point they have passed from medieval squalor to modern luxury. But suddenly a new mystery emerges, one they can neither tame nor explain. Humans grow alarmed, but it’s too late. It’s not clear exactly what happens to them, but it seems final because the next thing you know, centuries have passed, and then eons, with no mention of humans. And the final line of the book is, “And the Mysteries lived happily ever after.”
It’s possible I missed it. I think I read more AI stuff than 99% of people, but I don’t think anyone can keep up with the flood of news around AI these days.
As is my wont I upped the speed, so it took me closer to two and a half hours.
Of course it’s not actually the squishy turtle, but one gets the impression that alter egos are like birthday wishes, if you reveal them they won’t come true. Sure when I end up bestriding the world like a colossus it’s fine to tell people what they are, but until then…
If you want to know more about that I’ve included a spoiler review at the very bottom of the post.