Fun House

If you were hoping that the lunacy would have loosened its iron grip on the West last week, you’d be sorely disappointed.  If I had to come up with a theme for last week, it would be “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Justin Trudeau.  Truly comical.  Conservatives smugly tweeted out their schadenfreude as the uber progressive Canadian prime minister twisted in the wind when photos of him appeared with a darkened face in a turban at a party.   Trudeau, who paid damages to an Islamic terrorist and admonished a girl for using the term “mankind” instead of “peoplekind” and who is fond of labeling Trump a racist got hoisted on his woke petard, to the pleasure of many.  While I question whether this is truly racist (a subject of another post), I admit it was fun to see him squirm.  Trudeau’s  response was predictable:  Let’s talk about gun control.

Newberry Library.  Last week the august Newberry Library morphed from a research library to a wokeness center.  The old, stuffy icon of Chicago over the past few years has successfully transformed itself into an intellectual center, engaging the community with such delights as the 100^th Anniversary celebration of Carl Sandburg’s poem Chicago and a special exhibit of Herman Melville with a 26 hour Moby-Dick read-a-thon (which I participated in).  But alas, wokeness has infected the stately old lady.  Last weekend, the library hosted a Drag Queen Story Hour, targeted specifically at children ages 3 to 8, in which drag queens would read aloud to them.  The purpose?  Incredibly on the Newberry website, it says it “captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood” (I was playing with trucks, tanks and little green army men)  and “gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” (I’m not sure those are the role models I would want for my little boy).  This looks suspiciously like grooming.  Borrowing from Pink Floyd, my reaction is, “Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone.”  Newberry promises to hold a second installment on November 2.   

Climate Protests.  Continuing with one of the major themes of child exploitation this week was the Climate Protests.  The protests were led by wunderkind, the autistic Greta Thunberg, who somehow has gained sufficient status to be nominated for a Nobel Prize, testify before Congress, and gain a meeting with former president Obama.   It’s simply stunning to watch people enthralled by an autistic little girl whose qualifications don’t even include a ribbon at a school science fair.  Her performance at the Climate Summit was so overdone as to lose credibility.  At least David Hogg was on site during the Parkland shooting, and that, I suppose granted him a sort of license.  Little Greta has no such qualification that conveys any authority whatsoever.

Kavanaugh.  The new Kavanaugh allegations are almost comical.  He allegedly went to some party with his winkie hanging out and a friend grabbed it and put it in some woman’s hand.  There are a number of credibility problems with this assertion.  First, it was being made by  Clinton lawyer Max Stier. Cough. Cough.  Second, the woman in question has no memory of the incident.  Third, is a practical one.  If a man grabs another man’s winkie, this is not how the story usually ends.  Fourth, as an Irish friend relayed to me, “This presumes a winkie of certain size.  The Irish are not known for that.  Faced with a choice of a large organ, we chose liver.”  This outlandish attempt to delegitimize Kavanaugh will fade from the news cycle quickly.

Trump and the Ukraine.  There allegations that Trump pressured the Ukraine government to investigate the corruption of Joe Biden’s son (of course, on hearsay evidence).  But Joe himself is on record stating that he threatened to withhold aid from the Ukrainian government if it did not fire the prosecutor that was looking into the corruption of his son and the company his son was involved with.  Of course, Hillary has been weighing in, no stranger to using foreign political influence to fill the family coffers.  If Trump asked a foreign leader to look into the corruption of a political family, so what?  Here, companies must comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  It looks like the Bidens and the Clintons think they’ve been granted an exemption. 

It all seemed like Theatre of the Absurd.  Yet, there were glimmers of hope and normalcy.  Baseball legend Carl Yastrzemski was on hand at Fenway to see his grandson hit a home run in his first major league game at Fenway Park.  Billionaire Robert Smith followed through on his pledge to make a gift to pay off students’ student loans at Morehouse College and expanded it to $34 million.  And the Chicago Cubs spied a young boy with a homemade Cubs jersey and enlisted Twitter’s help to identify him and graced him with a new, authentic jersey.

Even amongst the madness, we see glimpses of the greatness of our heritage.

Mad Dog

John Bolton's departure from the White House last week (we don't know if he quit or was fired) brought me a measure of relief.  While Bolton's realism was a voice that should be heard, particularly with respect to the nature of the Iranian regime, having him in a position to actually make important decisions was a bit too much.  Bolton is much too quick to employ a military option to every problem.

Mattis was a different story, however.  I felt that his departure was a loss for this administration.  His was a sober voice, bolstered by decades of service on the ground. 

I had an opportunity to hear Jim Mattis speak last week at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week.

He did not disappoint.  Two aspects of his talk immediately earned my respect (as if my respect for Mattis needed much bolstering).

First off, he did not talk about Trump much at all.  He spoke of a "duty of quiet" and said there is a long military tradition whereby military officers don't pass political judgments.  No such restraint, however, is owed with respect to past administrations and he was critical of the Bush administration's lack of post-combat planning in Iraq and Obama's inaction when Iran attempted an assassination of a Saudi diplomat on our soil-- a clear act of war.

Second, he took ownership of his mistakes. He took responsibility for Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora.  He had a well conceived plan in place to net him, but did not communicate his vision up the chain, used local troops, and never got the authority to get the 9/11 perpetrator.

His silence regarding Trump (I am skeptical whether Bolton will follow suit) and his willingness to accept responsibility speaks to his integrity.

His criticisms of Trump were oblique.  He was generally supportive of the Iranian nuclear deal although admitted the timelines were too short and that the inspection regime needed to be "tightened up."  But said, "The world never comported itself to my satisfaction" and the regimen was functioning "well enough."   Mattis is always good for a memorable quote and as to Iran, he said, "The Iranians haven't won a battle in 500 years and haven't lost a negotiation in its history."

He also indirectly criticized Trump for his neglect in nurturing our relationships with our allies. "The only thing worse than going to war with allies is going to war without them.  Yes, they are a pain in the neck.  We could have said to them 'We're done with you' after our second intervention in 25 years.  But instead we helped them get back on their feet with the Marshall Plan and pledged the lives of 100,000,000 Americans to defend them."  He reminded us that "Good ideas come from other people too."

With regard to his view of the greatest threats to us, he divided it into internal and external threats.

North Korea remains a problem and is a nuclear power that is a declining nation.  Terrorism is an ambient threat but cannot change our way of life.  China and Russia can.   Our premises-- that if we opened up trade and liberalized commercial relations with China--were not correct.  But he also said there is no Thucydides Trap (as Graham Allison has posited).

Mattis instead focused more on the internal threats and quoted Lincoln that if we were to die it would be by suicide. 

We are loading up our younger generation with an unsustainable debt load.  "You young people should be mad as heck about it."  "No nation can keep its liberty without its financial house in order."

Second, he is very troubled by the contempt Americans are showing for each other.  The lack of civility and friendliness "worries me a lot."  "I don't mind a good name calling election, but when it's over, we come together."

Finally, Mattis spoke about and gave advice to young people.  He said he loves being around young people and it's "the only reason I stayed around in this low paying outfit."

His nuggets of advice:
-Make sure you spend most of your time defining the problem.
-Stop being so hard on each other.
-And above all, stay humble.

90 minutes with Mattis was time well spent.

Voices to be Heard Part 2

My list of interesting thinkers and people that have something to say of last week was incomplete. There are a few others that I think warrant attention and are worth your while.  Again, I rank them in no particular order, but include them for their clear-eyed and/or novel thinking or writing.

Deirdre McCloskey

McCloskey is an unusual talent.  She was transgender before it was chic, a brilliant University of Chicago trained economist and historian.  She is a highly skilled writer and her tome Bourgeois Equality, while long, is an indispensable read for anyone that wishes to understand the evolution of capitalism in a historical context.  I had the pleasure of having lunch with McCloskey last summer at the Printers Row Lit Fest and it was a real treat to interact with a brilliant mind that has a handle on so many disciplines.

What makes her special:  An ability to merge the quantitative with the historical along with excellent literary skills.  Who else could write an economic history book and bring up Willa Cather and Fyodor Dostoyevsky?   She also is able to make a compelling argument as to why capitalism is more compassionate than the alternatives and why it is consistent with her Christian faith.

Quotes:

“My Marxist friends, they walk by the evidence, the evidence of reason, the historical evidence, the economic evidence.”

“Righteous, if inexpensive, indignation inspired by survivor’s guilt about alleged ”victims” of something called “capitalism” and envious anger at the silly consumption by the rich, does not invariably yield betterment for the poor."

"Betterments require disobedience, creative destruction, an overturning or remaking or redirecting of what already exists, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates challenging Big Blue, autos replacing horses—not a bigger centralized computer or a faster horse.”

Deficiencies.

I don’t know that I would call them deficiencies, inasmuch as I see them as things that McCloskey has had to overcome.  Gender reassignment, especially at the time she did it, would have been a difficult thing, and it apparently alienated her family.  She also stutters and that would have been a difficult hurdle to overcome for a person that made a living in part by lecturing.

Pat Condell

Pat Condell is a brilliant comedian that fearlessly defends the West and its culture with his YouTube videos.  Sharp, witty and biting, Condell, like Jordan Peterson skewers the postmodernists, the EU and the culture of grievance mongering.  Lambasting political correctness, globalism and multiculturalism, he takes the gloves off in his defense of Western values.  His passionate advocacy for free speech and America’s 1^st Amendment leaves me embarrassed that there are no Americans that can support our own Constitutional protections so eloquently (His solilioquy The Anti-American Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uz19w7tf1U) is among his best.

What makes him special.  His wit, courage, and bluntness puts him head and shoulders above any other cheerleader for Western values. 

Quotes:

“Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of identity.  This is my Holy Trinity, each one an intrinsic aspect of my god: Freedom, the Holiest of Holies.”

“Suspicion of, or dislike of Islam is not a phobia.  It’s an honest, healthy reaction to the evidence that has been provided.”

Deficiencies.

Condell, I think, sometimes goes overboard with Islam and does not distinguish between Islamism and Islam.  But, in his defense, he is contemptuous of all religion and has often poked at Christianity, too. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk4AJ1BgQX8)

Raghuram Rajan

I like Rajan mostly because of his even-handedness.   He is fiercely nonpartisan and if you listen to him, it would be impossible to know where his vote would be cast.  No mere academician, Rajan has a truly global view and has real policymaking experience.  He worked at the IMF and  his most recent post was as head of the Reserve Bank of India.  His book on the Great Recession, Fault Lines was among the best of its kind.  Rather than finger point, Rajan took the view that the crash was caused by systemic problems, that all actors were, in fact, acting rationally.  I have just begun to read his current book on the crisis of community, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind. 

What makes him special.  Rajan tries very hard to be a neutral observer without an agenda to push.  When asked about the rise of Trumpian populism, he responds by saying that there is plenty of populism on the left as well.  His diagnoses are very accurate and incisive.

Quotes:

“In India, we say one thing, and we do something else.”

“The more that everyone has access to the same educational opportunities, the more society will tend to accept some receiving disproportionate rewards. After all, they themselves had a chance to be winners.”

Deficiencies. 

Like his colleague, Randy Krozner, who I also like and respect very much, Rajan can be a little dull.  He is a good, but not great writer, and a good, but not great speaker.  And because he is so technically proficient, this can translate into a little dullness if you are not an aficionado for wonky policy stuff.

o, that’s my list of interesting voices.  There were others that could have made it.  Peter Theil, for instance. But McCloskey, Condell and Rajan are a good start.  Rajan’s new book is out now and I eagerly await McCloskey’s new book, is due out October 15, Why Liberalism Works.  Condell posts periodically on YouTube and his own site patcondell.net.

Voices to be Heard

Over the next few weeks I am going to highlight some current thinkers and writers that have something important to say.  This is not to suggest that I am, in each case, an acolyte, but they are interesting people with an unique point of view, which necessarily means that each is a bit controversial in his or her own right.  But it’s good to remember that you can buy their ideas a la carte; you don’t necessarily have to buy the whole package.  Also beware that I do have a bias in favor of people that I have actually met and interacted with.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Taleb gained prominence with his work The Black Swan, which has been called the most influential book since WWII by the Sunday Times.  Taleb is a Lebanese immigrant and former trader that is now a mathematician and essayist.  In addition to The Black Swam, Antifragile was an excellent book..  

Quotes: 

“True equality is equality in probability.”

“People whose survival depends on qualitative ‘job assessments’ by someone of higher rank in an organization cannot be trusted for critical decisions.”

What makes him special:  Taleb is very skilled at mixing quantitative concepts and anecdotes and making risk and probability accessible to non-quant jocks.

Deficiencies.  Taleb can be extremely arrogant and dismissive.  He claimed that Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler was “very ignorant of probability” and labelled him a “creepy interventionist.”  While I disagree with Thaler on some things, and got into a Twitter exchange with him over the 2^nd Amendment, I do not like the name calling.

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes, the son of Reagan advisor Richard Pipes is a Middle East expert that came to prominence after 9/11, after warning the world for years about militant Islam.  Pipes runs The Middle East Forum, an “activist think tank” in Philadelphia.  Pipes is one of my intellectual mentors and I had him when I was an undergraduate in his first year of teaching, when he co-taught a class with the great William H. McNeill.  This does not mean I always agree with him, however.  I was, for instance, supportive of Netanyahu’s decision not to permit Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar entrance Israel to use his country to advance the BDS movement.

What makes him special: Pipes has deep historical knowledge of the Middle East and has the courage to call out the darker side of Islam, call for Israeli victory in the Middle East and has been supportive of the nations of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland (those nations he calls “Civilizationists”) in their rejection of Islamic immigration.

Quotes:

“Ultimately, there is no compromise.  Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult or blaspheme or not.”

“Diplomacy in general does not resolve conflicts.  Wars end not due to a peace process, but due to one side giving up.”

Deficiencies.  This is easy.  Pipes is too soft spoken.  He is so soft spoken that even when you are in a small room with him in a small group, you have to strain to hear him.  His ideas are worth a megaphone, and they sometimes get lost because of his shy demeanor and quiet voice.

Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia was mentored by the great Harold Bloom and it shows in her writing.  Paglia has great range in the topics that she can write about authoritatively.  She is at her best as an art and film critic, and her recent book, appropriately entitled Provocations was a delicious potpourri of essays.  Paglia defies categorization, is a self-styled feminist, calls herself transgender but is wholly supportive of capitalism.  Her positions (anti- third wave feminism) earned herself a petition from the uber progressive students at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia to have her removed from the faculty (the school’s administration stood behind her).  The controversy was recently written about in the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-feminist-capitalist-professor-under-fire-11567201511).  

What makes her special.  Paglia has an incredibly wide range-- culture, art, politics, and more. Paglia has one of those wonderful minds that cause you to think differently with every essay she writes.

Quotes:

“Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.”

“Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality.  It’s part of the sizzle.”

“I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power.   There should be no protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly whose physical frailty demands society’s care.”

Deficiencies.  Like Pipes, Paglia is a better writer than a speaker.  She speaks with a very quick cadence and sometimes staccato voice.  Again, like Pipes, she is worth the effort to listen to, and some of her podcasts and YouTube videos are real treats.  Paglia’s resistance to categorization lends itself to contradictions—she claims to be a capitalist but voted for Bernie Sanders.

Jordan Peterson

I wrote a post on Peterson after seeing him live last May (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2018/05/jordan-peterson.html) and believe that Peterson can be one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the West. His fierce attacks on post-modernism and political correctness are intellectually courageous.  His passion for his core message is evident– finding meaning in life through taking on responsibility – and is a message that needs to be heard by young people.  He is Jungian and pulls symbols from religious texts, film, fairy tales and literature.  My personal favorite lecture on his view of oppression is available on YouTube ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XvI6Y5Yq8o) and I have seen it multiple times.  If he has staying power, Peterson can be a powerful figure in our culture.

What makes him special.  Peterson is an engaging speaker, quick on his feet, and, like Paglia, has a tremendous breadth of knowledge.  His experience as a clinical psychologist sets him apart as he has experienced the real world and is no mere academic.  He has been unafraid to take on the citadels of government and academia.

Quotes:

“It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life.  It’s not in happiness.  It’s not in impulsive pleasure.”

“I don’t tell people, ‘You’re okay the way you are.’  The right story is, ‘You’re way less than you could be.’

Deficiencies. Peterson sometimes engages with people that are not intellectual peers and/or have checkered reputations like Milo YIannopolis and Ben Shapiro.   Engagement with them does not enhance his reputation.  He also said that Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh should have resigned as soon as he was confirmed, which would have been an awful mistake.  So Peterson is not immune from occasional lapses in judgment.

Taleb, Pipes, Paglia and Peterson are interesting thinkers and people worth watching.  But wait, there’s more. Next week I will have another installment of Voices to be Heard.