An Addition To the Reading List

So far, in this blog, I've recommended two books for those who want the properly cynical footing to cope with the cynical political landscape – if you can't keep up, you can at least keep an eye on things.

I've decided to add two books to the assigned reading in this course. The complete list is:

1. Dune, by Frank Herbert
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
3. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
4. Stand on Zanzibar, by John Brunner

Each is important for diffferent reasons. Dune matters because Herbert had immense insights into power blocs and power struggles, and what might tilt things one way or the other – and that a random chaotic event can cause amazing results. Also, Herbert understood, perhaps better than any popular author, the explosive mix that religion and politics can make – and this, is the most important message, because he does it without making it a preachy cautionary tale.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is important for all the obvious reasons – the cynical manipulation of the population by a power elite, the evil deleterious effect on the zeitgeist and the human animal that opression can bring. But the real lesson I want people to take away from it, and the source of my sarcastic caption on the cover picture, is the effects of a power elite for whom power is the only object. They speak of addictive substances, nicotine, methamphetamine, what have you. Kissinger glibly commented that power is the ultimate aphrodesiac (not without reason). But more than that, power is the most addictive substance known to man and woman. You can't have it without wanting more, you can't have more without wanting to keep it all for one's self, and you can't keep it without greedily scheming to order affairs so that you never lose it.

When I say the Republican Party's main platform can be found there, it's the addiction to power and the need to get it for its own sake, at any cost. They would kill our country for it if they had to, and events suggest to me, they are still trying.

Stranger In A Strange Land was suggested by reader Phil. He recommends it highly, and my review of the plot suggests it has much to say about community and power. I've not read it yet, because I've never been much of a Heinlein fan, to be quite frank. But it's on my list now.

Stand on Zanzibar is a challenging book to read. John Brunner's visionary classic challenges the reader with a layered structure, an army of intertwining characters, and the strife of what was then the distant future time of the 2010s to paint a picture of a planet going crazy under the strain of overpopulation and technology that's zooming ahead of Man's capacity to reason with it all. With its piercing insights on what makes man tick, it's not predictive, but it does have Mankind's number, and is as relevant now as when it was written back in the 1960s.

Those are your assignments, if you care to take up the challenge. Since my topical work is being done over at Preemptive Karma for the nonce, we can use this area as a sort of reading and book discussion club. I'm going to go back through Dune soon and make public notes. Everyone is welcome to come along.

I think we can all learn something from each other. I believe this.

I Reach Teh Big Time ...

... or at least the medium-sized time.

I've been a fan of Preemptive Karma since I started reading local blogs. I admire wit and clever prose, and it had it in spades. It was one that really challenged me to think, dammit! It's always been a ground of great reading, and at least one PKer has gone on to greater things.

I'm speaking of course of Carla "The Unimpeachable" Axtman, who's currently Fellow at Blue Oregon.

That Carla wears the title of Fellow is cosmically funny to me since, after all, Carla's apparently a woman*. I know. I've seen a picture of her.

Anywhoozle, one can imagine my surprise when Kevin at PK contacted me and asked me if I wanted to join the PK crew.

Flattered? You bet. Excited? Hells-to-the-yeah!

After talking with him and figuring out things, I've decided to take him up on the offer. I am now offically affiliated with the PK crew, and will be taking my comedic wit and nimitable style there too.

This blog will remain, and will have postings of a more personal and abstruse nature from here on out, just updated a little less frequently.

I plan on tripping the light fantastic over on PK; please, please join me and book mark both places!

* yes, I know what "Fellow" is. I maek funnay joak. You Laff Now!

I Evolve Upwards ...

Details to follow presently.

Stay tuned to this channel. This one, too.

Dune Times Two, or Arrakis Squared, And Another Book Recommendation

Something I've done this month after not having done it for an awful long time: read Dune twice.

And not with a book in between as a "palate cleanser". I went straight from the line where Lady Jessica Atreides consoles the Fremen Chani with the famous line While we, Chani, we who carry the name concubine–history will call us wives, to the front of Chapter One: In the week before the departure for Arrakis ...

I've huffed and puffed and hand-wove about how Dune contains a lot of what might help one understand how agendas and religion contemplate unifying to configure politics. It's a rousing tale, one of the best ever written, and to me is a cautionary tale about while religion may inform our private morals it must not ever be allowed to shape our public policy.

I think if nobody ever reads any other book to try and understand human events, this would be the one.

I think it's time I deconstructed Dune to demonstrate what I mean. That should come up soon. I am rather prolix ... but prolix and erudite are two different things. Let's see how I stand up to my own gom jabbar.

And while I'm thinkin' about books, in my first bloviation about important books, commenter Phil from Frieddogleg held up another book he recommends about the same sorts of things I say you should read Dune for, and that's Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land. I will admit, here and now, that I've never read it, but that's just my own personal flaw–I've never been a Heinlein fan.

But Phil's got good insight, so I don't mind passing along the suggestion. And, once I get off my current Arrakis affliction, I very well may move on and dip my toe in Stranger for the first time ... and I'll report on that as well. I've read a summary of the work, and it looks like it has definite things to say about power and human's relations to it.

A Few Notes About This Course's Textbooks

If I may put on my Professor's cap for a moment.

It's not that I'm better at teaching anything than anyone else, but I've realized that this blog has become sort of my own classroom, and my own life (though I'm nowhere near retirement age) has lessons that I would be remiss in not giving out) is the lesson I'm teaching.

We all have lessons like that. But I'm digressing, once again.

This course has a beginning but no end, and the only test you'll ever have to pass is realizing that retaining registration in the Republican party is the closest thing to a self-inflicted Extinction Level Event there is, and waking up to the fact that pretty much everything they say they do (Clear Skies Initiative, "Right-To-Work" Laws) results in the opposite, and the only thing the Republican party is about is the Republican party.

Don't like the Democrats? Fair enough. Register non-affiliated.

Anyway, this course has two essential textbooks. They are classics of American literature, and have important lessons to teach us.

1. Frank Herbert's Dune

The first required textbook, Frank Herbert's Dune, is all about power politics and how a single motivated individual with the right qualities, placed in the right place at the right time, can completely change the game with the passionate help of religionists. But I don't offer it as a suggestion for Democrats and Liberals, but a caution.

The book (I'm going to give away the ending here, but there's enough elements of the Hero's Quest in this that the book telegraphs its ending rather well) tells the story of a power struggle over two commodities upon which the galaxy-spanning human race of 20,000 years hence absolutely depend. For the Imperium, it's the drug-like substance known as spice, which confers longer life, heightened awareness, and without which interstellar travel cannot happen. Because, while humanity of the far future has cracked the secret of faster-than-light travel, without the limited prescience provided by the spice, you might come out anywhere. There's no point to it.

For the Fremen, or the natives of the planet Dune, the crucial thing is water. Arrakis ... the planet known as Dune ... is as dry as the Atacama in Chile and hasn't seen a free drop of water in possibly millions of years. It is the dream of the Fremen to recreated Dune as a green and fertile world, which is shown is possible. What the Imperium does not understand, though, is it's the peculiar ecology of Dune which makes the spice necessary at all.

The person of Paul Atreides, known by the Fremen as Paul-Muad'Dib, is the catalyst. About a third of the way into the novel, after the Atreides family becomes ensnared in the treacherous trap laid by their mortal enemies, the House of Harkonnen, the House of Atreides is thought extinct. However, Paul has gone native–and a good job too, as the cultural forces that have preceded them through 10,000 years of human history has prepared a fertile seed-bed for the seed that would grow into the Prophet Muad'Dib.

Adding the spark of the genetically-advantaged Paul-Muad'Dib to the gas tank that is the Fremen–a culture based on the modern-day Muslim Bedouin–proves to be the spark that causes the explosion that fells the complacent, corrupt, decadent Imperium.

However.

While there is a sense of justice and exhilaration in Muad'Dib's and the Fremen's defeat of the Harkonnens and the deposition of the Emperor from his throne, it must always be remembered that the book ends with Paul thinking with dread about the jihad that his Fremen are locked and loaded to sweep across the Empire, purging the unfaithful, and that despite him being thier mahdi, thier messiah, he is absolutely powerless to stop it.

He has ended one injustice, only to possibly create a greater one.

Modern parallels abound. Ecological change, a civilization's pivotal dependence on a single commodity, brutal power politics augmented by religious passion ... it's also a ripping good story, written with deep mind and passion itself. Even though you may have heard the ending, the story's soaring intellect and imagination make it worth reading again and again. I've finally worn out my copy and have had to replace it.

2. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

It's understandable to assume that we adopt this classic melodramaticly as a cautionary tale about security states, the decay of society by autocratic rule, the beggaring of the individual in the name of the state, etc, etc.

And actually the obvious and endlessly, tediously cited detriments to the human spirit that comes of being a citizen of Oceania are things that one must be aware of. Orwell had the right of it there.

I feel the importance of Orwell's classic goes well beneath that obvious surface however. The crushing, hopeless, dreary life of 6079 Smith W didn't just happen, of course. Newspeak didn't just happen, MiniLuv, MiniTrue, MiniPax, and MiniPlenty didn't just happen. Even though they are remarkably visible and appalling things, they are like societal melanomas; they may be a small spot on the skin, but they indicate a great deal wrong that you can't see.

And I'm not even talking about the ruthlessness of the Party or the general hypocrisy that is Ingsoc. It even goes deeper than that.

The exegesis of the book hinges on a combination of the viewpoint provided by Emmanuel Goldstein's famous Book, Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which tells the story of the Party with a straightforward truth that suggests that the Party probably wrote it itself; and the expositions on power that O'Brien regaled Smith with during the weeks (months?) of his interrogation and conditioning.

Famously, the Thought Police storm in on Julia and Winston just after Winston has put down The Book, just as he is about to read the sentence which states what the Party's object is. But O'Brien, through his tender ministrations, make it clear just what that object is:

Power. Pure power. Power for its own sake.

Just like the Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four, todays Republican party is more than drunk on power, they're addicted to it, in the way a meth addict is addicted, and when power is taken away from them, they get chaotic, jittery, scary (just like the Republican party is acting). We suppose the only difference between Ingsoc and Republicans is that Orwell's Party has moved in and accepted its addiction. The Republicans, on the other hand, haven't accepted that they are addicts yet, so they complain about how thier not being in power is a Bad Thing™ for the People as though they actually believe it, and seem chagrined when people don't believe in them or agree with them.

3. In Summary and In Conclusion

Now, that was some dry exploration. If you've gotten this far with me, I congratulate you.

If your eyes have glazed over, though, here's the lessons, short and sweet:

Dune is valuable because it demonstrates what happens when economics, ecology, power politics, and religion combine and how brutal it can all be.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is valuable because it shows the utter corruption a power-addicted group can wreak on not just a society, but humanity in general.

In my experience, the human animal has always been the most dangerous.

My Nascent Plan For World Domination Bears First Fruits

I am accepted as a member blog in BlogBurst.

I feel like one of the big dogs now, so.

Where I Stand Depends On Where I Sit

I think "tests" to gauge your qualities or positions on things are kind of stupid. However, being an evolved monkey, I can't stop myself from taking them if I see them enough.

A co-worker at my Union shop the other night absolutely insisted that I take the Myers-Briggs Personality test. The questions irritate me, because they are only binary-valued. I distrust anything that looks at the world in terms of black and white. Moreover, I wasted two Saturdays once in a "managment seminar" (time I'm not getting back, as far as I know) taking one and going through real awkward excercises with my coworkers.

Well, hell, the vendor got paid and management felt like they were getting something done.

But, for what it's worth, my Meyers-Briggs result then was INTJ. When I retook it? Still INTJ. So at least I'm consistent, and for those of you who look at life through Myers-Briggs glasses, you already know what I'm about.

One annoyance is that "World's Smallest Political Quiz". The impression I get is that it's non-partisan (but if that's true why do I always see it used as a winnowing tool by Libertarians?). Well, I finally gave in. Here's my result:

So at least I wound up pretty much as I thought I would: dead center in left-field.

If you don't think someone's trying to send a message here, meditate, my friends, that Libertarian is in the top, and by our transactional calculus, up is good. the middle is less worse, and down is bad. And regardless of how you define Statism, it depends on what dictionary you're using: I don't accept that big government is bad ... if big government works for its citizens, rather than works on its citizens, as the Republican version does.

But, in case you're one of those folks who loves them some quantification of that unquantifiable thing called human character, then, there ya go.

I'm not linking to the "World's Smallest Political Quiz". Go use teh freakin' Google yourself. See? I believe in self reliance!

Big Day At The Office ... The Total Number Of Hits Has Doubled

Of course, this is a brand new blog, only been in existence for about two and a half weeks, but it seems I'm not the only person in the noosphere passionate about Randi.

As of this writing I've had more than 150 hits today, as many as in the entire existence of this blog before I made any posts about her.

Thanks for stopping by, peeps.

Oh, I do note that Phil, of Frieddogleg (I love that name) returned the favor of linking and following, so, you rock, Phil. Like the cut of your jib and all that.

Thank You, Upper Left!

I just noticed that, during blogroll amnesty, Upper Left has tipped me.

Thanks, guy! I like your style. Where mine is prolix, yours is terse and tight, and that's good too.

For all of you who may visit here, say hay! If you want to link, we'll exchange.

Dune: It's In There

I adore the book Dune. It's pretty much the awesomest book evar.

I adore it because of the way Herbert understood politics. This book should be required reading for all politicos and the people who love them. If you haven't read Dune, you should be made to get the hell out of politics and maybe even civil life.

Why? Because woven in the story is how political groups are relentlessly finding and using leverage–some, like the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, quickly and with gusto, and others, like the Bene Gesserit, looking patiently and biding their time.

It also gives the Diogenean seeker a sense of how power blocs play off each other, simultaneously giving with one hand while trying to slip the the knife in with the other, on how to be enemy and friend at once, and how a toxic environment can sometimes become tenable when the tensions (such as the Imperial House/Spacing Guild/CHOAM tripod) balance.

And, in the hero's quest of Paul Maud'Dib, the power–and the fear–that can result when you add too much religion into your politics (we rooted for the Fremen underdog in the book, but we wouldn't want to live in a Universe where they got swept into power. Talk about the devil you don't know!)

Anyway, Dune. Available at fine used book stores near you. Buy a tattered old copy–it's got all the same words as the new ones.

And read it.

That's your political textbook, Mentat.

I'm conveniced that we will see relevant political lessons throughout Dune. We'll extract them as they become obvious and deconstruct them if we have to.

Two Doors Down

This is the continuation of the (now defunct) short-lived poliblog, The Real Oregon. This is now the samizdat of record. Let the travesty continue.