When Guerillas Govern

Today I was unable to attend a guest lecture by government professor Nelson Kasfir of Dartmouth College. He was scheduled to speak at the Hong Kong Theatre at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) at 16:00.

The event was free and conveniently located -- just a few blocks off Temple station, off of the Circle or District lines. But I still managed to miss it. (I stayed home to finish some homework.)

But Prof. Kasfir would have been fascinating. He is the author of interesting articles which I have never read but which sound terribly interesting. His themes of guerrilla armies, civilian democracies and civil society complement the broader discourse going on about weak, failed or non-existent states.

Some of Prof. Kasfir's recent articles include:

• "Guerillas and Civilian Participation : The National Resistance Army in Uganda, 1981-86," Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2: 271-296 (June 2005).
• "Civil Society, the State and Democracy in Africa," Commonwealth & Comparitive Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2: 123-149 (July 1998).
• "The Conventional Notion of Civil Society: A Critique." Commonweal & Comparitive Politics, Vol. 36, No. 2:1-20 (July 1998).

Look forward to a dialogue with some of you about these kinds of topics.

Seventy Years

My father turns seventy today. This post is to publicly congratulate him on seven decades of life. Felicidades, papa. Con mucho amor te escribo esto (ya que no deje suficiente tiempo para mandartelo por correo tradicional).

I'd just like to comment that my father has spent seven decades living a life that many today perhaps might find challenging. When he decided to embark on an intercultural career and lifestyle, he effectively chose to de-prioritize what most people increasingly consider most important: accumulating money and acquiring things--riches, material goods and shiny objects. My father, bless him, has consistently lived by a set of principles and values that almost seem anachronistic today. He is, for me and many others, a figure to be emulated, admired and loved.

Tambien, yo te quiero agradecer especialmente por haberme dado tanta libertad--y tanto apoyo, moral, emocional y material--para poder pensar, descubrir, explorar y aprender. Gracias por darme la oportunidad de poder desarrollar mis propias capacidades, de desarrollar mi intellecto y, sobre todo, de haber servido como ejemplo para mi y mi hermanita.

Te quiero, papa. Feliz Cumpleanos.

Dreher's Crunchy Cons

I received today a book published recently by Crown Forum in the U.S. which I intend to review. The book is titled Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip home-schooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party) and was written by former National Review writer Rod Dreher [now at the Dallas Morning News]. It is based on a highly contentious article on new forms of conservatism that he published in National Review a few years ago and which ended up the subject of long-running debates on blogs everywhere.

There will be many things to comment on, I’m sure, once I start reading Dreher's book. Already, though, while looking over the index, a reference to a former English professor of mine, Jeffrey Hart, caught my eye. Dreher writes:

“Man is not an island. This is something conservatives used to know, before we got puffed up and arrogant. One thinks of a statement attributed to my old National Review colleague Jeffrey Hart, a Dartmouth professor:

‘It is depressing to hear cigar-smoking young conservatives wearing red suspenders take a reductive review of, well, everything. They seem to contemplate with equanimity a world without lions, tigers, elephants, whales. I am appalled at the philistinism that seems to smile at a future consisting of a global Hong Kong.’” (p.165)

Prof. Hart is right. And I’m glad Dreher chose to use this excerpt. Many young conservatives today do seem to have an entirely materialistic view of the world. Many conservatives I’ve met have no understanding of the importance of, say, rural values to conservative political values. It’s a kind of Tory Bohemianism. It's what Dreher instead calls Crunchy Conservatism.

This is worth discussing further and I know I will be coming back to these themes in the coming weeks.

Prof. Hart, it should be noted, has published several articles over the past few years which have also served to re-assess where we all stand as conservatives. He has been increasingly critical of the Bush Administration and his articles over the past few years have provoked others to re-consider what some of us mean when we say we are "conservative."

One example of Hart's recent writings is "The Evangelical Effect" written for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and dated April 17, 2005. The sub-title to the article says it all:

"The Bush presidency is not conservative. It is populist and radical, says Jeffrey Hart, its policies deformed by the influence of Christian extremism."

This is highly provocative stuff. Hart gives fuller expression to his views in his recently published history of the 50 years of National Review, titled The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times. We shall look at this particular books later this year but these are questions and themes that, again, I think are worth grappling with if we realy mean to be engaged with the world.

Modernist Discourse?

In class today, we heard a 20-minute presentation on the so-called “modernist discourse” and the major criticisms to it.

What does this modernist discourse mean? Well, in the simplest of words and most general of treatments, it is everything that says that the use of critical, rational thought (Enlightenment rationality) will lead mankind towards ever greater progress.

In the context of the media, it refers more specifically to the set of ideas that are embodied in the works of such contemporary cultural / social theorists as Jurgen Habermas, Neil Postman and others. Beginning with Habermas, these gentlemen say that there exists a so-called “public sphere” that is neither the state nor the private realm, a sphere of action in which men become informed, discuss and engage in discourse, and exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations as citizens. They also suggest the idea that the publication of the book and the rise of so-called print-capitalism contributed to the development of the typographic mind through the increased penetration of the written word in human society. Furthermore, people like Habermas and Postman believe firmly that there has been a corruption of this public sphere. The rise of mass media, television and pop culture has ushered in what may effectively be called the end of the typographic age. And this, ladies and gentlemen, has weakend our capacity to become informed, deliberate and thus participate fully as citizens in their democracy.

Fascinating, huh? Some of it may even ring true. With my classmates over here, there has been much debate—both in and out of class—ever since we began reading Habermas last semester and Postman just a few weeks ago. Some people argue that to even posit that education and intellectual engagement with social reality are necessary in order to truly be informed participants in a democracy is authoritarian (for imposing an image of an ideal citizen) as well as elitist (for insisting that to one needs to be educated at all in order to be an informed political participant).

I am reluctant to say this but I sympathize with both Habermas and Postman. I haven’t any empirical data to back up my comments, but I do have anecdotal evidence indicating, I think, the deleterious effects of television on the cognitive abilities of my peers. Too much television. Toomany movies. Too many videos games. In general, I also find people around me increasingly impatient and less willing to struggle with things that are, shall we say, more poetical or meditative, more time-consuming and text-oriented. If they do read at all, it is not literature but trash or junk fiction (like The Da Vinci Code). I also find that people are increasingly nasty, ironic ain their outlook on life, caustic in their comments, sarcastic in their humor. This is fruit of a steady diet of secular entertainment. And these people are detached from life.

So, according to some critics, because I presume that things were better before the triumph of television, I should be labeled a modernist. (Confusing, I know.) In the same way, those who argue on behalf of the idea of a well-informed and vibrant public sphere, or a normative conception of the informed citizen, are thus critiqued by those who say that everything must be analyzed, unpacked, deconstructed and set into its proper context. The modernists, as it were, are attacked by the post-modernists who insist that there is no universality, that there is no Truth and that all we have to do is reveal the underlying assumptions and relationships of power, gender, etc., all of which must be made apparent to others. This is the post-modern discourse.

Then again, as socialogist Peter L. Berger said to me at a seminar last summer in Boston, the very fact that we are even engaging in this type of discussion is very modern and a legacy of the Enlightenment itself. I suppose one could say with a smile, We are all modernists now--even those who are against the modernist ideals.

Technical Issues

Until a few days ago, we were without an Internet connection at home, here at Oudezijds Voorburgwal 183 in Amsterdam. And I realized today that I have not posted anything for nearly a month. Well, now that we finally have an Internet connection at home, I will make a serious attempt at catching up. I even intend to back-date a few posts--perhaps going back to Denmark!

Have I mentioned how lovely and reasonable the Danes were?

Thanks for still being willing to read me. I promise to make it worth your while and to work hard to earn the time you give to me.

E Pluribus Unum

The other day, I received the November [2005] edition of the Claremont Institute's publication, The Proposition. The lead essay titled "The Crisis if American National Identity" was written by Professor Charles R. Kesler, editor of the Claremont Review of Books -- which is nothing less than the antithesis of the New York Review of Books.

Professor Kesler's essay (which was adapted from a lecture given at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC) is excellent. Here is just the opening paragraph:

About a decade ago, when he was vice president, Al Gore explained that our national motto, e pluribus unum, means "from one, many." This was a sad day for knowledge of Latin among our political elite--and after all those expensive private schools that Gore had been packed off to by his paterfamilias. It was the kind of flagrant mistranslation that, had it been committed by a Republican, say George W. Bush or Dan Quayle, would have been a gaffe heard round the world. But the media didn't play up the slip, perhaps because they had seen Gore's Harvard grades and figured he'd suffered enough, perhaps because they admired the remark's impudence. Though literally a mistake, politically the comment expressed and honored the multicultural imperative, then so prominent in the minds of American liberals: "from one," or to exaggerate slightly, "instead of one culture, many." As such it was a rather candid example of the literary method known as deconstruction: torture a text until it confesses the exact opposite of what it says in plain English or, in this case, Latin.

It's an excellent essay. If you are interestecd in reading Professor Kesler's essay in its entirety, or subscribing to the Claremont Review of Books, contact the Claremont Institute by calling 909-621-6825.

From Bad to Worse

This article at Stratfor is deeply troubling. It is only a glimpse of the kind of negative reaction that Bolivia's new president Evo Morales and his ideologically-driven policies will provoke among the few global investors willing to even venture into Bolivia.

There will be more announcements in the coming months. What do you expect when you hike corporate taxes from 18% to 50%?

Historical Particularity

I found something tonight I never really thought I’d find, while reading the excellent monthly, First Things (January 2006). Let me explain.

For years, I’ve been convincing my parents, friends and family to go to the midnight Mass at Our Lady of Czestochowa in Turners Falls, Massachusetts (only about 20-25 minutes from Brattleboro). There, the excellent parish priest always, always, always starts complete darkness, while offering a fascinating prelude to the Mass celebrating the birth of Christ. Then, one by one, people light small candles and the priest and the altar boys march to the front while the organ and choir above sing (and I think bells are rung).

Tonight, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus offers the flowing entry in his “The Public Square,” referring precisely to what the priest in Turner’s Falls says every year. Mr. Neuhaus says:

“Christianity is not a mythology or source of elevating spiritual insights. Historical particularity is all, which is nicely underscored by the following “Proclamation of the Birth of Christ” from the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Mass:

The twenty-fifth day of December.
in the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth
year of the creation of the world
from the time when God in the beginning created the
heaven an the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year
after the flood;
the two thousand an fifteenth year
from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year
from Moses
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year
from David’s being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of
Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-forth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the
foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian
Augustus;
the whole world being at peace
in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the ternal God and Son of the eternal
Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most mercifuel
coming.,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed
since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea
of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.”

Not an Issue?

Some readers of my anti-surveillance camera missive (below) insist that it is not important, or that the issue is moot, or that I am basically barking up the wrong tree.

I disagree.

I think little issues (like surveillance cameras) do matter. With the passage of time, and over the course of history, these little things become established. They harden. And they end up mattering in ways we cannot foresee now.

(BTW, I was told of an article about this very issue that was published in today’s The Brattleboro Reformer.)

Some of you have also disagreed with my proposal to improve our social relations, strengthen our communities and develop a stronger, tighter, more vibrant civil society.

I think both criticisms (and others I have received) merit a thoughtful response—if only to remind some of you of the very principles which used to animate and inspire you. Frankly, I think some of you have forgotten what it is tha's been lost in many part sof the world--and what we are trying to preserve in a place like Vermont.

Surveillance

In an article in today’s Washington Post there is a story about surveillance cameras in Bellows Falls, VT ("Federal Grants Bring Surveillance Cameras to Small Towns" by David A. Fahrenthold, Thursday, January 19, 2006, Page A01) which shocked me so much, that it made me want to cry out across the Atlantic. I'll hopefully be preparing an editorial for the monthly Vermont Commons--and calling officials in Bellows Falls--in the coming days. But for the moment, please let me share some thoughts with y'all.

Basically, the Bellows Falls police department, using federal monies, has put up 16 surveillance cameras--just three less than D.C., which has 181 times more people than Bellows Falls, according to the article.

THIS is deeply troubling stuff, ladies and gentlemen, especially considering that we are talking about Vermont. I don’t know what they expect to monitor. Kids playing hooky from school? Someone running a red light? Smoking a joint? Jaywalking?

People say: “Well, those cameras are OK. As long as you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!”

OK. Fair enough. But aren't we then abdicating our collective responsibilities--as a people, as a community and as parents--to be involved in the activities of our fellow citizens, to feel responsible for the good of our communities and the behavior of our kids? Having surveillance cameras along Main Street only generates a sense of complacency among us all, and feeds into an attitude increasingly willing to depend on even MORE government.

Others people say: "Well, in this age of terrorism, we need surveillance, we need more security, we need to trade in our individual rights and curtail our freedoms so that we may feel safe."

OK. Fair enough. But in this age of global terrorism, we have to find a way to NOT fall into that [false] sense of security that big-brother government promises. Like the Communists of the 20th century, Al Qaeda is organized in cells which infiltrate, penetrate and embed themselves everywhere. The best way to fight this is NOT through top-down surveillance on our shores; it is by strengthening our social relations, by getting to know our neighbors and those around us, by contributing to a stronger civil society (think De Toqueville)--in short, by being engaged in our culture.

Like a bloated welfare state that ostensibly takes care of the poor so we don’t have to, increased surveillance--whether at the hands of local, state or federal authorities--usurps the very responsibility that we all have to ensure local safety, respect the law, maintain public order. It is up to all of us (not the State) to make sure that our children know how to behave properly, that our neighbors know how to be civil, that our communities strive to be healthy, wholesome and good.

Isn’t THIS precisely the kind of issue that could--that should--unite us, young and old, liberal or conservative, Yorker or Green Mountain Boy, Democrat or Republican? Isn’t the growth of the coercive and controlling powers of the state our common enemy? Is not the theme--the very raison d'etre--of our decrepit Republic, freedom?

Some of you may cringe when I say this but "government is the problem, NOT the solution." How many more taxes must we pay, how many more federal agencies do we need, how many more bureaucrats must we hire, how many more cameras do we need before we realize that we are, day-by-day, treading more firmly on the road to serfdom?

Or is our goal to be as overtaxed, controlled, regulated, monitored and stagnant as Europe? This is a dangerous and unwelcome development.

But I suppose easy federal money was just too good to pass up, eh Police Chief Clark?

Principled [On-Screen] Men

Wow. I just watched part of another film witch has left me with a flood of ideas related to my whole thesis that the 1960s really destroyed something beautiful in our [American] culture and around the world.

Actually, never mind that for now. Let me just assure you that I am NOT here in my apartment watching TV all day long. At times I loathe that idiot box. But I will admit that I tend to have that or the radio on most of the time as sort of background noise that sets the tone for me and my work (research and writing).

So, today, I happened to stumble across Glenn Ford in another B&W movie from the 1940s. Truth be told, I've only known who he is for a few days when I watched him and Bette Davis in "A Stolen Life" (1946) which was, er, watchable.

Today's movie was, I found out, "Young Man With Ideas" (1952). Ford acts as Maxwell Webster, a young attorney from Montana who moves to Los Angeles in search of better economic opportunities. He runs into problems and in the end clears his name and makes it. It's simply a wonderful film with some lovely co-actresses: Julie Webster, Dorianne Gray, Joyce Laramie.

I think the thing that is most thrilling about these films is the sense of values as portrayed in the lives of principled men. In fact, Glenn Ford ends up being quite a cultural model -- certainly not in real life but in his celluloid existence -- for us all. This is what one online site has about Ford:

Glenn Ford said he always played himself, and on screen he usually played easy-going, intelligent, principled men, calm under pressure. He played the kind of man American men and boys wanted to be, and American women wanted to find.

Apparently, he was quite a philanderer in real life -- but that doesn't take away from the awesome goodness represented by his onscreen character or the films they made in those days, the 1940s and 1950s. It's that lost American ideal based on character.

Thinking about these characters played by Ford reminds me a bit of something said about the Notre Dame philosopher Alasdair McIntyre whose book "After Virtue" apparently describes the loss of a common understanding of basic words -- or political symbols -- that embodied who we wanted to be as a political community. I'm talking about words like Truth and Justice and Good and Right. McIntyre apparently says that these words / concepts have lost their meaning. That using them is like trotting out grandma's rags to put on, empty and tattered with no relevance to today.

The excerpt above about the characters played by Ford also reminds me of Professor [Jeffrey] Hart's essay on "the WASP gentleman as cultural ideal," a fascinating but light romp through some of the best of America's social history, when the institutions of society transmitted certain values.

You know what's ironic?

That the other movie I saw tonight was "Pleasantville," a movie that ridicules and makes fun of 1950s America and that society of ideals and that culture of tradition. The less said about this movie the better (although I may return to give it a well-earned beating another time.)

I'll leave you all with a picture of Mr. Ford:

















We should mourn for the death of this forgotten American culture that Mr. Ford represents.

Justice and Right

I usually have the television on with the volume down, channel on a news show or one of those Merchant/Ivory productions. Today, I happened to catch the last half of a film called "The Winslow Boy" (1999).

The film was directed by David Mamet and is an adaptation of a British play by Terence Rattigan. It tells the story of a young cadet who is accused of petty theft. Set in 1910, it boasts Nigel Hawthorne as Arthur Winslow, the father of the boy, Ronnie, and Jeremy Northam as high-profile attorney Sir Robert Morton who decides to take on the defense of the Winslow boy.

This is an excellent production with an interesting legal predicament -- that both the Admiralty and the Crown cannot be sued since it is presumed that it can do no wrong.

Near the end, in a conversation between the eldest Winslow daughter, Catherine, who is an outspoken suffragette, and Sir Robert, a Conservative opposed to women's suffrage, one hears this line:

"It is easy to do justice. It is hard to do Right."

The film was released April 30, 1999. If interested, you may visit the film's Web site.

Newsless

There are no newspapers in Brussels today. Apparently there is a strike of delivery men (or is it transportation workers?). I've scanned the news this morning but I have found nothing so far.

Too bad. I had a 9:30 a.m. meeting with Matthew, my editor, who is visiting the Brussels office from Paris. While I waited for him, I was hoping to scan the news and perhaps get a few more ideas about pssible editorials that I could work on in the coming weeks.

But the shelves were empty. No dailies anywhere. Instead, and somewhat reluctantly, I picked up Time and Newsweek. Oh, well. A little junk news is sometimes sort of fun.

Right and Good and True

Today, I also happened to catch the broadcast of what I consider on first impression a truly terrible movie: "First Knight." Richard Gere as Lancelot, Sean Connery as King Arthur and other actors delivering terrible lines for semi-cartoonish figures--especially the rebel knight Malagant. Ugh!

But amid all the nonsense, it has to be admitted, there were a few good lines (in the same way that at the beginning of the film "Gladiator," Russell Crowe reminds his battle-ready men, "Remember men: what you do in life, echoes in eternity!"). Excellent stuff.

In "First Kight," there is a scene between King Arthur (Connery) and Malagant (someone unimportant):

Arthur: You know the law we live by, and where is it written, 'Beyond
Camelot live lesser people, people too weak to protect themselves, let them die?'

Malagant: Other people live by other laws, Arthur. Or is the law of Camelot to rule the entire world?

Arthur: There are laws that enslave men and laws that set them free. Either what we hold to be right and good and true is Right and Good and True, for all mankind, under God, ... or we're just another robber tribe!"

Prince John

Today, I happened to stumble across a re-broadcast of one of the installments of "The Lost Prince" on Masterpiece Theater (PBS). I watched this installment -- at times with tears welling up -- entirely enthralled.

This was a beautiful production of the true, heart-rending story of the youngest son of England's King George V, who spent most of his life in isolation. His older brothers -- Edward VIII and George VI -- went on to become King later on life.

The episode I watched today covered about a decade of Prince John's youth and showed how his mother -- in part, out of ignorance -- simply shut him away without understanding the epileptic seizures and other ailments he showed as a young boy.

A highly-recommended production!