N. Machiavelli, The Prince, Peter Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli, Princeton University Press, 1998

Machiavelli’s book is not only one of the most widely read but also one of the least understood. I read it after already knowing his "History of Florence"; eternal contrarian Kissinger recommends to read it alongside "Comments on Titus Livy." The message of the "Prince" does not seem to me as being cold, cynical and worldly; rather I imagine N. M. as rather sincere and impassioned man.

Yet, his message was so strange and ahead of his time that he was accursed by baffled contemporaries and generations of commentators alike, including, e.g. Friedrich II. If I understand this message correctly, it is two-fold. First, the medieval European order will collapse and feudal kingdoms, "Christian Republic" of the Empire and Universal, i.e. Catholic Church, will be replaced by a new type of social organization. For the lack of term, I’ll call it anachronistically (with respect to Machiavelli) as "National Monarchy": a sovereign state based on the standing army, common language of the people and religion of its subjects, which are embodied in the figure of the ruler, the Prince.

Second, because of marked superiority of this beast to the contemporary patchwork of vassilages, communes and dioceses, Italy must be the first in embracing this new type of organization or else it becomes plaything of these new leviathans. He was, of course, correct on both instances. If one would look at the world 150 years after his death, one would find most of Europe divided between national monarchies of England, France, Spain, Russia and Sweden, and three antiquated medieval-style commonwealths of Austria-Germany (Holy Roman Empire), Turkey and Poland. National monarchies were not yet nation-states in a modern sense, but to achieve that, all they needed were citizenship, borders and identity separate from that of a ruling dynasty. To get these, European monarchies needed to pass through the furnace? of the Napoleonic Wars.

Italy, and Germany, were late in developing institutions of a unified nation and Machiavelli’s patriotic dream (cynics do not have patriotic dreams) was realized only in the second half of XIX century. Hence, the bold predictions of the “Prince” all turned true, but they are now behind us.

Since mid-XIX century, we live in the modern world. We hold passports; switching allegiance between states must be accompanied by an official act of some sort, or else it is punished as "treason", crossing imaginary boundaries on land, sea or in the air requires documents called visas, and these "nations" negotiate between themselves binding contracts, the treaties, and form families, alliances, as if they were individuals. Peacetime armies are not much smaller than wartime, and, at least in the developed states, internal repression is performed by a strictly separate institution, the police. Shrewd 15th century Italian, if he were to believe in the afterlife, would smile on us. He did not.

The book "From Poliziano to Machiavelli by Peter Godman shares mistaken and simplistic view of Machiavelli’s political philosophy. Yet, it provides a rich glimpse of the intellectual environment of Niccolo the Magnificent. As a politician, he was modestly successful directing for approximately five years the foreign affairs of the Florentine Republic. It was not surprising that he was finally unseated by the shrewder, more emotionally intelligent operators—despite his professed cynicism, as any passionate intellectual he could be quite defenseless—it is quite remarkable that his career took him that far.

What is really interesting about the book is that it shows how the ideas of the “Prince” germinated in the contemporary Italian literary milieu. As I already mentioned, the book might have been so modernistic and far-fetched for his contemporaries that its intellectual roots seemed obscure. Not so—-according to Peter Godman--Machiavelli’s views were firmly rooted in contemporary political thinking and he had many predecessors and competitors. What is really fascinating, is that, among his contemporaries he, as an intellectual councilor to the princes and political theorist, was hardly considered a top class in his time, being overshadowed by some florentine professor, now nearly forgotten. Even I forgot his name. That’s why history is wonderful: you never know how it will turn out.

Pascal Boyer, Religion explained, Basic Books, ISBN: 978-0465006960

Nothing of course, is explained in the book of psychologist/antropologist Pascale Boyer, but it contains incisive analysis why religion emerged, persists and is likely to persist in human communities. The explanation will require attribution of specific religious experiences to the neurophysiology of the brain, the task, which is yet to be accomplished.

Analysis of Pascale Boyer mentions that despite extremely divergent theological and ethical premises of world religions—-and he hints how different those may be if non-European religions are included—-all contain similar and recognizable elements.

• Ritual. All religions involve repetitive behaviors, which have principal meaning for the members-initiates, while may seem senseless or even bizarre to the uninitiated.

• Sacrifice: real or symbolic.

• Special class of interlocutors between “supernatural” and human world (“specialists”, in terminology of the author), the shamans, the keepers, the priesthood.

• All religions provide intermediation between life and death.

Unusually, but I found one (and only one) human institution, which contains all four elements without being recognized as religion: namely the military, if we interpret the fourth requirement in a slightly ironic fashion.

As I have already stated, there is no "explanation" but PB shows the connection between formation of the religions and the following features of human cognition, which evolved as a result of human evolution:

• People have detailed mental representation of others, their actions and motivations.

• The concept of morality such as shared sacrifice is beneficial to society because it provides for more stable communities. Indeed, sharing food in the times of hunger, as well as physical self-sacrifice in the name of the community’s defense provides for longevity of tribal/societal association.

• Having shared cultural beliefs is necessary for society to function. For instance regular gatherings at the place of worship facilitate other exchanges and functions such as commerce or calls for communal defense. With time such gatherings, such as People’s Assemblies in Greek city-states could lose its ritual function and acquire the function of the body politic. Yet, even then religious ceremonies were considered crucial to the integrity of the body.

• Memories, which seem to have meaning are well preserved. Memories, which do not have obvious meaning—-for instance, the socks I have worn a year ago to this day—-are easily forgotten.

The author, Pascale Boyer, considers the human behaviors and features above as sufficient to create religious consciousness. Because of the intimate connection of religion with the human mind, he doubts religion will ever cease to exist.

Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization

I previously reviewed Azar Gat's "War in human civilization" (Feb. 2008). This is an important book and despite its neocon slant--in particular, the tendency to regard all social processes in fake biological terms--many of its arguments have intellectual validity. So my discussion with Gat continues.

The Jewish people never had an instituion of nobility and did not have kingship for the past 2000 years. Yet, for the most part of this period, they lived in the midst of hostile peoples. Hence, Gat's exaggeration of ethnic factors in warfare and his complete oblivion to others, in particular, dynastic, confessional and class reasons for war is understandable, especially from his position as a mid-ranking reserve officer of Israeli Army.

Yet, for the sake of truth, I must take an argument with his vision. First, ethnicity existed only as an academic category before mid- to late XIX century. Ethnicity as a political factor followed nationalism and did not precede it. For instance, when my grandfather grew up in the Russian Empire, simple people like him did not identify themselves as "Russians." They considered themselves "Skobar" (i.e. from Pskov), "Poshekhonian" or "Ryazanski", i.e. by the place of their birth. The word Russian meant the subject of the Russian Tsar and the Greek Orthodox.

In the first world war, Russian Baltic Navy was commanded by von Essen and the doomed East Prussia invasion force by von Rennenkampf. His German opposite number was Gen. Francois (i.e. "French" in French). Similarly, the inhabitants of the neighboring villages in the Transcarpathia were typically called "Slovaks" if they were Roman Catholics, "Ruthenians" if they were Uniate and "Ukrainians" if they were Orthodox. If you think that boys from one village in course of the centuries never dated girls from another village, you gravely misjudge human nature. Similarly, the closest neighbors in the Western provinces of the Russian Empire were Catholic Lithuanians, mostly uniate White Russians or Orthodox Russians. On the contrary, a peasant from Smolensk and a peasant from Tobolsk in Siberia identified themselves as Russians on the basis of their common Orthodox religion. If you were to call Metternich, Radetzky or Windischgraetz Czechs they would be neither offended, nor find it hilarious. They simply would not understand it as if you were calling them astronauts.

Nor this phenomenon was limited to the Eastern Europe. When, in 1870s the King Victor Emmanuel united Italy he quipped: "We created Italy. Now we must create Italians." Friulani in the North were absolutely different people from central Toscanians and had nothing to do with Napolitans or Sicilians. Norwegians of the ancient Kingdom of Norway, before the advent of national television were three distinct groups who could barely if at all understand each other.

What Azar Gat confuses with ethnicity is "localism", which certainly existed (and informed warfare) from the time immemorial. When the Catholic Poles, semi-pagan Lithuanians of "Polish Rus" and Orthodox Novgorodians from the Russian principality of Novgorod jointly opposed the Teutonic Knights they did it in the name of the local patriotism and the Polish King from Lithuanian dynasty. So much for ethnicity. Again, when the federation of Italian towns under the Milanese leadership defeated Friedrich II at Legnano--one of the turning points of late medieval history--they did it to avoid Imperial taxes and other impositions. German ethnicity of the knights and the Emperor's Sicilian upbringing had no part in that.

Barbara Ehrehreich. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. ISBN: 978-0805087499

Modern society nixes importance of philosophers and poets. Yet, in purely practical terms, without philosophers political discourse becomes incredibly shallow. And with poets reduced to drudgery in "liberal arts" colleges, the language of political debate becomes increasingly colorless and nasty. Politics is and always was a hyper-competitive business but for the observer of the Kennedy-Nixon exchange of 1960, there is a feeling of unbelievable deterioration of collective intelligence in recent times.

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the very few, may be the only remaining social philosopher of distinction in America. She is the only person whom I know who poses questions relevant for the everyday life. So-called academic philosophy is sterile. Academic social science should better be called "applied statistical research." These things may be useful for budgetary planning-- how many public toilets with Wi-Fi access an average city must have-- but are irrelevant for the terms in which normal people comprehend the society.

While her new book is not so daring and unusual in its treatment as "Nickel and dimed" and "For her own good" but she identifies the 180 degrees turn in values, which has occurred in American Puritanism. While the pilgrims held the dim view of "institutionalized depression" (Ehrenreich's term), modern American outlook heavily influenced by the Southern Baptist culture of megachurches and the New Age, propagates superficially "sunny" concept of reality and the supernatural. Neither repentance, nor continual self-improvement are necessary. Salvation can be achieved by having "the right attitude." The opposite side of this worldview also with the roots in pilgrim Puritanism is that if one is unhappy and/or unlucky--all mostly understood in terms of material wealth--one is beyond salvation and must fake a positive attitude not to become an outcast.

Kudos to Barbara! Keep up the good work!

Steven M. Cahn, From Student to Scholar. A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor. Columbia UP, 2008

Precious few books live up to the laudatory reviews on its back cover. This is one of them. The author packed in its 84 pages pretty much everything there is to know about life in American academia. The only two omissions-- one being recognized by the author in the preface-- are peculiar to the fact that Steve Kahn's field is humanities. Hence, the grant writing and managing scientific collaborations and co-authorships, ubuquitous in natural sciences, are omitted.

I spare the reader usual the superlatives about the book and pass to what it says on the current state of American science. The purpose of book is "descriptive", what the things are, not what they could or should be, or whether the current state of affairs is sustainable.

The sad fact is, though American graduate school is still #1 in the world, it is much too happy with its present ways of doing things-- the ways, which were the results of the explosive growth of academia as a result of Cold War and Sputnik-- and its career tracks became too formalized and stereotypical to be productive. For instance, in 1940s-1950s all the professors of the elite (Ivy Leagues+Chicago, Stanford, Caltech and the like) schools were graduates of other elite schools simply because only they had PhD programs.

However, if you look at the careers of the professors of the elite schools who started in 1960s and 1970s, their peers still predominate, as it should be, but quite a few faculty had degrees from lesser schools. I suspect that these are, on the average, an order of magnitude brighter than the rest of their peers to win that kind of uphill battle. However, in 1990s and 2000s, because of shrinking tenure opportunities (PhD programs grew at the breakneck tempo in 70s and 80s), the Olympus of American academia closed again. This means that no one not showing promise before age 14, or being a family member of another Ivy graduate, or, of course, a Wall Street banker or a Hollywood celeb cannot reach it. "Cabots talk only to Lodges and Lodges only to G-d." Cambridge brahmins so carefully circumscribed their own exclusivity that it can be destroyed by their own profligate inbreeding-- as were the dinosaurs or the European Royalty.

Astrography (in Russian)

Abstract

This irreverent essay explains why astrology persists in the modern world despite its verifiable absurdity.

Астрография


Успехи древней астрологии, которая в народном сознании далеко превзошла по значению современные астрономию и астрофизику—несмотря на протесты ряда известных ученых—не могут не радовать: в России наконец-то появился средний класс, наряду с олигархами, «селебритис» и их прихлебателями, которые живут в блаженной изоляции от остального общества в своих замках и яхтах, и курсируют между ними на частных аэропланах, возникли еще и провинциальные адвокаты, банковские служащие, риэлторы, автодилеры и т. п. На запросы их семей и ориентирована «попса», реалити-шоу и, конечно, астрологические прогнозы в глянцевых журналах. Ни бомжам, ни олигархам, ни политикам они не нужны: первые и так знают, что их не ждет ничего хорошего, и не читают глянцевых журналов, а у вторых настоящее слишком увлекательно, чтобы пытаться отгадать будущее. Только вечно недовольные и легко ранимые «селебритис» разделяют со среднеобразованным средним классом его склонность к мистической ерунде...

To read the entire essay please navigate to Comments #1, 2 and 3

Decline and Fall of the American Empire

The most important thing about social change in contemporary, i.e. Imperial America or the New World Order, in my view does not concern its foreign policy. It is only tangentially connected with domestic policy. The main factor is cultural and the Empire USA propagates this change around the world with the efficiency of Coca Cola and Hollywood: the American icons of yesteryear.

Modern world society divides the world into two races, which I denote, following
H. G. Wells as Heloi and Morlocks. Namely, in the New World Order, the only social group of value is politicians, bankers, top lawyers and media figures, including ubiquitous Washington commentariat. The rest are "losers," Morlocks. They are disposable and lead grey lives nobody cares about.

I must emphasize how strangely different this picture is from what we had experienced in not-so-distant (for me, old man) past. In 1950-60s, Wall Street banker or CEO of a large company also was much wealthier, though a measly 10-40 times, not an absurd 100-10000 times than Los Alamos physicist or a rocket scientist from NASA. But in terms of social prestige there was no question whom society considered as its more valuable member. Vice versa, the higher income of the first was sometimes considered a fair compensation of the workplace drudgery against the excitement of the second.

Standard justification of the insane salaries of bankers and top managers is that they take enormous risks for which they are compensated. Nothing can be further from the truth: a simple inspection of the boards of major corporations suggests that even without complicated background checks, ~40% of their members are either political beneficiaries of revolving doors(officials, congressmen, staffers, lobbyists, etc.) or family members of the large stockholders [Comment 3]. Another significant fraction are investment bankers or private equity moguls who bought the seats on board with other people's money. In fact, in a recent book "Distress Investing", two semi-retired Wall Street sharks suggest the complete risk avoidance as a main feature of modern capitalism (all the gains are accrued to white-shoe lawyers, hedge fund managers and other types none of whom invests her own money into the venture).

Another feature of the modern imperial lifestyle is the proliferation of tabloid press. Forty-fifty years ago when the term "paparazzi" was born, they were considered little more than petty crooks. Forty years ago there were also tabloids and tabloid stars. But Liz Taylor, Lisa Minelli or Frank Sinatra became tabloid fodder precisely because they already "made it" in Hollywood. Nowdays, the order is reversed: tabloid media and reality shows create celebrities, which then may, or may not demonstrate any potential as entertainers: Paris, Heidi (Mount, Pratt or Klum, who cares), Misha, Lindsey and JonKate or TomCat are only a few who come to mind under an umbrella logo of "TV personalities." This, by itself, is not bad and may reflect only the escape of paid entertainment from the clutches of the studio system and record companies.

To emphasize how deeply this state of things is different from a relatively recent past, one can compare it with Victorian-Edwardian England and with the "Guilded Age" and its aftermath in the United States. In Britain, there was even an expression: "they are in trades" meaning professional members of the society-- not exactly janitors-- but, obviously, solicitors and bankers, which distinguished them from a true leisure class. United States, which did not have its own aristocracy needed to invent it in the guise of the "old money" of the Jazz Age, the ones that should not socialize with the owners of drugstore chains. Relegating the most potentially parasitic members of one's own class to the "socialites" and colonial soldiery, Victorian society used these forms of social sterlization for a successful self-preservation.

The real problem for the public is that "TV personalities" mix freely with movers and shakers and political pandits on "Larry King" and suchlike. The line between celebrities, who can, like George (Bush or Will, who cares), Bill, Rush etc. etc., influence the nation to go to war and send a requisite number of Morlocks to die in a faraway land or who, like Paris or Lindsey can not, became blurred. [Comment 1, from NY Times Magazine, Winter 2008 Fashion, p. 86] Even in the latter assumption one cannot be sure anymore. Disheveled, obese and drunken hog going by the screen name of Alec Baldwin was rumored to be one of the main "convincers" of Bill for the 1999 NATO war against Serbia. Not that the war was not already decided upon by Blumenthal, Cohen and Albright and her coterie of male favorites at the State Department, yet selling this war, any war to the "Waffler-in-Chief" must have been a difficult enterprise.

The world of Heloi is rather monolithic-- they seamlessly move from investment banking to diplomacy to defense and back, even after completely ruining their previous assignments like Wolfowitz-- similarly to Mao's appointees whom the knowledge of a "little red book" endowed with everything they needed on a job [Comment 4]. Mao's "Red Guardist" could command army division yesterday, operate a cement factory today and move tomorrow to the directorship of an opera theater. American Heloi acquire the true properties of "nomenklatura": after abject failure in one position, they, instead of being sent home packing, usually are being rewarded with positions of fewer responsibilities and more perks. For instance, Bush's Ambassador Vershbow, who was telling Moscow's diplomatic community that soon "they will take care of Putin", so there was no need to adapt to the new realities, was moved to South Korea instead. There he surprised the world and undercut the South' "sunshine policy" by promising to squelch North Korea's Kim Jong Il like a little worm. So irreplaceable he is though that Obama appointed him a political director of the Pentagon.

Similarly, a KGB sergeant developing obvious signs of delusional paranoia was moved from operational responsibilities into a security clerkship, while a KGB Major whose heavy drinking made him unusable as a spy was promptly dispatched to oversee a customs bureau or security staff of an airport. A three-star Army General in the same-- mainly horizontal--predicament was relieved of command but tucked into another department of cartography or military education. Finally, an utterly incompetent or corrupt Central Committee bigwig retired to ambassadorial post or to a second-rate cabinet position.

In complete contrast of monolithic world of Heloi, the current world of Morlocks consists of two distinct groups, which I designate according to the distinction of Spartan military elite between merchant and artisanal subjugated class (Perioikoi; no single spelling) and peasant serfs (Helots). Perioikoi, or former "professionals", unlike Washington nomenklatura, which can equally well manage press relations, international aid or intelligence, are being required ever more stringent proof of their competence for a stagnant or even decreasing pay: degrees, licenses, etc. In constant dollars the starting salary of BS in Engineering thirty years ago was higher than today and the number of positions requiring graduate degrees grows every second.

Perioikoi work ever longer hours and are denied administrative assistance under the guise of "downsizing". Now, with the advent of personal computer, they are saddled with more and more simple clerical tasks formerly performed by semi-skilled staff. They are disciplined in ever more brutal manner: indictment in anything more than the parking ticket, visiting porno sites, telling jokes about the boss or being chronically ill usually terminates the employment. Even the slightest "impression" of racism or sexism, usually, by obviously non-disinterested parties, typically means the end of academic career.

On the contrary, members of the Heloi class wear their much publicized sex affairs, visits to rehab, or criminal indictments, as a badge of honor. If they get into trouble with the law, they tend to get off lightly. Recent conviction of OJ Simpson as well as his spectacular acquittal years earlier, testifies more that he was now dropped from the rosters of Heloi and, hence, was punishable. How many welfare mothers are in jail for the possession of a fraction of the drugs, used for recreation by Rush Limbaugh (his Morlock servants, who delivered drugs to him will do his time). Dick "Dick" Cheney shot a guy in the face, obviously, for fun, to enjoy his absolute immunity. He was not even charged. Not so lucky were the hundreds of Perioikoi who made the bulk of war protesters. Even when acquitted they remain in the "terror lists" and other extrajudicial limbos, which reminisce the harassment tactics, which the moribund Soviet system used against dissidents.

Finally, in the place of the former working classes we have helots, or, "prols" in Newspeak. In full accordance with Orwell they are free, like animals. Unlike the overworked and heavily taxed Perioikoi, nothing exceptional is required of them except for voting, usually against their direct economic interest. Red necks, who typically vote republican could benefit from better public schools-- finally, they are not sending their children to name preps-- and more social programs, at the expense of their favored military, which sends them to distant lands to kill and be killed. Vice versa, usually pro-democratic inner cities could gain from crackdowns on gangs and more pro-business city administrations. Cynical Trotsky once appended ancient Roman formula of "mooeing herd" (i.e. cattle) and the "talking herd" (i.e. slaves) by the "voting herd" (members of the Communist Party after Stalin's purges). The taxi driver does not know the city streets, the plumber puts expensive toilet into a non-fitting hole and then asks the customer what he wants to do, and the secretaries leave the desk one second after 5 PM whether in the middle of a work or not.

In the current American society--as in the Imperial Rome--there is only one institution, which unites Heloi and Morlocks that is the Armed Forces. Unlike the mocking portrayals of the Army-- in the seventies classics ("Animal House", "Harold and Maude", etc.) and circumspect-- in the nineties ("A Few Good Man"), modern US military acquired a saintly status. With a quick re-gentrification of the Ivy League, military soon will become the only ladder, by which the Morlock can promote himself into Heloi. Recent experiences with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that modern American armed forces evolve into a modern Pretorian Guards above any societal criticism and making the law unto themselves. Even otherwise critical TV entertainers such as Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert go out of their way to glorify the military. Will it be long before they try to cash their newfound social authority into a currency of power?

You say: "feudalism?" No. A classic feudal society entailed mutual social obligations. If the primary requirement that the lord, i.e. the landlord, defends the peasants from bandits and the realm from the pretenders was frequently ignored--the social demands of one's own class were enforced by sometimes brutal(duels, judicial combat, private warfare)means. Furthermore, the members of the militaristic ruling class had to systematically prove their worth in hand-to-hand combat. Imagine Bill Kristol and Rush Limbaugh being taken to such task. Feudal lords of old also had to refer important social decisions, sometimes against their will, to a clerical establishment.

Yet nothing is new under the Sun. The described situation--concentration of all wealth in the hands of tiny debauched elites of a few countries unencumbered by the yokes of hereditary military obligations or religious devotion--also existed during the ages. However, three very similar periods in human history--the Roman Empire, Ancien Regime and the Guilded Age [Comment 2]--ended in catastrophes of such proportions that one wonders whether our age should also come to a bitter end made even more unenviable by the modern weapons of destruction.

Claudia Verhoeven, Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity and the Birth of Terrorism, Cornell U. Press, ISBN 978-0801446528

Postmodernist account of the "Karakozov affair": the first, 1866 attempt on life of the Alexander II, the Liberator. The author correctly identifies the connection between the birth of the terrorism and modernity meaning the power of public opinion and the media as a major forces shaping society.

As all postmodernist accounts it suffers from a total lack of humanistic empathy or even an understanding of politics as a meaningful endeavor. Consequently, Verhoeven engages in "interpretations" of Karakozov's behavior where there is nothing to be interpreted. He, as his cousin and main intellectual influence-- Ishutin, in whose family Karakozov was brought up as an orphan-- was an obvious schizophrenic. Political conspiracies are frequently the abode of the mentally unstable individuals. Yet, Ishutin's "Organization" was remarkable in that every major figure associated with it (Ishutin, Khudyakov, Karakozov, Nechaev) suffered from serious psychiatric abnormalities. Characteristically and smartly, Dostoevsky, in the "Possessed" split Nechaev's personality between two protagonists: the revolutionary and a con man Verhovensky (pun on Verhoeven!) and repentant sexual sadist Stavrogin, the two even engaging in dialogue probably like the voices in the heads of the members of Ishutin's clique. The name of the Organization's inner circle, "the Hell" suggests that this was more of a cult than a political conspiracy with rational purposes.

Similarly to the actions of Kaligula, Vlad Tepes or Ivan the Terrible there could be some continuity of personal style but it is useless to search for any consistent logic in their behavior. The only underlying factors were total disregard for humanity, impulsive brutality and penchant for theatrical gestures.

For Claudia Verhoeven the intent to kill one of the ablest Russian autocrats, furthermore, the only one who could effectuate change, in order to foment a bloody civil war seems as much of a form of self-expression as eating breakfast or writing a poem. Luckily for us, postmodernist thought rarely informs political power outside of Scandinavia.

James O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History, Ecco, 978-0060787370, Adrian Goldsworthy, How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

James O'Donnell produced absolutely uninspiring account pretending to be a "new history." Battles, alliances and political coups, to which the author attributes the Fall of the Roman Empire constitute a little more than embellished chronological table. Certainly, Roman administrators from time to time antagonized the settlers from outside the limes. The question why barbarian hordes, none of which significantly exceeded male population of a mid-size Roman city with a primitive siege equipment could bring down a civilization remains unanswered or even unasked.

Adrian Goldsworthy's "Death of a Superpower" suffers from essentially the same defect, namely a replacement of logical reasoning with narrative. His narrative is more erudite than O'Donnell's but platitudes like that "Emperors forgot what Empire was about" and suchlike do not replace analysis. The proof that any of the late Roman emperors was less competent than Caligula, Nero or Commode, more beholden to the staff, women and freedmen than Claudius, or more superstitious than Domitian is a practical impossibility. Inability to tie up the military-political narrative to the social and economic fabric of the empire makes useless all sophistication of style.

P. Brendon, Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997, ISBN978-0307268297

Absolutely brilliant narrative so awash in grandiloquence as to lose much of its power (816 pages in all). After reading this book I am in much more confusion as to the reasons of its decline and fall than before I took it up.

Read it though-- you will be amply rewarded.

P. W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolition and the Conflict in 21st Century, ISBN 978-1594201981

I lived through at least three bubbles in the US: dot-com bubble, real estate and banking bubble and now this. All were heavily fueled by cocaine and other illegal stimulants. During the dot-com bubble, the sane people who dared to ask how companies which transacted no business and had neither profits nor assets could command market value in hundreds of millions and billions dollars were christened luddites and other names and ridiculed for lack of understanding that in this new world, gravity and other outdated concepts need not apply.

At that time, I was naive, thinking that I did not understand something these aces of marketplace do. During the real estate-banking bubble I had more stamina to resist believing that mortgages sliced, diced and reassembled in the form of exotic securities can eliminate the risks inherent in investing. Even shakier was my belief that the Bush economics, i.e. overconsumption in the times of war pumped by residential equity loans, can be sustained for long. And again, the likes of poor me who expressed mild disbelief in the ability of Wall Street bankers to create something from nothing, were ridiculed as hopelessly outdated grouches.

In the end, the laws of economic gravity downed the first two bubbles. Yet, their proponents, the people who published books that soon Dow will push a 40,000 plank and other garbage, are doing very well, thank you. And now, thanks to Rummy and his crew, they moved to military affairs. Luckily, to check their projections we need an all-out nuclear war and in that case there will be more pressing concerns.
P. W. Singer in his book, so incongrous that I suspect the influence of the same mind-changing chemicals, which fueled previous two bubbles, proposes that armies-- at least advanced (meaning NATO) ones-- will be replaced by fighting robots. It bears heavy traces of Ramsfeld's tenure at the Pentagon: confusion of experimental technologies, or even proposals, with already-existing capabilities, approval of any screwball idea, no matter how technically odd or tactically unsound and total ignorance of any historic precedents of failed large-scale military programs and ventures. Imagine that they planned occupation of Iraq with only 35-40000 combatants.

Because of adoration of the German military tradition by the neocons, the words Blietzkrieg and 1,000 year Reich (I am not joking, Kagan wrote it, modestly cutting the prospect of American global domination to 500 years), started to fly around Washington. So is the late-WWII propaganda slogan of Wunderwaffen, supposed military marvels created in German laboratories, which can turn tide of the war already lost.
Indeed, some of these designs were truly marvelous, the only problem with them was that there were too many of them pursued simultaneously, no mechanism for setting priorities, no mindset to distinguish brilliant from kooky and, finally, heavy drain of all these new projects on the maintenance of already existing fighting capability. Physicist F. Dyson who during WWII worked as an Air Force science boffin estimated that Nazi ballistic missile program consumed, in terms of resources, about the same as would a doubling of their fighter fleet. Equally British program of heavy bombing consumed, by the end of the war, roughly 25% of war expenditure, yet no study could justify that it reduced German war potential by more than 5-6% (and probably was as little as 1-2%). He called this strategy "a misguided hi-tech."

Somewhere, in his book, Singer mentioned supposed 5,000 robots operating in Iraq or Afghanistan. Whatever is the methodology of his count, assuming that it takes 4-6 people to equip and operate a single robot-- if nothing else to pack it into a crate and supply it with batteries, etc.-- this fleet requires a manpower equal to 8 combat brigades! There are other fantastic things in his narrative: of course, almost every weapon system works when the foe has only light weapons and moves
on donkeys. In fact, operational and communication centers needed to provide armadas of unmanned fighting vehicles with logistical support constitute much "softer" targets than, say, tanks or combat aircraft. Even if information hubs can be located overseas, there is need, e.g. for somebody to launch and collect drones, change equipment, deliver fuel, munitions and arm them.

Finally, new American model of warfare developing under advice of Singer and similar experts, has another weak point. It presumes most of the officers being located far from battlefields in secure bunkers connected by satellite uplinks with the soldiers at the front line, the picture supported by minuscule officer/soldier loss ratio for the US Army compared not only with Russian Army in Checnhya but also with Israeli Army in Lebanon, unless we are yet to hear of another example of covert creativity of Rummy and his successor. Even if one discounts the vulnerability of these links recently demonstrated by the Chinese space agency, there are problems with this approach.

As long as resistance is weak and poorly coordinated, command from behind the Green Line looks fine. Yet, in the face of dedicated resistance cohesion of battle units, especially elated by the sight of their officers partying in Georgetown, cannot be taken for granted. Sergeants supposed to operate units on their own, on behalf of distant officers according to their electronic text messaging, can turn out to be poor substitutes for traditional structures of obedience and loyalty.

M. McFaul, K. Weiss-Stoner, The myth of authoritarian model. How Putin’s crackdown holds Russia back. Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2008

Contemporary academic elite in the US is rather timorous bunch. If in the 1950s many professors resigned from California public universities rather than sign infamous “loyalty oath”— dismissed professors faced much more difficult perspective of finding jobs in McCarthyte America than they are now—these days academic dissent is but non-existent even when professional integrity is concerned. For instance, I haven’t heard a single top international relations expert on the eve of Iraq invasion who mumbled, in any form and shape, that the occupation of the country of 26 million Moslems might not be a walkover imagined by the Bush Administration.

Because of the reported closeness of McFaul to the Obama election campaign, I decided to study his views on my country of origin. I took to McFaul and Weiss-Stoner piece in the “Foreign Affairs” not because I expected to agree with him. Yet, I felt a need to read his article if only to understand opposing point of view and analyze the arguments of the other side. However there was little to understand and argue.

Mike McFaul started his academic career with insightful pieces about Russia. Yet, as a smart man, he quickly understood that saying positive things about Russians does not earn you tenure, especially under motherly eyes of his Chancellor, someone Condi Rice. I am not blaming him: he has a family to feed, or other important ones. To compensate for the sins of a misspent tenure-track youth, i.e. describing events in Russia avoiding overtly abusive if not racist terms of the “mainstream” media, he ought to reform. His exculpation meant engaging to the propaganda, which cannot be characterized in terms other than Goebbelsian.

While the latter term was much overused, it still retains an original meaning of “perversion of facts of grotesque proportions in service of political propaganda.” As an epitomic Nazi intellectual, he sometimes employed pseudo-intellectual garbage, which must have looked high-minded and erudite to haphazardly educated journalists and security police bureaucrats. Few such examples are provided in the "comments" section [1].

I would not entertain an honorable reader with a prolonged exposure to his verbal filth, if it the debating methods quoted in somewhat lengthy Endnote 1 were not entirely applicable to the tone of McFaul and Weiss-Stoner. For instance, McFaul and Stoner compares rates of Russian economic growth to other post-Soviet states, majority of which have either statistics determined entirely by the orders of the local El Supremo (Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, etc.), or whose economy largely consists of foreign aid and remittances of the guest workers, not in the least, from Russia itself (Georgia, Moldova, etc.). Yet, they also unfavorably compare Russian public health statistics to developed nations some of which have four times her GDP per capita (but extremely low growth rates, as it should be). Brazil or Mexico, which have similar per capita incomes also show comparable indicators of public health. [2] When it comes to demographics authors of the “Foreign Affairs” piece tell horror stories about Russians literally dying out because of Putin, as if devastation of two world wars and 75 years of Communist misrule didn’t exist. Yet, easily available sources clearly demonstrate that extremely low fertility rates and, hence, negative population growth are typical for all European post-Soviet states including, by the way, massively subsidized eastern parts of Germany.

Some of the “facts” are either totally fabricated or are the results of institutional malaise of the US agencies having nothing to do with Russia. During the Cold War, CIA and DoD grotesquely exaggerated the levels of technical and economic development of the USSR in support of more funding for the defense programs. After its collapse they revised their estimates as to prove that Russian Federation is a semi-medieval state, which can be safely ignored or harassed. Indeed, there was no more dough in promoting defense acquisitions but plenty in support of America’s colonial wars and possessions. [3] Collision of these revisions sometimes produced comical results. In mid-1990s, according to some US sources (DoD, now-defunct ACDA), Russia spent on the military more than 100% of its entire budget.
I would not spend that much time discussing of what I can not characterize other than a racist pamphlet but I afraid that McFaul and other “experts” have as much influence in Washington now as similar-quality experts on the Middle East before the Iraq invasion.

Note: For viewing in-text references, please navigate to "Comments."

T. J. Binyon, Pushkin: a new biography. Knopf Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 9781400076529, O. Figes, Natasha's Dance, Picador, 2006, 9780312421953

In Blairite Britain, writing an anti-Russian rag became a hallmark of a public intellectual. In 30-40s France to exist as a public intellectual one had to be either a Communist or a Nazi. In the 50-60s only a self-proclaimed leftist could be published or be appointed to an academic post in humanities though the approval of USSR's policies became outmoded and one had to to be anti-Soviet, Maoist leftist. Italy repeated this trajectory with 10-15 year lag. From late 70s to early 2000s, to be in good standing with the French intellectual milieu one had to praise Islam and publicly support islamist causes. British situation is peculiar only because the requirement to publish anti-Russian rants somehow graduated from being a necessary to an only qualification of an intellectual. Even "The Economist", which used to be a voice of intellectual British establishment turned in requisite parts into a mouthpiece of a Polish plumber: hatred of Russia with racial undertones poorly covered up, the picture of the Cold War having all of the sophistication of McCarthyist leaflets and stories from the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistant wars, reminiscent in their candor or truthfulness of Napoleon's "Moniteur" war reports from 1812 Russia.

This justifies an emergence of such bizarre opuses as Binyon biography of Alexander Pushkin or Orlando Figes' "Natasha's Dance", which he modestly qualifies as "Russian cultural history." So far, poor A. Pushkin, an approximate counterpart to the English Bard, was a relatively uncontroversial figure among Russian greats. He was killed on a duel long before the Communist takeover, progressed from youthful radicalism into safe Monarchist-liberal conservative political views and did not care much of the Ortodoxy. Compared to his contemporaries, he did not sexually abused children like Lord Byron, stupefied himself by drink to the degree of Alfred de Musset, or consumed copious amounts of opium as did poor Coleridge-- as a result of medical quackery-- or T. DeQuincey, completely voluntary.

From Binyon's book you will hardly learn that Pushkin wrote something of value,
for which he provides self-excuse that he will not discuss his poetry, prose or dramaturgy. But there is also nothing about the evolution of Puskin's political views, journalism-- in his world of aristocratic artists he practically pioneered for-profit writing-- or historical scholarship.

His book a scurriluous collection of obscene anecdotes and sexual affairs mostly lifted from the writings of Pushkin's personal enemies. And he had plenty: cuckolded husbands, police spies, usually lowlifes with a prurient eye for the lifestyles of the hereditary aristocrats, and high society homosexuals and their hangers-on whom he outed with savage epigrams. Binyon repeats their accusations verbatim without slightest attempt at verification of their plausibility or bias.

Even if these slanders were 100% true, all that would prove is that Pushkin was a typical nobleman of his time, progressing from adolescent sex with female servants to prostitutes, with the acquisition of independent means, and settling for continuous nights of drinking and gambling in his thirties, then into comfortable marriage within his own class punctuated by mutual adultery. This makes him little different from Wellington, Palmerston, Disraeli, Beau Brummel or any number of approximate contemporaries.

Yet, these dissolute rakes mapped the South Pacific, discovered Antarctica,
defeated Napoleon, criss-crossed a couple of continents with railroads and, amidst these distractions, created the like of "She walks in beauty" or the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

I can envision Binyon spilling ink from his quill, or drumming at his laptop in
his Oxford townhouse with exclamations of bravado: "Damn Russkies! Get this, and this and now this. How about this?" I am not offended, just sad, that Oxford tenured this bigot.

Orlando Figes' book is not much better. Based on strange interpretation of alleged uniquely Russian infatuation with the culture of the raw and primitive (how about Paul Gogen, or Mata Hari, or the Der Brugge?), he proclaims that human sacrifice and cannibalism are the centerpieces of the Russian culture. A single unconvincing example of the "Rites of Spring" by Igor Stravinsky is being dragged through nearly 800 pages of Figes' screed. Certainly, the great composer, as were most intellectuals of his age and his class, was a (very non-radical) racist and an anti-Semite. But, first, he is about as representative a figure for the Russian turn-of-the XXth century culture as De Sade was for the French Enlightenment. Second, he hardly was a born-again pagan with occultist sympathies similar to the members of German "Thule Society" or D. H. Lawrence or Windham Lewis.

Similarly to Schoenberg whom he scorned during the latter's life but reappraised after his death, Stravinsky had a taste for mysterious and unexplicable and a very keen eye for tradition as well as the trends of contemporary life. As a member of propertied classes uprooted by the Russian Revolution, Stravinsky had conservative political leanings and resented socialist tendencies in contemporary Europe.

If anything, these two books, contrary to racist and vulgar intentions of their authors, confirm how thoroughly and boringly European Russian intellectuals have become since the birth of Pushkin just on the eve of XIX century till the death of Pasternak and Akhmatova who became the last vestiges of the "Silver Age" of Russian letters and arts.

Martin Amis, House of Meetings, Child 44, Tom Rob Smith, Sashenka, Simon Sebag Montefiore

These works of fiction cannot be understood without the Bacchanal into which Blairite "Cool Britannia" has proliferated. Racial paranoia--with Russians in hell, Israelis in Limbo and EU in Purgatorio-- in the Blair's Britain is a logical answer to the Londonistan. To symbolically redeem the balkanization of the English society, intellectuals needed to invent and exorcize a bogeyman. Not that there hard-line islamists, Eastern European irredenta and Nazi sympatizers and ex-Soviet mobsters who immediately transform from "Freedom Fighters" against Russian Imperialism into Russian Mafia as soon as they cross the channel, are as numerous there as in Holland, or in France. What is peculiar about the UK is the leeway, which was given by the Blair's Government for their self-organizing, dropping out of the mainstream society and subsequently popularizing their extreme views as a new mainstream. Similar processes were going in Jospen's France where some cities, such as Orleans, allegedly became a virtual no-go zone for the French police. However, French bureaucratic system immediately began a crackdown on these liberties when the political climate changed.

And so, in Blairite Britain, writing an anti-Russian rag became a hallmark of an intellectual (see my review of T. J. Binyon's "Pushkin" and O. Figes' "Natasha's Dance"). Too bad that quickly it became the only hallmark . And once the [Economist comment] movement is initiated, everyone jumps on the bandwagon [Tyler Brule comment].

So the emergence of Martin Amis' "House of Meetings" was not surprising: to justify his elite status in the world of English letters he was obliged to write something demeaning and portray Russians as a nation of alcoholics and rapists. His knowledge of Russia was probably limited to small talk in cocktail parties with a few oligarch exiles to London, their bodyguards and whores, and Discovery Channel-style series listened to between numerous drinks. Interestingly, in 30 raving Amazon reviews posted so far, only about 1/3 praise his use of language, a few find a story or characters particularly well developed but a vast majority highly values his book for showing what the brutes Russians are. Obviously, these are repressed souls who cannot say this loudly anymore about African-Americans or, for instance, Albanians or Chechens, not that many of them ever met one.

It is not surprising to pour disdain on people, more precisely, on cutout characters, for becoming bestial in the inhuman conditions of the gulag, nor it is surprising. What is surprising and I claim it through knowning much more former gulag prisoners than Amis ever did, how many of them retained humanity and even
sense of humor.

However, by common recognition of the English-language critics, Amis Jr. is a fine writer. So we could forgive his racism in a testament to W. H. Auden: "...And will pardon Paul Claudel, pardon him for writing well." [Paul Claudel was a right-wing Catholic who applauded Nazi killings of Jews and Communists. Unlike fellow Nobelists Hauptmann and Hamsun, he escaped WWII with his reputation unscathed because of a few protests against cruel treatment of French POWs, which fit nicely into the Gaullist legend of the "fighting nation."]

After Amis, the bandwagon was jumped by everybody with literary talent and totally without. Simon Sebag Montefiore certainly knows more about Russia than Amis but who told him he can write fiction? Tom Rob Smith's "Child 44" is a bestseller thriller but his depictions of the life in USSR behind the Iron Curtain are about as true to reality as James Bond movies. Let me provide random glances into his masterpiece. A provincial cop on the beat in the late 1940s USSR has a Jewish first name Aron, about as probable as an English bobby being named "Hassan" or "Fikret" at the same time. A provincial sleuth drives his car on a highway from his sleepy township of Voulsk to a regional center. Him traveling on horseback over the steppe would be strange but not that unreal. While it is possible that a police precinct would have a (chauffered) car, or even two, usually a truck with back seats or a jeep from the Lend Lease War surpluses, the whole idea of a personal car is ridiculous. Finally, there is a lawyer building the case of retarded defendant in his care on the notions of English Common Law! I am not very much offended by his treatment of Mother Russia, neither one can expect accuracy of detail from a successful thriller writer. Yet his characters are cutout automatons with primitive motivations so much so that after half-an-hour with his book I completely forgot the name of the book's protagonist.

Ultimately, I am not asking the reader why this garbage gets written. I am asking why they publish them all? Could the publishers just settle on one or two of the better selling lot, if needed in triplicate number of copies and save on fees and trees? Is this a conspiracy of dunces or groupthink unbound? I reserve my opinion.