Friday, January 31, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
I WONDER WHETHER MY PUPS HAVE A LITTLE OLD YELLER IN THEM.
Fred Gipson, Old Yeller (New York: Harper Trophy, 1966, 2004).
Monday, January 6, 2014
WINTER QUARTER SUGGESTED READINGS FOR LAW STUDENTS
"WHEN HERESY IS IDENTIFIED WITH THE ENEMY, WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE END OF DEMOCRACY." SIDNEY HOOK
Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Knopf, 2013) ("Govinda Chandra Dev was an elderly philosophy professor at Dacca University and the author of several books, including one with the unthreatening title Buddha, the Humanist. He was a Hindu, but reminded Blood, who was friendly with him, of Santa Claus. 'He was a roly-poly, gray-haired, jovial guy,' recalls Scott Butcher, who knew him. 'He was a very pacifistic figure, well known and well liked in American circles. He was apolitical as far as I could tell.' Early in the crackdown, Dev was dragged out of his home, hauled to a field in front of the Hindu dormitory at the university, and shot dead. 'There was no other reason that he was killed other than being a Hindu professor,' says Butcher." "This kind of deliberate ethnic targeting was the most reliable basis for the Blood telegram's accusation of genocide...." Id. at 80-81. "'Had Blood not done this,' says Griffel, 'he would have hit rock bottom in a different way. And possibly a worse way. Not for everyone, but for a man like Arch, there are worse things than losing your career. I don't like using words that don't have an accurate meaning, but he was a man of honor. In his own view, he would have lost his honor.'" Id. at 118. Also see Dexter Filkins, "Collateral Damage," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/29/2013.).
Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2013) (See blogpost of 12/11/2013. Also, see David Leonhardt, "A Cockeyed Optimist," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 12/22/2013.).
Kerry Emanuel, What We Know About Climate Change, 2d. ed. ( Boston Review Book) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 11/14/2013).
William Findley, Observations on 'The Two Sons of Oil': Containing a Vindication of the American Constitution, and Defending the Blessings of Religious Liberty and Toleration, against the Illiberal Strictures of the Rev. Samuel B, Wylie, edited and with an introduction by John Caldwell (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007) (From Caldwell's Introduction: "The following work was an important contribution to the early debates about the nature of the American constitutional regime. How should people of faith relate to the national and state governments? What ought the relationship of church and government look like? What are the foundations of religious liberty in America? Given the persistent interest in this subject throughout the political history of our republic, Findley's commentary offers an informed and salutary reminder of the early historical context that first defined our constitutional traditions." Id. at xvii.).
Robert William Fogel, Enid M. Fogel, Mark Guglielmo, & Nathaniel Grotte, Political Arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2013) (From the "Introduction: The Amazing Twentieth Century": "During the last six or so decades of the twentieth century, the domination of output by material products began to be eroded at an increasing rate. The rise to dominance of immaterial commodities is symbolized by the growth of such professional occupations as physicians, mathematicians, natural scientists, lawyers, teachers, and engineers from barely 4 percent of the labor force in 1900 to over a third today. Similarly, the main form of capital at the end of the twentieth century was not buildings, machines, or electrical grids but labor skills, what economists call human capital or knowledge capital. Both for individuals and for business, it is the size and quality of these immaterial assets that determine success in competitive markets and in conditions of life for ordinary people." "The agenda for egalitarian policies that has dominated reform movements for most of the past century, the modernist agenda, was based on material redistribution. The critical aspect of a postmodern egalitarian agenda is not the redistribution of money income, or food, or shelter, or consumer durables. Although there are still glaring inadequacies in the distribution of material commodities, the most intractable maldistributions in rich countries such as the United States are in the realm of spiritual or immaterial assets. There are the critical assets in the struggle for self-realization." "Some proponents of egalitarianism insist on characterizing the material level of the poor today as being harsh. They confound current and past conditions of living. Failure to recognize the enormous material gains over the last century, even for the poor, impedes rather than advances the struggle against chronic poverty in rich nations, whose principal characteristic is the spiritual estrangement from the mainstream society of those so afflicted. Although material assistance is an important element in the struggle to overcome spiritual estrangement, such assistance will no be properly targeted if one assumes that improvement in material conditions naturally leads to spiritual improvement." "Realization of the potential of an individual is not something that can be legislated by the state, nor can it be provided to the weak by the strong. The government cannot transfer virtue from those who have it in abundance to those who are bereft of it. Nor can the rich write out checks denominated in virtue, Self-realization has to develop within each individual on the basis of a succession of choices. The emphasis in individual choice does not mean that other individuals and institutions play no role. Quite the contrary, the quality of the choices and the range of opportunities depend critically on how well endowed an individual is with critical spiritual resources." "The quest for spiritual equity thus turns not so much on money as on access to immaterial assets, most of which are transferred and developed privately rather than through the market. Moreover, some of the most critical spiritual assets, such as a sense of purpose, self-esteem, a sense of discipline, a vision of opportunity, and a thirst for knowledge, are transferred at very young ages." Id. at 8-9.).
Hugo Grotius, The Truth of the Christian Religion, with Jean Le Clerc's Notes and Additions, Translated by John Clark (1743) (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Maria Rosa Antognazza (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2012).
David B. Grusky, Doug McAdam, Rob Reich & Debra Satz, eds., Occupy the Future (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Pres, 2013) ("What becomes of the Occupy movement will depend not just on external events . . . but also whether those who identify with the movement can fashion a compelling narrative that reenergizes protest around the issue of inequality. Given that the United States has historically been quite tolerant of inequality, it's not enough to proclaim that inequality has suddenly become too high. What, precisely, makes it too high? Don't we need to consider how so much inequality has been generated? Don't we need to examine the consequences of rising inequality for other outcomes that we cherish, such as opportunities for political expression? Don't we need to think carefully about the types and forms of inequality that are and aren't legitimate? The simple agenda behind this book is to take on these and related questions and thereby begin to develop a far-reaching and resonant narrative." Id. at 4-5.).
Nader Hashemi & Danny Postel, ed., The Syria Dilemma (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013).
Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Aaron Garrett (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002) ("The confused Use of the Names, Love, Hatred, Joy, Sorrow, Delight, has made some of the most important Distinctions of our Affections and Passions, to be overlooked. No Modifications of Mind can be more different from each other, than a private Desire, and a publick; yet both are called Love. The Love of Money, for Instance, the Love of a generous Character, or a Friend: The Love of a fine seat, and the Love of a Child. In like manner, what can be more different than the Sorrows for a Loss befallen our selves, and Sorrow for the Death of a Friend? If this Men must convince themselves by Reflection." "There is also considerable Difference even among the selfish Passions, which bear the same general Name, according to the different Senses which constitute the Objects good or evil. Thus the desire of Honour, and he Desire of Wealth, are certainly very different sorts of Affections, and accompanied with different Sensations: The Sorrow in like manner for our Loss by as Shipwreck, and our Sorrow for having done a base Action, or Remorse: Sorrow for our being subject to the Gout or Stone, and Sorrow for out being despised and condemned, or Shame: Sorrow for the Damage done by a Fire, and that Sorrow which arises upon an apprehended Injury from a Partner, or any other of our Fellows, which we call Anger. Where we get some special distinct Names, we more easily acknowledge a Difference, as it may appear in Shame and Anger, but had we other Names, appropriated in the same manner, we should imagine, with good ground,as many distinct Passions: The like Confusion is observable about our Senses." Id. at 53-54.).
Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas if Beauty and Virtue, Revised Edition (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Wolfgang Leidhold (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004, 2008) ("Men have Reason given them, to judge of the Tendencys of their Actions, that they many not stupidly follow the first Appearance of publick Good; but it is still some Appearance of Good which they pursue. And it is strange, that Reason is universally allow'd to Men, notwithstanding all the stupid, ridiculous Opinions receiv'd in many Places, and yet absurd Practices, founded upon those very Opinions, shall seem an Argument against any moral Sense; altho the bad Conduct is not owing to any Irregularity in the moral Sense, but to a wrong Judgment or Opinion. If putting the Aged to death, with all its Consequences, really tends to the publick Good, and to the lesser Misery of the Aged, it is no doubt justifiable; nay, perhaps the Aged chuse it, in hopes of a future State. If a deform'd, or weak Race, could never, by Ingenuity and Art, make themselves useful to Mankind, but should grow an absolutely unsupportable Burden, so as to involve a whole State in Misery, it is just to put them to death. This all allow to be just, in the Case of an over-loaded Boat in a Storm. And for killing of their Children, when parents are sufficiently stock'd, it is perhaps practis'd, and allow'd from Self-love; but I can scarce think it passes for a good Action any where. If Wood, or Stone, or Metal be a Deity, have Government, and Power, and have been the Authors of Benefits to us; it is morally amiable to praise and worship them. Or if the true Deity be pleas'd with Worship before Statues, or any other Symbol of the some more immediate Presence, or Influence; Image-Worship is virtuous. If he delights in Sacrifices, Penances, Ceremonys, Cringings, they are all laudable. Our Sense of Virtue, generally leads us exactly enough according to our Opinion; and therefore the absurd Practices which prevail in the World, are much better Arguments that Men have no Reason, than that they have no moral Sense of Beauty in Actions." Id. at 141.).
Francis Hutcheson, Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne, texts translated from the Latin by Michael Silverthorne, with an introduction by James Moore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006).
Francis Hutcheson, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, translated by Francis Hutchesson and James Moor (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008) ("Don't suffer the mind to wander. Keep justice in view in every design. And in all imaginations which may arise, preserve the judging faculty safe." Id. at 51. "The duration of human life is a point; its substance perpetually flowing; the senses obscure; and the compound body tending to putrefaction: The soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame injudicious. To sum up all, the body, and all things related to it, are like a river; what belongs to the animal life, is a dream, and smoak; life a warfare, and a journey in a strange land; surviving fame is but oblivion. What is it then, which can conduct us honourably out of life, and accompany us in our future progress? philosophy alone. And this consists in preserving the divinity within us free from all affronts and injuries, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing either inconsiderately, or insincerely and hypocritically; independent on what others may do or not do: embracing chearfully whatever befalls or is appointed, as coming from him, from whom itself was derived; and, above all, expecting death with calm satisfaction, as conceiving it to be only a dissolution of these elements, of which every animal is compounded. And if no harm befalls the elements when each is changed into the other, why should one suspect any harm in the changes and dissolution of them all? It is natural and nothing natural can be evil. This at Carnuntum. Id. at 38-39. "Enure yourself to attend exactly to what is said by others, and to enter into the soul of the speaker." Id. at 81. "What is not the interest of the hive, is not the interest of the bee." Id. at 81.).
Francis Hutcheson, Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria, with A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Luigi Turco (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007) ("While our country remains, all good men should be united in this purpose, to deem nothing too hard to be endured or done for its interest; provided it be consistent with the laws of that more antient and sacred association of all mankind, of which God is the parent and governor. 'Out children are dear to us, our wives are dear, so are our parents, out kinsmen, our friends and acquaintance. But our country contains within it all these objects of endearment, and preserves them to us: and therefor every good man should be ready to lay down his life for it, if he can thus do it service.'" Id. 289, quoting Cicero, De officiis 1.57.5.).
Pamela S. Karlan, A Constitution For All Times (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013) ("The longest-term effect of Bush v. Gore may actually be on the composition of the Court itself. President George W. Bush made two appointments to the Court: one when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and another when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired. If his two picks--Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito--remain on the Court until they are the age of Justice Stevens when he retired in 2010, they will each be serving until the 2040s. No other legacy of the Bush years--save, perhaps, our staggering national debt and the war on terrorism--is likely to be so enduring." Id. at 59-60. "[T]he main effect of Bush v. Gore isn't so much the substitution of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito for Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor. Rather, it's the possible loss of two opportunities for would-have-been President Al Gore to select their successors. On a Court with two more Democratic-nominated justices, the generally conservative Justice Kennedy would likely not be the swing vote as he is today. Instead those two more moderate--or even liberal--justices might form a voting majority along with Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. That Court might be more committed to equality, to individual litigants' access to the justice system, and to a host of other constitutional claims than has been the Court that Bush v. Gore produced." Id. at 62-63.).
Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (New York & London: Liveright, 2013) ("The most deeply inscribed compromise--one that qualifies for Margalit's definition of a 'rotten compromise,' [NOTE: See Avishai Margalit, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises (Princeton &Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 20120] which he identifies as an 'agreement to establish or maintain an inhumane regime, a regime of cruelty and humiliation'--was the one the New Deal made with America's then-white supremacist south. With it, human suffering on the most existential scale was sanctioned. With it, eyes were averted when callousness and brutality proceeded, and black citizenship was traduced. Yet with it, the New Deal became possible. Only with a Faustian terrible compromise could lawmaking have stayed at center stage. There was no American enabling act, productive legislation proceeded to grapple with the largest issues of the day in familiar democratic terns. In that painfully ironic way, the New Deal secured democracy, perhaps against the odds. Taking an even longer view, we now know that lawmaking ironically shaped by the southern bloc modernized in a manner that ultimately undermined Jim Crow's prospects. The New Deal--the New Deal of the CIO and the welfare state--produced at first mere chinks, then whole openings for social change that were grasped by an incipient, soon powerful, movement for equal rights for blacks." Id. at 486. As I read this book, the radical wing of the Republican party is in the process of shutting down the government in its efforts to defund, delay, repeal and bury the Affordable Care Act, commonly know as Obamacare. Thus, the assault on the New Deal values continue. And it is to no one's surprise that the core of this particular radical wing of the Republican party--members of the so-called Tea Party, are southerners or northerners is strictly white congressional districts. Race is still central in American politics. "Our legislators have not yet learned the truth that you cannot have democracy and white supremacy at one and the same time." Id. at 222, quoting "Soldier Voting Deal," Pittsburgh Courier, January 19, 1944. "The quest for unity and security entailed watchfulness, surveillance, and investigations of loyalty. When disloyalty is suspected, central public principles and protected rights are placed in jeopardy, and the specter of official illiberal illegality is raised in the name of liberal obligation." Id. at 325. Also, see Kevin Boyle, "The President Proposes . . . ." NYT Book Review, Sunday, 4/7/2013.).
Randall Kennedy, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (New York: Pantheon Books, 2013).
David Keith, A Case For Climate Change Engineering (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London. England, 2013) (see blog post on 11/15/2013).
Drew Maciag, Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism ((Ithaca & London: Cornell U. Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/10/2013).
Martha C. Nussbaum, Political Emotions: Why Love Matter for Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2013) ("Most people tend toward narrowness of sympathy. They can easily become immured in narcissistic projects and forget about the needs of those outside their narrow circle, Emotions directed at the nation and its goals are frequently of great help in getting people to think larger thoughts and recommit themselves to a larger common good." Id. at 3. "I shall argue that all of the core emotions that sustain a decent society have their roots in, or are forms of, love--by which I mean intense attachments to things outside the control of our will." Id. at 15.).
Dara O'Rourke, Shopping For Good (A Boston Review Book) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2012).
Robert Pollin, Back to Full Employment (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England, 2012) (see my blog post of 11/16/2013).
Paul Sabin, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/18/2013).
Alison Wolf, The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World (New York: Crown Publishing, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/20/2013).
Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York: Knopf, 2013) ("Govinda Chandra Dev was an elderly philosophy professor at Dacca University and the author of several books, including one with the unthreatening title Buddha, the Humanist. He was a Hindu, but reminded Blood, who was friendly with him, of Santa Claus. 'He was a roly-poly, gray-haired, jovial guy,' recalls Scott Butcher, who knew him. 'He was a very pacifistic figure, well known and well liked in American circles. He was apolitical as far as I could tell.' Early in the crackdown, Dev was dragged out of his home, hauled to a field in front of the Hindu dormitory at the university, and shot dead. 'There was no other reason that he was killed other than being a Hindu professor,' says Butcher." "This kind of deliberate ethnic targeting was the most reliable basis for the Blood telegram's accusation of genocide...." Id. at 80-81. "'Had Blood not done this,' says Griffel, 'he would have hit rock bottom in a different way. And possibly a worse way. Not for everyone, but for a man like Arch, there are worse things than losing your career. I don't like using words that don't have an accurate meaning, but he was a man of honor. In his own view, he would have lost his honor.'" Id. at 118. Also see Dexter Filkins, "Collateral Damage," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/29/2013.).
Angus Deaton, The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2013) (See blogpost of 12/11/2013. Also, see David Leonhardt, "A Cockeyed Optimist," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 12/22/2013.).
Kerry Emanuel, What We Know About Climate Change, 2d. ed. ( Boston Review Book) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 11/14/2013).
William Findley, Observations on 'The Two Sons of Oil': Containing a Vindication of the American Constitution, and Defending the Blessings of Religious Liberty and Toleration, against the Illiberal Strictures of the Rev. Samuel B, Wylie, edited and with an introduction by John Caldwell (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007) (From Caldwell's Introduction: "The following work was an important contribution to the early debates about the nature of the American constitutional regime. How should people of faith relate to the national and state governments? What ought the relationship of church and government look like? What are the foundations of religious liberty in America? Given the persistent interest in this subject throughout the political history of our republic, Findley's commentary offers an informed and salutary reminder of the early historical context that first defined our constitutional traditions." Id. at xvii.).
Robert William Fogel, Enid M. Fogel, Mark Guglielmo, & Nathaniel Grotte, Political Arithmetic: Simon Kuznets and the Empirical Tradition in Economics (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2013) (From the "Introduction: The Amazing Twentieth Century": "During the last six or so decades of the twentieth century, the domination of output by material products began to be eroded at an increasing rate. The rise to dominance of immaterial commodities is symbolized by the growth of such professional occupations as physicians, mathematicians, natural scientists, lawyers, teachers, and engineers from barely 4 percent of the labor force in 1900 to over a third today. Similarly, the main form of capital at the end of the twentieth century was not buildings, machines, or electrical grids but labor skills, what economists call human capital or knowledge capital. Both for individuals and for business, it is the size and quality of these immaterial assets that determine success in competitive markets and in conditions of life for ordinary people." "The agenda for egalitarian policies that has dominated reform movements for most of the past century, the modernist agenda, was based on material redistribution. The critical aspect of a postmodern egalitarian agenda is not the redistribution of money income, or food, or shelter, or consumer durables. Although there are still glaring inadequacies in the distribution of material commodities, the most intractable maldistributions in rich countries such as the United States are in the realm of spiritual or immaterial assets. There are the critical assets in the struggle for self-realization." "Some proponents of egalitarianism insist on characterizing the material level of the poor today as being harsh. They confound current and past conditions of living. Failure to recognize the enormous material gains over the last century, even for the poor, impedes rather than advances the struggle against chronic poverty in rich nations, whose principal characteristic is the spiritual estrangement from the mainstream society of those so afflicted. Although material assistance is an important element in the struggle to overcome spiritual estrangement, such assistance will no be properly targeted if one assumes that improvement in material conditions naturally leads to spiritual improvement." "Realization of the potential of an individual is not something that can be legislated by the state, nor can it be provided to the weak by the strong. The government cannot transfer virtue from those who have it in abundance to those who are bereft of it. Nor can the rich write out checks denominated in virtue, Self-realization has to develop within each individual on the basis of a succession of choices. The emphasis in individual choice does not mean that other individuals and institutions play no role. Quite the contrary, the quality of the choices and the range of opportunities depend critically on how well endowed an individual is with critical spiritual resources." "The quest for spiritual equity thus turns not so much on money as on access to immaterial assets, most of which are transferred and developed privately rather than through the market. Moreover, some of the most critical spiritual assets, such as a sense of purpose, self-esteem, a sense of discipline, a vision of opportunity, and a thirst for knowledge, are transferred at very young ages." Id. at 8-9.).
Hugo Grotius, The Truth of the Christian Religion, with Jean Le Clerc's Notes and Additions, Translated by John Clark (1743) (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Maria Rosa Antognazza (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2012).
David B. Grusky, Doug McAdam, Rob Reich & Debra Satz, eds., Occupy the Future (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Pres, 2013) ("What becomes of the Occupy movement will depend not just on external events . . . but also whether those who identify with the movement can fashion a compelling narrative that reenergizes protest around the issue of inequality. Given that the United States has historically been quite tolerant of inequality, it's not enough to proclaim that inequality has suddenly become too high. What, precisely, makes it too high? Don't we need to consider how so much inequality has been generated? Don't we need to examine the consequences of rising inequality for other outcomes that we cherish, such as opportunities for political expression? Don't we need to think carefully about the types and forms of inequality that are and aren't legitimate? The simple agenda behind this book is to take on these and related questions and thereby begin to develop a far-reaching and resonant narrative." Id. at 4-5.).
Nader Hashemi & Danny Postel, ed., The Syria Dilemma (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013).
Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Aaron Garrett (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002) ("The confused Use of the Names, Love, Hatred, Joy, Sorrow, Delight, has made some of the most important Distinctions of our Affections and Passions, to be overlooked. No Modifications of Mind can be more different from each other, than a private Desire, and a publick; yet both are called Love. The Love of Money, for Instance, the Love of a generous Character, or a Friend: The Love of a fine seat, and the Love of a Child. In like manner, what can be more different than the Sorrows for a Loss befallen our selves, and Sorrow for the Death of a Friend? If this Men must convince themselves by Reflection." "There is also considerable Difference even among the selfish Passions, which bear the same general Name, according to the different Senses which constitute the Objects good or evil. Thus the desire of Honour, and he Desire of Wealth, are certainly very different sorts of Affections, and accompanied with different Sensations: The Sorrow in like manner for our Loss by as Shipwreck, and our Sorrow for having done a base Action, or Remorse: Sorrow for our being subject to the Gout or Stone, and Sorrow for out being despised and condemned, or Shame: Sorrow for the Damage done by a Fire, and that Sorrow which arises upon an apprehended Injury from a Partner, or any other of our Fellows, which we call Anger. Where we get some special distinct Names, we more easily acknowledge a Difference, as it may appear in Shame and Anger, but had we other Names, appropriated in the same manner, we should imagine, with good ground,as many distinct Passions: The like Confusion is observable about our Senses." Id. at 53-54.).
Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas if Beauty and Virtue, Revised Edition (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Wolfgang Leidhold (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004, 2008) ("Men have Reason given them, to judge of the Tendencys of their Actions, that they many not stupidly follow the first Appearance of publick Good; but it is still some Appearance of Good which they pursue. And it is strange, that Reason is universally allow'd to Men, notwithstanding all the stupid, ridiculous Opinions receiv'd in many Places, and yet absurd Practices, founded upon those very Opinions, shall seem an Argument against any moral Sense; altho the bad Conduct is not owing to any Irregularity in the moral Sense, but to a wrong Judgment or Opinion. If putting the Aged to death, with all its Consequences, really tends to the publick Good, and to the lesser Misery of the Aged, it is no doubt justifiable; nay, perhaps the Aged chuse it, in hopes of a future State. If a deform'd, or weak Race, could never, by Ingenuity and Art, make themselves useful to Mankind, but should grow an absolutely unsupportable Burden, so as to involve a whole State in Misery, it is just to put them to death. This all allow to be just, in the Case of an over-loaded Boat in a Storm. And for killing of their Children, when parents are sufficiently stock'd, it is perhaps practis'd, and allow'd from Self-love; but I can scarce think it passes for a good Action any where. If Wood, or Stone, or Metal be a Deity, have Government, and Power, and have been the Authors of Benefits to us; it is morally amiable to praise and worship them. Or if the true Deity be pleas'd with Worship before Statues, or any other Symbol of the some more immediate Presence, or Influence; Image-Worship is virtuous. If he delights in Sacrifices, Penances, Ceremonys, Cringings, they are all laudable. Our Sense of Virtue, generally leads us exactly enough according to our Opinion; and therefore the absurd Practices which prevail in the World, are much better Arguments that Men have no Reason, than that they have no moral Sense of Beauty in Actions." Id. at 141.).
Francis Hutcheson, Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne, texts translated from the Latin by Michael Silverthorne, with an introduction by James Moore (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006).
Francis Hutcheson, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, translated by Francis Hutchesson and James Moor (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008) ("Don't suffer the mind to wander. Keep justice in view in every design. And in all imaginations which may arise, preserve the judging faculty safe." Id. at 51. "The duration of human life is a point; its substance perpetually flowing; the senses obscure; and the compound body tending to putrefaction: The soul is restless, fortune uncertain, and fame injudicious. To sum up all, the body, and all things related to it, are like a river; what belongs to the animal life, is a dream, and smoak; life a warfare, and a journey in a strange land; surviving fame is but oblivion. What is it then, which can conduct us honourably out of life, and accompany us in our future progress? philosophy alone. And this consists in preserving the divinity within us free from all affronts and injuries, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing either inconsiderately, or insincerely and hypocritically; independent on what others may do or not do: embracing chearfully whatever befalls or is appointed, as coming from him, from whom itself was derived; and, above all, expecting death with calm satisfaction, as conceiving it to be only a dissolution of these elements, of which every animal is compounded. And if no harm befalls the elements when each is changed into the other, why should one suspect any harm in the changes and dissolution of them all? It is natural and nothing natural can be evil. This at Carnuntum. Id. at 38-39. "Enure yourself to attend exactly to what is said by others, and to enter into the soul of the speaker." Id. at 81. "What is not the interest of the hive, is not the interest of the bee." Id. at 81.).
Francis Hutcheson, Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria, with A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics), edited and with an introduction by Luigi Turco (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007) ("While our country remains, all good men should be united in this purpose, to deem nothing too hard to be endured or done for its interest; provided it be consistent with the laws of that more antient and sacred association of all mankind, of which God is the parent and governor. 'Out children are dear to us, our wives are dear, so are our parents, out kinsmen, our friends and acquaintance. But our country contains within it all these objects of endearment, and preserves them to us: and therefor every good man should be ready to lay down his life for it, if he can thus do it service.'" Id. 289, quoting Cicero, De officiis 1.57.5.).
Louis Kaplow, Competition Policy and Price Fixing (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2013).
Pamela S. Karlan, A Constitution For All Times (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2013) ("The longest-term effect of Bush v. Gore may actually be on the composition of the Court itself. President George W. Bush made two appointments to the Court: one when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died and another when Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retired. If his two picks--Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito--remain on the Court until they are the age of Justice Stevens when he retired in 2010, they will each be serving until the 2040s. No other legacy of the Bush years--save, perhaps, our staggering national debt and the war on terrorism--is likely to be so enduring." Id. at 59-60. "[T]he main effect of Bush v. Gore isn't so much the substitution of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito for Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor. Rather, it's the possible loss of two opportunities for would-have-been President Al Gore to select their successors. On a Court with two more Democratic-nominated justices, the generally conservative Justice Kennedy would likely not be the swing vote as he is today. Instead those two more moderate--or even liberal--justices might form a voting majority along with Justices Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. That Court might be more committed to equality, to individual litigants' access to the justice system, and to a host of other constitutional claims than has been the Court that Bush v. Gore produced." Id. at 62-63.).
Randall Kennedy, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (New York: Pantheon Books, 2013).
David Keith, A Case For Climate Change Engineering (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London. England, 2013) (see blog post on 11/15/2013).
Drew Maciag, Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism ((Ithaca & London: Cornell U. Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/10/2013).
Martha C. Nussbaum, Political Emotions: Why Love Matter for Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2013) ("Most people tend toward narrowness of sympathy. They can easily become immured in narcissistic projects and forget about the needs of those outside their narrow circle, Emotions directed at the nation and its goals are frequently of great help in getting people to think larger thoughts and recommit themselves to a larger common good." Id. at 3. "I shall argue that all of the core emotions that sustain a decent society have their roots in, or are forms of, love--by which I mean intense attachments to things outside the control of our will." Id. at 15.).
Dara O'Rourke, Shopping For Good (A Boston Review Book) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: MIT Press, 2012).
Robert Pollin, Back to Full Employment (Boston Review Books) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England, 2012) (see my blog post of 11/16/2013).
Paul Sabin, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/18/2013).
Alison Wolf, The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World (New York: Crown Publishing, 2013) (see my blog post of 10/20/2013).
Sunday, January 5, 2014
2014 IS A YEAR OF PURGING AND DOWNSIZING MY LIFE
Over the last two months of 2013 I managed to purge more than 1,400 books from my home library. Some of books I have had since undergraduate days, and quite a few from graduate school. Those books have travelled with me from Chicago, to Los Angeles, to New Haven. Who knows where they will travel now. Perhaps to the shredder. :-( I also got rid of clothing, and an assortment of, need I say, JUNK.
The year 2014 will continue the purge, with the intent to rid myself of another 1,500 books by the end of March.
In 2013 I did acquire my two dogs. Charlie in March, then Sam in October. Though a challenge at times, both are a joy and, to be honest, compensation for the friendships purged (or who purged me). Here too the purge will probably continue as time and distance severs what little ties that bind.
To label 2013 a "good" year or a "bad" year would be trivial. To anticipate 2014 to be a "good"or "bad" year would be silly. Instead, I will try to live the year with truth and nonattachment.
The year 2014 will continue the purge, with the intent to rid myself of another 1,500 books by the end of March.
In 2013 I did acquire my two dogs. Charlie in March, then Sam in October. Though a challenge at times, both are a joy and, to be honest, compensation for the friendships purged (or who purged me). Here too the purge will probably continue as time and distance severs what little ties that bind.
To label 2013 a "good" year or a "bad" year would be trivial. To anticipate 2014 to be a "good"or "bad" year would be silly. Instead, I will try to live the year with truth and nonattachment.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
'PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE': READING PIERRE HADOT
Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 1998) ("The discipline of assent consists essentially in refusing to accept within oneself all representations which are other than objective or adequate." Id. at 101.).
Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited with an introduction by Arnold I. Davidson, & translated by Michael Chase (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1995) (From "Spiritual Exercises": "One conception was common to all the philosophical schools: people are unhappy because they are the slaves of passions. In other words, they are unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists in independence, freedom, and autonomy. In other words, happiness is the return to the essential: that which is truly 'ourselves,' and which depends on us." Id. at 81, 102. One wonders how Americans would actually act in their daily lives were they to interpret "happiness" in this manner when reading and proclaiming the values in the Declaration of Independence about the 'pursuit of happiness.' "We spend our lives 'reading,' that is, carrying out exegeses, and sometimes even exegeses of exegeses. [] And yet we have forgotten how to read: how to pause, liberate ourselves from our worries, return into ourselves, and leave aside our search for subtlety and originality, in order to mediate calmly, ruminate, and let the texts speak to us. This, too, is a spiritual exercise, and one of the most difficult, As Goethe said" 'Ordinary people don't know how much time and effort it takes to learn how to read. I've spent eighty years at it, and I still can't say that I've reached my goal.'" Id. at 108-109 (citing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, trans, John Oxenford, 2 vols, 1850, 25 January, 1829).From "'Only the Present is our Happiness': The Value of the present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy": "The fundamental attitude that the Stoic must maintain at each instant of his life is one of attention, vigilance, and continuous tension, concentrated upon each and every moment, in order not to miss anything which is contrary to reason." Id. at 217, 226. "In the present, say the Stoics, we have everything, and only the present is our happiness. There are two reasons why the present is sufficient for our happiness: in the first place, Stoic happiness--like Epicurean pleasure--is complete at every instant and does not increase over time. The second reason is that we already possess the whole of reality within the present instant, and even infinite duration could not give us more than what we have right now." Id. at 228. "Whoever practices the rt of living must also recognize that each instant is pregnant: heavy in meaning, it contains both the past and the future; not only of the individual, but also of the cosmos in which he is plunged." Id. at 232.).
Pierre Hadot, Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision, translated by Michael Chase, with an introduction by Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1993, 1998) ("It is not life within the body which prevents us from being aware of our spiritual life; the former is, as such, unconscious. Rather, it is the concern we have for our bodies. This is the true fall of the soul. We allow ourselves to be absorbed by vain preoccupations and exaggerated worries..." Id. at 31.).
Pierre Hadot, The Present Alone Is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson (Cultural Memory in the Present), translated by Marc Djaballah (Stanford, CA: Stanford U. Press, 2009) ("It is all well and good to confess that one is a sinner, but it would be even better to think of the harm that one does to another through one's sin. In Le Canard enchaine of December 6, 2000 (yes, I do read Le Canard enchaine from time to time), the following remarks of Monseigneur Jacques David, bishop of Evreux, who had advised a pedophile priest to turn himself in, were reported: 'I had also advised colleagues [that is, other bishops] confronted by priests in difficulty to do the same thing.' This is all well and good but, Le Canard added, accurately, 'It is especially the kids who are in difficulty.' Here we are in fact in the presence of a rather ecclesiastical reaction. What counts about all, in the aim of the Church, is the priest in difficulty, and the Church he puts into difficulty. The victims are not considered first; it is not thought that the danger to which they are exposed should be put to an end immediately. One can imagine all the unhappy children who, in the past were, and still now are, victims of the conspiracy of silence that surrounded such actions. The Church is not, for that matter, the only one practicing hypocrisy. In analogous situations, the army or the police are not outdone; they also have esprit de corps. Reasons of state, reasons of the Church--there are always good reasons." Id. at 27. "Basically . . . in antiquity the philosopher is always regarded somewhat like Socrates himself; he is not 'in his place,' he is atopos. He cannot be put in a particular place, is a special class. He is unclassifiable. For quite different reasons there is a rupture of all these schools with the everyday, even among the skeptics, who approach everyday life with a total inner indifference, But at the same time, philosophy governs everyday life and sometime even gives detailed prescriptions. Thus the Stoics were reputed to have textbooks that might be called casuist textbooks--to use the seventeenth-century term--and that detailed proper conduct in all the situations of life. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle's commentator, mocks the Stoics' asking themselves whether one has the right to cross one's leg during philosophy class, or whether one has the right to take the biggest portion of the meal when eating with one's father! In an article about Roman Stoicism, about the Gracchi brothers but also about Cicero's treatise On Duty, my wife has shown that the Stoics displayed two opposing attitudes during this casuist period. For example, one would ask oneself the following question: if one sells a house, does one have the right to hide the house's faults or must one disclose them? There were rather heretical Stoics who would say yes, one can hide the faults; but the orthodox Stoics would say no, one does not have the right to do that. Thee is also the case of the grain dealer whose boat full of wheat arrives in a port during a famine. Will he say that there are other loads coming behind him, which would have the consequence of a plunge in prices? All sorts of possible behaviors in everyday life were foreseen, but as you can see, the problem was always to determine the attitude that conformed to the philosophical ideal. Nothing is more opposed to the cult of profit, which progressively destroys humanity, than this Stoic morality that requires of everyone absolute loyalty, transparence, and disinterestedness." Id. at 100-101.).
Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2006) ("As we come to the close of this parenthesis, let us say: to write the history of thought is sometimes to write the history of a series of misinterpretations." Id. at 14. "It is interesting to note that for the Stoic philosophers, from the perspective of knowledge of the cosmos, the seriousness of research takes on a sacred value." Id. at 171.).
Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2002) ("Around the beginning of the Christian period, Neopythagoreanism takes up in a moral sense the mnemonic exercises practiced by the ancient Pythagoreans. We can see this in the Golden Verses: 'Do not let sleep fall upon your soft eyes / Before you have gone over each act of your day three times: / Where have I failed? What have I done? What duty have I omitted? / Begin here, and continue the examination. After this, / Find fault with what was badly done, and rejoice in what was good.' These lines from the Golden Verses were frequently cited or alluded to later on by writers advocating examination of the conscience--by Stoics such as Epictetus, independent philosophers such as Galen, and especially Neoplatonists such as Porphyry and Iamblichus when they describe the life of Pythagoeran communities as the ideal model for the philosophical life." Id. at 200 (citations omitted).).
Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, edited with an introduction by Arnold I. Davidson, & translated by Michael Chase (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1995) (From "Spiritual Exercises": "One conception was common to all the philosophical schools: people are unhappy because they are the slaves of passions. In other words, they are unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists in independence, freedom, and autonomy. In other words, happiness is the return to the essential: that which is truly 'ourselves,' and which depends on us." Id. at 81, 102. One wonders how Americans would actually act in their daily lives were they to interpret "happiness" in this manner when reading and proclaiming the values in the Declaration of Independence about the 'pursuit of happiness.' "We spend our lives 'reading,' that is, carrying out exegeses, and sometimes even exegeses of exegeses. [] And yet we have forgotten how to read: how to pause, liberate ourselves from our worries, return into ourselves, and leave aside our search for subtlety and originality, in order to mediate calmly, ruminate, and let the texts speak to us. This, too, is a spiritual exercise, and one of the most difficult, As Goethe said" 'Ordinary people don't know how much time and effort it takes to learn how to read. I've spent eighty years at it, and I still can't say that I've reached my goal.'" Id. at 108-109 (citing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, trans, John Oxenford, 2 vols, 1850, 25 January, 1829).From "'Only the Present is our Happiness': The Value of the present Instant in Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy": "The fundamental attitude that the Stoic must maintain at each instant of his life is one of attention, vigilance, and continuous tension, concentrated upon each and every moment, in order not to miss anything which is contrary to reason." Id. at 217, 226. "In the present, say the Stoics, we have everything, and only the present is our happiness. There are two reasons why the present is sufficient for our happiness: in the first place, Stoic happiness--like Epicurean pleasure--is complete at every instant and does not increase over time. The second reason is that we already possess the whole of reality within the present instant, and even infinite duration could not give us more than what we have right now." Id. at 228. "Whoever practices the rt of living must also recognize that each instant is pregnant: heavy in meaning, it contains both the past and the future; not only of the individual, but also of the cosmos in which he is plunged." Id. at 232.).
Pierre Hadot, Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision, translated by Michael Chase, with an introduction by Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 1993, 1998) ("It is not life within the body which prevents us from being aware of our spiritual life; the former is, as such, unconscious. Rather, it is the concern we have for our bodies. This is the true fall of the soul. We allow ourselves to be absorbed by vain preoccupations and exaggerated worries..." Id. at 31.).
Pierre Hadot, The Present Alone Is Our Happiness: Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson (Cultural Memory in the Present), translated by Marc Djaballah (Stanford, CA: Stanford U. Press, 2009) ("It is all well and good to confess that one is a sinner, but it would be even better to think of the harm that one does to another through one's sin. In Le Canard enchaine of December 6, 2000 (yes, I do read Le Canard enchaine from time to time), the following remarks of Monseigneur Jacques David, bishop of Evreux, who had advised a pedophile priest to turn himself in, were reported: 'I had also advised colleagues [that is, other bishops] confronted by priests in difficulty to do the same thing.' This is all well and good but, Le Canard added, accurately, 'It is especially the kids who are in difficulty.' Here we are in fact in the presence of a rather ecclesiastical reaction. What counts about all, in the aim of the Church, is the priest in difficulty, and the Church he puts into difficulty. The victims are not considered first; it is not thought that the danger to which they are exposed should be put to an end immediately. One can imagine all the unhappy children who, in the past were, and still now are, victims of the conspiracy of silence that surrounded such actions. The Church is not, for that matter, the only one practicing hypocrisy. In analogous situations, the army or the police are not outdone; they also have esprit de corps. Reasons of state, reasons of the Church--there are always good reasons." Id. at 27. "Basically . . . in antiquity the philosopher is always regarded somewhat like Socrates himself; he is not 'in his place,' he is atopos. He cannot be put in a particular place, is a special class. He is unclassifiable. For quite different reasons there is a rupture of all these schools with the everyday, even among the skeptics, who approach everyday life with a total inner indifference, But at the same time, philosophy governs everyday life and sometime even gives detailed prescriptions. Thus the Stoics were reputed to have textbooks that might be called casuist textbooks--to use the seventeenth-century term--and that detailed proper conduct in all the situations of life. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle's commentator, mocks the Stoics' asking themselves whether one has the right to cross one's leg during philosophy class, or whether one has the right to take the biggest portion of the meal when eating with one's father! In an article about Roman Stoicism, about the Gracchi brothers but also about Cicero's treatise On Duty, my wife has shown that the Stoics displayed two opposing attitudes during this casuist period. For example, one would ask oneself the following question: if one sells a house, does one have the right to hide the house's faults or must one disclose them? There were rather heretical Stoics who would say yes, one can hide the faults; but the orthodox Stoics would say no, one does not have the right to do that. Thee is also the case of the grain dealer whose boat full of wheat arrives in a port during a famine. Will he say that there are other loads coming behind him, which would have the consequence of a plunge in prices? All sorts of possible behaviors in everyday life were foreseen, but as you can see, the problem was always to determine the attitude that conformed to the philosophical ideal. Nothing is more opposed to the cult of profit, which progressively destroys humanity, than this Stoic morality that requires of everyone absolute loyalty, transparence, and disinterestedness." Id. at 100-101.).
Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2006) ("As we come to the close of this parenthesis, let us say: to write the history of thought is sometimes to write the history of a series of misinterpretations." Id. at 14. "It is interesting to note that for the Stoic philosophers, from the perspective of knowledge of the cosmos, the seriousness of research takes on a sacred value." Id. at 171.).
Pierre Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, translated by Michael Chase (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2002) ("Around the beginning of the Christian period, Neopythagoreanism takes up in a moral sense the mnemonic exercises practiced by the ancient Pythagoreans. We can see this in the Golden Verses: 'Do not let sleep fall upon your soft eyes / Before you have gone over each act of your day three times: / Where have I failed? What have I done? What duty have I omitted? / Begin here, and continue the examination. After this, / Find fault with what was badly done, and rejoice in what was good.' These lines from the Golden Verses were frequently cited or alluded to later on by writers advocating examination of the conscience--by Stoics such as Epictetus, independent philosophers such as Galen, and especially Neoplatonists such as Porphyry and Iamblichus when they describe the life of Pythagoeran communities as the ideal model for the philosophical life." Id. at 200 (citations omitted).).
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