"IT'S TOO LATE TO BE GOOD." --LUCKY LUCIANO

Dennis Lehane, The Given Day: A Novel (New York: William Morrow, 2008) ("'What are you supposed to do,' Danny said,'when everything you built your life on turns out to be a fucking lie?'" Id. at 468. "[Luther] stood and crossed broken glass and stepped through the window. He never looked back at Old Byron. He worked his way through the feverish white folk and the screams and the rain and the storm of the hive and he knew he was done with every lie he'd ever allowed himself to believe, every lie he'd ever lived, every lie." Id. at 624.).

Dennis Lehane, Live By Night: A Novel (New York: William Morrow, 2012).

Dennis Lehane, World Gone By: A Novel (New York: William Morrow, 2015).

SOME WORKS BY DONALD S. LOPEZ, JR. ON BUDDHISM, RELIGION, ETC.

Gendun Chopel, In the Forest of Faded Wisdom: 104 Poems by Gendun Chopel, a bilingual edition, edited and translated by Donal S. Lopez, Jr. (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2009).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Buddhism in Practice (Princeton Readings in Religions) (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1995).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2008) (This book's "central claim is a modest one. It is that in order to understand the conjunction of the terms Buddhism and Science, it is necessary to understand something of the history of the conjunction," Id. at xi. "From the traditional perspective, the Buddhist truth is timeless; the Buddha understood the nature of reality fully at the moment of his enlightenment, and nothing beyond that reality has been discovered since. From this perspective, then, the purpose of all Buddhist doctrine and practice that have developed over the two and a half millennia is to make manifest the content of the Buddha's enlightenment. From the historical perspective, the content of the Buddha's enlightenment is irretrievable, and what is called Buddhism has developed in myriad forms across centuries and continents with these forms linked by their retrospective gaze to the solitary sage seated beneath a tree. From either perspective, in order to make this 'Buddhism' compatible with 'Science,' Buddhism must be severely restricted, eliminating much of what has been deemed essential, whatever that might be, to the exalted monks and ordinary laypeople who have gone for refuge to the Buddha over the course of more than two thousand years." "If something is lost, what is gained? This book surveys the long history of the discourse of Buddhism and Science in an effort to understand why we yearn for the teachings of an itinerent mendicant in Iron Age India, even one of such profound insights, to somehow anticipate the formulae of Einstein." Id. at xii-xiii. "The term aryan appears in the Buddha's first sermon, where he speaks of the ariyamagga and ariyacca. These terms have long been rendered as 'noble path' and 'noble truth.' What they mean in the original Pali is something of a grammatical conundrum. But for the long tradition of commentary at least, it seems clear that this famous translation is inaccurate: it is not the truths that are noble, but rather those who understand them. Suffering, origin, cessation, and path are truths, or facts, only for those who are somehow 'noble.' For all other, they are not true." Id. at 81.).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Buddhist Scriptures (Penguin Classics) (New York: Penguin Books, 2004).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2005) (From the back cover: "Over the past century, Buddhism has been embraced in the West, both as an alternative religion and as an alternative to religion. This volume provides a unique introduction to Buddhism by examining categories essential for a nuanced understanding of its traditions. Each of the fifteen essays uses a fundamental term to illuminate both the theory and the practice of Buddhism in traditional Buddhist societies and in the realms of modernity. Through incisive discussions or topics ranging from art, word, and ritual to sex, power, and death, the authors offer new directions for the understanding of Buddhism in the twenty-first century. The result is not only an invaluable resource for the classroom but an essential book for anyone seriously inserted Buddhism and Asian religions." In addition to Lopez, contributors are Ryuichi Abe, Timothy Barrett, Gustavo Benavides, Carl W. Bielefeld, Timothy Brook, Janet Gyatso, Marilyn Ivy, Charles Lachman, Reiko Ohnuma, William Pietz, Craig J. Reynolds, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Robert H. Sharf, and Jacqueline I. Stone.).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of The Heart Sutra (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1996).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel (Buddhism and Modernity) (Chicago & London: U. of Chicago Press, 2006).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., A Modern Buddhist Bible: Essential Readings from East and West (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002) ("It is perhaps best to consider modern Buddhism not as a universal religion beyond sectarian borders, but as itself a Buddhist sect. There is Thai Buddhism, there is Tibetan Buddhism, there is Korean Buddhism, and there is Modern Buddhism. Unlike previous forms of national Buddhism, this new Buddhism does not stand in a relation of mutual exclusion to these other forms. One may be a Chinese Buddhist and also be a modern Buddhist. Yet one may also be a Chinese Buddhist without being a modern Buddhist. Like other Buddhist sects, modern Buddhism has its own linage, its own doctrines, its own practices . . . And like other Buddhist sects, modern Buddhism has it own canon of sacred scriptures . . . " Id. at xxxix.).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology (Princeton Readings in Religions) (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2002).

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed., Religions of Tibet in Practice (Princeton Readings in Religions) (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1997).

Donald S. Lopez, The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings (New York: HarperSanFrancisco/HarperCollins, 2001) ("Unlike many mantras that seem to have no semantic meaning, Vajrasattva's mantra can be translated. It means, 'Om Vajrasattva, keep your pledge, Vajrasattva, reside in me. Make me firm. Make me satisfied. Fulfill me. Make me compassionate. Grant me all powers. Make my mind virtuous in all deeds. Hum ha ha ha ha hoh. All the blessed tathagatas, do not abandon me, make me indivisible. Great pledge being. Ah hum.' " Id. at 90-91. "But there is also another challenge, the challenge provided by the dharma, which makes the remarkable claim that it is possible to live a life untainted by what are called the eight worldly concerns: gain and loss, fame and disgrace, praise and blame, happiness and sorrow." Id. at 256.).

"BASTARDS OF THE REAGAN ERA"

Reginald Dwayne Betts, Bastard of the Reagan Era (New York: Four Way Books, 2015).

R. (Reginald) Dwayne Betts, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (New York Avery, 2009).

Reginald Dwayne Betts, Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Farmington, ME: Alice James Books, 2010).

JURGEN HABERMAS

Jurgen Habermas, The Crisis of the European Union: A Response, translated from the German by Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2012) ("Today, all federations have adapted themselves more or less to the nation state model; the United States, too, has become a federal state at the latest since the end of the Second World War. The United Nations can understand itself at the beginning of the twenty-first century as an association of 193 nation states. The question that James Madison already confronted in 1787 arise all the more urgently with regard to the European Union: can a federation of member states with democratic constitutions satisfy the conditions of democratic legitimation without clearly subordinating the national level to the federal level?" Id at 32-33.).

Jurgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project, translated from the German by Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2009) (From "The Constitutionalization of International Law and the Legitimation Problem of a Constitution for World Society": "Cosmopolitan citizens take their orientation from universalistic standard which the peace and human rights policies of the United Nations must satisfy no less than a global domestic politics negotiated among the global players. National citizens, by contrast, measure the conduct of their governments and chief negotiators in the international arenas in the first instance not in accordance with global standard of justice, but above all in terms of the effective pursuit of national or regional interests. But if this conflict were fought out in the heads of the same citizens, the notions of legitimacy which evolved with the cosmopolitan framework of the international community would inevitably clash with the legitimate expectations  and demands derived from the frame of reference of the respective national-states." Id. at 109, 116.).

Jurgen Habermas, The Lure of Technocracy, translated from the German by Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 2015) (From "The Next Step--And Interview": For the first time in the history of capitalism, the collapse of the entire financial sector manifestly had to be averted or postponed through the guarantees of the taxpayers; and in most cases the citizens didn't even receive the corresponding property titles in return. The injustice of the burden-sharing cries out to heaven: the banks continue  to gamble away merrily while the protests retain a more local character--on London streets in flames, on Puerta del Sol in Madrid, before the City Hall in Lisbon, on Syntagma Square in Athens and so forth, Occupy Wall Street aside, these movements are as different from each other in cause, character, composition and motivation as the occasions and conditions at the national levels. The silent majorities to which these movements appeal are disheartened. They probably sense the systematic entanglements of everyone with everyone else, and are overwhelmed by the sense of the fatal impotence of their governments in the face of the potential threat of still unregulated markets. For this reason alone, we need a workable core Europe in order to re-establish a halfway tolerable balance between politics and the market." Id. at 63, 70-71.).

THE POLITICS OF POVERTY ERADICATION

David Rieff, The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015) ("In revolutionary moments, institutional thinking tens to be formulated in zero-sum terms. And even in non revolutionary moments, once a course of action is undertaken that its architects believe will be transformative, admitting failure or, worse still, error, or for that matter even changing course without any such admission, is not something that ever comes easily to large, powerful institutions such as the World Bank, the development agencies of major Western donors, or the major philanthropies and development NGOs." Id. at 109. "It is a commonplace that shameless self-promotion is all but inscribed on the DNA of contemporary culture. Go on Twitter and you'll find a huge number of the tweets go roughly, 'A wonderful article/speech/intervention by John Smith,' and then you note the heading reads, 'Retweeted by John Smith.' When Norman Mailer published a collection of essays in 1959 called Advertisements for Myself, such self-promotion was thought by many to be unworthy of the serious writer Mailer certainly was. Today promoting oneself isn't viewed as shameful, it is actually viewed as part of doing one's job. And as we all seem so hellbent on 'branding,' and advertising seems reasonable to people even though advertisements are manipulations at best and usually outright lies, what matters more and more are one's good intentions, not whether one is telling the truth. How else to explain the twenty-first-century fashion among philanthropies, UN agencies, and campaigning groups (including a number involved on food issues, notably Bono's ONE Campaign) to ask people to vote on what kind of world they want? Have people become so skilled at quelling their own common sense that they believe such appeals, which are essentially polls, and polls taken in a world increasingly run as a plutocracy, with inequalities of money and status not seen in Europe of North American since Balzac's time, can translate into political or social power? But as in the proverbial case of the emperor's new clothes, it is in no one's interest to say what a sham, what a simulacrum of democracy this particular fashion is self-flattery and the manufacturing of consent really is." Id. at 119. From the book jacket: "Some of the most brilliant scientists, world politicians, and development experts agree the eradication of hunger is an essential task for the new millennia. Yet in the last decade, the prices of wheat, soy, and rice have soared. It has condemned the hundreds of millions of the world's population who live on less than one dollar per day to a state of hunger and insecurity." "In The Reproach of Hunger, Rieff, a leading expert on humanitarian aid and development, searches for the causes of this food security crisis, as well as what lies behind the failures to respond to disaster: failures to address climate change, poor governance, and misguided optimism. Riff cautions against the increased privatization of aid, as well as the interventions of celebrity campaigners, whose  busineess-led solutions rob development of political urgency. He dismisses the idle hope of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that food scarcity can be solved by technological innovation alone." "The path ahead, Rieff reminds us, demands we rethink the fundamental causes of the world's grotesque inequalities and understand that what is at stake is a political challenge we are failing to confront.").

ISLAM AND TOLERANCE

Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue (Cambridge. Massachusetts, & London, AEngland: Harvard U. Press, 2015).

FOOD FOR THOUGHT/UNDERSTANDING: IDENTITY

Amy Ellis Nutt, Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family (New York; Random House, 2015) ("We are all born with traits, characteristics, and physical markers that allow others to identify us, to say, 'He's a boy' or 'She's a girl.' None of us, however, is born with a sense of self. By the age of two, children recognize themselves in a mirror, but so do chimpanzees and dolphins. Even the humble roundworm can distinguish its body from the rest of its environment via a single neuron. But of our 'who-ness' or 'what-ness'--our essence--there is no single place in the brain, no clump of gray matter, no nexus of electrical activity we can point to and say, Aha, here it is, here is my self, here is my soul." Id. at xviii.).

CHARLES PERCY SNOW

C. P. Snow, The Affair (Strangers and Brothers, Book 8) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1960, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Corridors or Power (Strangers and Brothers, Book 9) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1964, 2000).

C. P. Snow, A Coat of Varnish (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1979, 2000).

C. P. Snow, The Conscience of the Rich (Strangers and Brothers, Book 7) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1958, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Corridors or Power (Strangers and Brothers, Book 9) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1964, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Death Under Sail (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1932, 2000).

C. P. Snow, George Passant (Strangers and Brothers, Book 1) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1940, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Homecomings (Strangers and Brothers, Book 6) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1956, 2001).

C. P. Snow, In Their Wisdom (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1974, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Last Things (Strangers and Brothers, Book 11) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1970, 2000).

C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark (Strangers and Brothers, Book 2) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1947, 2001) ("As we walked through the court to his dinner party, he broke out in a clear, passionate tone: 'All men are swine.' He added, but still without acceptance, charity, or rest: 'The only wonder is, the decent things they manage to do now and then. They show a dash of something better, once or twice in their lives. I don't know how they do it--when I see what we are really like.'" Id. at 280.).

C. P. Snow, The Malcontents (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1975, 2000).

C. P. Snow, The Masters (Strangers and Brothers, Book 4) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1951, 2000).

C. P. Snow, The New Men (Strangers and Brothers, Book 5) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1954, 2001) ("Unable to keep myself away, hurrying to the laboratories to hear remarks that I did not want to hear, I found Luke and Martin already there. They might have been following old Bevill's first rule for any kind of politics: if there is a crisis, if anyone can do you harm or good, he used to say, looking simple, never mind your dignity, never mind your nerves, but always be present in the flesh." Id, at 109.).

C. P. Snow, The Search (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1958, 2000).

C. P. Snow, The Sleep of Reason (Strangers and Brothers, Book 10) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1968, 2000).

C. P. Snow, Time of Hope (Strangers and Brothers, Book 3) (Cornwall: House of Stratus/Stratus Books, 1949, 2000) ("Years afterwards, I realized that, when I was his pupil, I crasly underestimated Getlife as a lawyer. It was natural for me and Charles March to hold our indignation meetings in the Temple gardens; but though it was hard for young men to accept, some of Getliffe's gifts were far more viable than ours. We overvalued power and clarity of mind, of which we both had a share, and we dismissed Getliffe because of his muddiness. We had not seen enough to know that, for most kinds of success, intelligence is a very minor gift. Getliffe's mind was muddy, but he was a more effective lawyer than men far clever, because he was tricky and resilient, because he was expansive with all men, because nothing restrained his emotions, and because he had a simple, humble, tenacious love for his job." Id. at 262.).

MANIPULATION AND DECEPTION

George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2015) (“We are creating a new, broader meaning for the word phish here. . . . It is about getting people to do things that are in the interest of the phisherman, but not in the interest of the target.”  Id. at xi. “By our definition, a phool is someone who, for whatever reason, is successfully phished”. Id. at xi.  “Free markets do not just produce what we really want; they also produce what we want according to our monkey-on-the-shoulder tastes. Free markets are also about producing wants, so we will buy what they have to sell. In the United States the goal of almost every business person (with the exception of some who sell stocks and bonds and bank accounts . . . ) is to get you to spend your money. Free markets produce continual temptation. Life is a proverbial trip to a parking lot in which you are constantly passing spaces left open for the disabled.” Id. at 20.  Note: The late twentieth and  early twenty-first centuries has seen an explosion in schools, and education generally, operating on a corporate-business model, and this is not just in for-profits schools. So, if key university administrators are essentially businessmen and businesswomen who are trying to get you to spend your money, then what are they really selling? Is it some thing one needs? Or is, it a something you want, and want because the ‘want’ has been manufactured? In otherwords, to what extent do universities phish for phools?).

WHEN IT COMES TO NATIONAL SECURITY, IS IT OKAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO LIE TO THE COURTS?

Lorraine K. Bannai, Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest For Justice (Seattle & London: U. of Washington Press, 2015) ("The documents that Peter brought Fred were remarkable and indeed shocking. They, together with other key documents found by Aiko, showed that the government had purposefully suppressed, altered, and destroyed material evidence during World War II to ensure that the Supreme Court upheld the wartime curfew, forced removal, and--if it reached that issue--incarceration. The government had, in sum, engineered a 'win' based on a false and fraudulent record and had lied to the court, Among other things, the documents showed that the government had withheld form the court key intelligence reports at odds with its claim that its actions were justified by military necessity. They also showed that when the government learn that General De Witt's Final Report contradicted its arguments in Fred's case, the original report was destroyed and a new, altered, more consistent with the government's arguments, was given to the court." "The documents showed that the government knew of, and withheld, its own intelligence reports that refuted its claim of military necessity, In Fred's case, the government had argued that Japanese Americans posed a threat that required immediate action. In order to support that argument, the government provided the Supreme Court DeWitts's Final Report, in which DeWitt asserted that the orders were justified because Japanese Americana were prone to disloyalty and because there was evidence suggesting that they were involved in illegal shore-to-ship signaling. Solicitor General Fahy stood behind DeWitt's report in his oral argument before the Supreme Court. He asserted, '[N]ot only the military judgment of the general, but the judgment of the Government of the United States, has always been in justification of the measures taken; and no person in any responsible position has ever taken a contrary position." Id. at 139-140.).

PROPAGANDA

Jason Stanley, How Propaganda Works (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2015).

"During the decade I was immersed in the arcane details of formal semantics and pragmatics, the United States was in the throes of a mad experiment in mass incarceration, falling largely on the heads of the minority who were the descendants of slaves. Sylvia Wynter published an article that begins with the information that "public officials of the judicial system of Los Angeles routinely use the acronym 'N.H.I.' to refer to any case that involved a breach of the right of young Black males who belonged to the jobless category of the inner city ghettos. N.H.I means 'no humans involved.'" Wynter's article links the method of dehumanization of American citizens of African descent to the dehumanization of Armenians by Turkish pan-nationalists in the First World War Period, and Jew by German nationalists during the Second War World period, In these latter cases, the dehumanization was a preparation for mass slaughter."  Id. at xiv (citing Sylvia Wynter, "'No Humans Involved': An Open Letter to My Colleagues," Knowledge on Trial 1 (1994): 3-11).

"Why are we so inclined to confuse, quite sincerely, objective claims of reason with what turns out to be, introspect, biased and self-serving opinions? Why does seemingly objective discourse seem nevertheless to tap into bias and stereotype? And most pressingly, why, across continents and centuries, are the claims of oppressed and exploited groups routinely dismissed at the time, when history has subsequently revealed that the claims should have appeared to be clearly correct? These are the questions at the hear of this book." Id. at xvi-xvii.

Jason Stanley, Know How (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2011).

Jason Stanley, Knowledge and Practical Interests (Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford U. Press, 2005).

Jason Stanley, Language in Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press/Oxford U. Press, 2007).

DEHUMANIZATION

David Livingstone Smith, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015) ("[D]ehumization is the belief that some beings only appear human, but beneath the surface, where it really counts, they aren't at all." Id. at 4-5. ("We are all potential dehumanizes, just as we all are potential objects of dehumanization. The problem of dehumanization is everyone's problem. My ask is to explain why." Id. at 25. "In this book, I will argue that when we dehumanize people we think of them as counterfeit human beings--creatures that look like humans, but who are not endowed with a human essence--and that this is possible only because of our natural tendency to think that there are essence-based natural kinds. This way of thinking does;t come form 'outside.' We neither absorb it from our culture, nor learn it from observation. Rather, it seems to reflect out cognitive architecture--the evolved design of the human psyche." Id. at 101. [Query: Have you noticed the need of many people to "feel special," to think of themselves as "unique" in a world of several billion people? Is this apart of the human psyche? If it is, then perhaps the tendency to dehumanize is part of the human psyche as well. After all, it is really difficult to maintain the view of oneself, or one's group, as special and unique unless one views some others as less-than-special, less than unique.] "In this chapter [Chapter 7, titled "The Cruel Animal"]  I'm going to defend the proposition that Homo sapiens are the only animals capable of cruelty and war. I'm going to explore where this leads and use it to develop a more detailed explanation of why dehumanization causes moral disengagement." Id. at 203. "Sometimes dehumanized people are thought to be a deposed or hated 'animal' of no determinate kind. However, they are more often represented as any of three kinds of creature: dangerous predators, unclean animals,or prey. There are occasional departures from this pattern, but for the most part, it is surprisingly robust across both time and place." Id. at 252. Ask yourself, how does the law dehumanize certain people? As lawyers, what is your role in that dehumanization process? Lately, there is a lot of lip-service being given to mercy, compassion, forgiveness, etc. Perhaps a little more attention should be given to our dark side, our tendency to dehumanize. It is relatively easy, and comfortable, to contemplate dehumanization by others, or aboard. It is a greater challenge to look closer to home and see the dehumanization of others in our own minds and hearts. And ask yourself whether notions of racial, ethnic, cultural, national, etc., pride are masking acts and values of dehumanization.).

ARUNDHATI ROY ON INDIA, GLOBAL CORPORATE CAPITALISM, FASCISM

Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014) ("The [Indian] army is experienced enough to know that coercive force alone cannot carry out or manage social engineering on the scale that is envisaged by India's planners. War against the poor is one thing. But for the rest of us--the middle class, white-collar workers, intellectuals, 'opinion-makers'--it has to be 'perception management.' And for this we must turn out attention to the exquisite art of Corporate Philanthropy." Id. at 17. "Poverty, too, like feminism, is often framed as an identity problem. As though the poor had not been created by injustice but are a lost tribe who just happen to exist and can be rescued in the short term by a system of grievance redressal (administer by NGOs on an individual, person-to-person basis), and whose long-term resurrection will come from Good Governance. Under the regime of Global Corporate Capitalism, it goes without saying." Id. at 37. "Do we need weapons to fight wars? Or do we need wars to create a market for weapons? After all, the economies of Europe, the United States, and Israel depend hugely on their weapons industry. It's the one thing they haven't outsourced to China." Id. at 43. "Capitalism is in crisis. Trickledown failed. Now Gush-Up is in trouble too. The international financial meltdown is closing in. [] Major international corporations are sitting on huge piles of money, not sure where to invest it, nor sure how the financial crisis wildly out. There is a major, structural crack in the juggernaut of global capital." Id. at 45.).

Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living (New York: The Modern Library, 1999).

Arundhati Roy, Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009) ("Fascism's firm footprint has appeared in India. Let's mark the date: Spring 2002. While we think the U.S. president and the Coalition Against Terror for creating a congenial international atmosphere for fascism's ghastly debut, we can't credit them for the years it has been brewing in our public and private lives." Id. at 42. "The incident, creeping fascism of the past few years has been grounded by many of our 'democratic' institutions. Everyone has flirted with it--Parliament, the press, the police, the administration, the public. Even 'secularists' have been guilty of helping to create the  right climate. Each time you defend the right of an institution, any institution (including the Supreme Court), to exercise unfettered, unaccountable powers that must never be challenged, you move toward fascism." Id. at 43.).

Arundhati Roy, The Greater Common Good (Bombay: IndiaBook Distributors, 1999) ("'If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country...' (Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud dam, 1948.) I stood on a hill and laughed out loud." Id. at 1. "From being self-sufficient and free, to being impoverished and yoked to the whims of a world you know nothing, nothing about--what d'you suppose it must feel like? Would you like to trade your beach house in Goa for a hovel in Paharganj? No? Not even for the sake of the Nation?" Id. at 39. "Power s fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it creates.  Not just by what it takes, but also by what it gives. And Powerlessness, reaffirmed not just by the helpless of those who have lost, but also by gratitude of those who have (or think they have) gained." Id. at 61.).

Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire (New York: Open Media Pamphlet Series/Seven Stories Press, 2004) ("In the United States . . . the blurring of the distinction between sarkar and public [that is, between the government and the people] has penetrated far deeper into society. This could be a sign of a robust democracy, but unfortunately, it's a little more complicated and less pretty than that. Among other things, it has to do with the elaborate web of paranoia generated by the U.S. searcher and spun out by the corporate media and Hollywood. Ordinary people in the United States have been manipulated into imaging they are a people unde siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government [and their guns?].  If it isn't the Communists, it's al-Qaeda. If it isn't Cuba, it's Nicaragua. [If it is blacks, it's illegal immigrants?]  As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world--with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs--is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear." Id. at 7-8. "If you think about it, the logic that underlies the war on terrorism and the logic that underlies terrorism are exactly the same. Both make ordinary citizens pay for the actions of their government. Al-Qaeda made the people of the United States pay with their lives for the actions of their government in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The U. S. government has made the people of Afghanistan pay in the thousands for the actions of the Taliban and the people of Iraq pay in the hundreds of thousands for the actions of Saddam Hussein." Id. at 11. "A second hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-ization of resistance. [] NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but in a materially inconsequential way. Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between the searcher and public. Between Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators the interpreters the facilitators of the discourse, They play out the role of the 'reasonable man' in an unfair , unreasonable war." Id. at 41-43. "The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in." "Real resistance has real consequences, And no salary." Id. at 46.).

AS AMERICANS, WE NEED TO WAKE UP TO WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING IN THE GLOBAL WORLD . . . AND THE MANY THINGS FOR WHICH WE, THE PEOPLE, ARE RESPONSIBLE.

RULE OF LAW IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

Stephen Breyer, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities (New York: Knopf, 2015) (“This brings us to perhaps the most pertinent reason for attempting to address today’s transnational problems through law: any success in that effort helps to advance the rule of law itself. The rule of law represents the polar opposite of the ‘arbitrary,’ which the dictionary equates with the unjust, the illegal, the unreasonable, the autocratic, the despotic,, and the tyrannical. Like democracy and human rights, the rule of law is something more than an ideological commitment for Americans; it is a sine qua non for our system, and where it does not exist, our interests cannot be secured. At the time of 9/11, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and I were in India, about to discuss the rule of law with Indian jurists. Our reception there made clear to us that the important divisions in the world are not geographical, racial, or religious but between those who believe in a rule of law and those who do not. Jurists across the world help to weave this fabric in their day-to-day work, persisting in their labors even if, in the manner of Penelope’s handiwork what is woven by day sometimes unravels during the night, Yet we continue working, not as politicians but as technicians, hopeful but uncertain of success,  Id. at 283-284).

NO ONE WOULD EVER DESCRIBE AMERICANS AS "AN INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE"

Sudhir Hazareesingh, How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People (New York: Basic Books, 2015) (All great nations think of themselves as exceptional. France's distinctiveness in this regard lies in its during belief in its own moral and intellectual prowess." Id. at 5. Also, Mark Lilla, "The Strangely Conservative French," New York Review of Books, 11/22/2015. "Culture is a cult object in France. It has been estimated that about half of the French population is reading a book at some point every day, around two thousand book prizes are given out every year, and three thousand cultural festivals are held, often in splendid settings. Large government subsidies are given to public radio stations like France Culture, as well as to independent bookstores and countless little magazines. Some years ago the the literary historian Marc Fumaroli, now a member of the Academie Francaise, published a blistering attack on this system, titled L'Etat culture (The Cultural State). He did so, though, not on the grounds that it was elitist or cost too much, but in the name of high culture, arguing that government largesse and cultural bureaucracy stifled genuine creativity and independence." "Anti-intellectual populism a l'Americaine has no traction here." Id. at 50.).

SUGGESTED FICTION IN TRANSLATION

Jorge Amado, Tent of Miracles: A Novel, translated from the Portuguese by Barbara Shelby Merello, with an introduction by Ilan Stavens (Madison: U. of Wisconsin Press, 1991, 2003).

Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel, translated from the Spanish by Ruth L. C. Simms, prologue by Jorge Luis Borges, introduction by Suzanne Jill Levine, and illustrated by Norah Borges de Torre (New York; New York Review Books, , 1964, 2003).

Jean-Marie Blas de Robles, Where Tigers Are at Home, translated from the French by Mike Mitchell (New York: Other Press, 2008, 2011).

Max Blecher, Adventures in Immediate Irreality, translated from the Romanian by Michael Henry Heim, , preface by Andrei Codrescu, introduction by Herta Muller (New York: New Directions Books, 2015).

Roberto Bolano, A Little Lumpen Novelita, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, New York: New Directions Books, 2014).

Emmanuel Bove, Henri Duchemin and His Shadows, translated from the French by Alyson Waters, introduction by Donald Breckenridge (New York: New York Review Books, 2015).

Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation: A Novel, translated from the French John Cullen ((New York: Other Press, 2015) (See Laila Lalami, "Scene of the Crime," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 6/14/2015.).

Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child (Book Four, The Neapolitan Novels: Maturity, Old Age), translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (New York: Europa Editions, 2015) .

Dario Fo, The Pope's Daughter: A Novel of Lucrezia Borgia, translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar (New York: Europa Editions, 2015) .

Gunter Grass, The Meeting at Telgte, translated from the German by Ralph Manheim, with an afterword by Leonard Forster (New York: A Harvest Book/A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book/Harcourt, 1979, 1981).

Milan Kundera, The Festival of Insignificance: A Novel, translated from the French by Linda Asher (New York: Harper, 2013, 2015).

Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas, translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair, with a preface by Lucien Maury and a letter by Andre Gide (New York: Vintage International/Vintage Books, 1951, 1989).

Clarice Lispector, The Complete Stories, translated from the Portuguese by Katrina Dodson, introduction by Benjamin Moser, edited by Benjamin Moser (New York: New Directions Books, 2015) (See Terrence Rafferty, "The Stories She Told," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/2/2015.).

Yashar Kemal, Memed, My Hawk, translated from the Turkish by Edouard Roditi, with a new introduction by the author (New York: New York Review Books, 1961, 2005).

Haruki Murakami, Wind/Pinball: Two Novels, translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen (New York: Knopf, 2015) (See Steve Erickson, "What Set Him Spinning," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/16/2015.).

Sofi Oksanen, Purge: A Novel, translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers (New York: Black Cat, 2008, 2010).

Sofi Oksanen, When the Doves Disappeared: A Novel, translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers (New York: Knopf, 2015).

Per Petterson, I Refuse: A Novel, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Minneapolis, Mn: Graywolf Press, 2015).

Moss Roberts, trans. & ed., Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies, with assistance of C. N. Tay, preface by Yiyun Li, illustrated by Victo Ngai (London: The Folio Society, 2014).

Carlos Rojas, The Ingenious Gentleman and Poet Federico Garcia Lorca Ascends to Hell, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press/The Margellos World Republic of Letters Book, 2013).

Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book, translated from the Chinese by Meredith McKinney (London: Penguin Classics/Penguin Books, 2006).

Bernhard Schlink, Homecoming: A Novel, translated from the German by Michael Henry Heim (New Yorzk: Vintage International/Vintage Books, 2009).

Victor Serge, Midnight in the Century, translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Richard Greeman (New York: New York Review Books, 1981, 2015).

Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World, translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane, illustrated by Ben Cain (London: The Folio Society, 2012).

Timur Vermes, Look Who's Back, translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch (New York & London: MacLehose Press/Quercus, 2012, 2015).

Christa Wolf, City of Angels, or The Overcoat of Dr. Freud: A Novel, translated from the German by Damion Searls (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010, 2013) ("I have know for a long time that the real transgressions are the ones that happen on the inside, not out in the open. And that you can deny these secret transgressions to yourself for a very long time, and hide them, and never speak about them out loud. We cling tight to this innermost secret and keno it and keep it." Id. at 309.).

Christa Wolf, They Divided the Sky: A Novel, translated from the German by Luise von Flotow  (Ottawa: U. of Ottawa Press, 2013.).

MO YAN'S PERSPECTIVE(S) ON CHINA

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Big Breasts and Wide Hips: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996, 2012) (From the backcover: "In a country where men dominate, this epic novel is first and foremost about women, As the title implies, the female body serves as the book's most important image and metaphor. The protagonist, Mother, is born in 1900. Married at seventeen into the Shangguam family, she has nine children, none by her husband, who is sterile. The youngest is her only boy, the narrator of the book, a spoiled and ineffectual child who stands in stark contrast to his headstrong and forceful sisters. Mother, a survivor, is the quintessential strong woman, constantly risking her life to save the lives of several of her children and grandchildren as the political tides shift dramatically from year to year. [] Each of the seven chapters recounts a different era, from the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 through the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the early years of Sun Yat Sen's Republic, the Japanese invasion in the 1930s, the civil war, the Cultural Revolution, and the post-Mao years. This stunning novel, peopled with dozens of unforgettable characters, is a searing, uncompromising vision of twentieth-century China, as seen through the eyes of China's preeminent . . . novelist.").

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Frog: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Viking, 2014).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), The Garlic Ballads: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Penguin Books, 1995, 2013).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Red Sorghum: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Pow!, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (London: Seagull Books, 2012) (See Ian Buruma, "Folk Opera," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 2/3/2013.).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Red Sorghum: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Penguin Books, 1993) (Under normal circumstances, it is the power of morality that keeps the beast in us hidden beneath a pretty exterior. A stable, peaceful society is the training ground for humanity, just as caged animals, removed from the violent unpredictability of the wild, are influenced by the behavior of their captors in time." Id. at 323.).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), The Republic of Wine: A Novel, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Arcade Publishing,  1992, 2012).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series), translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2013).

Mo Yan (aka Guan Moye), Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001, 2011).

REFLECTIONS ON CHINA

Perry Link, Evening Chats in Beijing: Probing China's Predicament (New York & London: Norton, 1992).

Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (New York: Farar, Straus & Giroux, 2014).

Wang Hui, China from Empire to Nation-State, translated from the Chinese by Michael Gibbs Hill (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 2014).

Wang Hui, China's New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition, edited by Theodore Huters, translated from the Chinese by Theodore Huters & Rebecca Karl (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 2003).

Wang Hui, The End of the Revolution: China and the Limit of Modernity  (London & New York: Verso, 2009).

BEYOND COMPASSION

Larissa MacFarguhar, Strangers Drowning: Grappling With Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help (New York: Penguin Press, 2015) ("The usual way to do good is to help those who are near you: a person grows up in a particular place, perceives that something is wrong there, and sets out to fix it. Or a person's job suddenly requires heroism of him and he rises to the occasion . . .  Either way, he is taking care of his own, trying to make their lives better--lives that he understands because they are like his. He may not know personally the people he's helping, but he has something in common with them--they are, in some sense, his people. There's an organic connection between him and his work." "Then there's another sort of person, who starts out with something more abstract--a sense of injustice in the world at large, and a longing for goodness as such. This person want to live a just life, feels obligated to right wrongs or relieve suffering, but he doesn't know right away how to do that, so he sets himself to figuring it out. He doesn't feel that he must attend first to people close to him; he is moved not by  sense of belonging but by the urge to do as much good s he can. There is no organic, necessary connection between him and his work--it doesn't choose him, he chose it. The do-gooders I'm talking about are this second sort of person. They're not better or worse than the first sort, but they are rarer and  harder to understand. It can seem unnatural to look away from one's own people toward a moral idea, but for these do-gooders it;s not: it's natural for them." "The do-gooder . . . knows that there are crises everywhere, all the time, and he seeks them out. He is not spontaneous--he plans his good deeds in cold blood. He may be compassionate, but compassion is not why he does what he does--he committed himself to helping before he saw the person who needs him. He has no ordinary life: his good deeds are his life. This make him good; but it can also make him seem perverse--a foul-weather friend, a kind of virtuous ambulance chaser. And it's also why do-gooders are a reproach: you know, as the do-gooder knows, that there is always, somewhere, a need for help." Id. at 4-5.).

SOMETHING TO CONSIDER WHEN NEXT YOUR HEAR ABOUT EXPORTING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY ABROAD

Ari Berman, Gives Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015) ("The fight over the right to vote sharply intensified after Barack Obama's election, the pinnacle of the VRA's success.[] After Obama's victory, 395 new voting restrictions were introduced in 49 states form 2011 to 2015. Following the Tea Party's triumph in the 2010 elections, half the states in the country,nearly all of them under Republican control--from Texas to Wisconsin to Pennsylvania--passed laws making it harder to vote. The sudden escalation of efforts to curb voting rights most closely resemble the Redemption period that ended Reconstruction, when every southern state adopted devices like literacy tests and poll taxes to disenfranchise African-American voters." Id. at 10. "To Justice Antonin Scalia, the overwhelming congressional support for the VRA [Voting Rights Act], most recently in 2006, when Congress reauthorized the act for another twenty-five years by a vote of 390-33 in the House and 9-0 in the Senate, was proof of its unconstitutionality. 'Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act,' he said facetiously. 'Who is going to vote against that in the future?' The hushed courtroom gasped audibly when Scalia attributed support for the law to 'a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.'" Id. at 8. "The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice." Lyndon Banes Johnson, August 6, 1965. If one is a small "d" democratic--that is, you truly believe in the democratic process--, then this and Citizens United should be of grave concern to you.).

THE MYTHS OF AMERICAN ANGLO-SAXONISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: Harvard U. Press, 1981) (Perhaps, despite all their individual and collective flaws, the Founders had a more idealistic and universal notion of equality (as in  the self-evident truth that ''all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights') than the following generations, including twenty-first-century Americans. "The flowering of the new science of man in the first half of the nineteenth century was ultimately decisive in giving a racial cast to Anglo-Saxonism. Scientists, by mid-century, had provided an abundance of 'proofs' by which English and American Anglo-Saxons could explain their power, progress, governmental stability, and freedom. Rather than the eighteenth-century emphasis on the human race, its problems, and its progress, there was in the following century a feverish interest in distinctly endowed human races--races with innately unequal abilities, which could lead either to success and world power or to total subordination and extinction. In western Europe and America the Caucasian race became generally recognized as the race clearly superior to all others; the Germanic was recognized as the most talented branch of the Caucasians; and the Anglo-Saxons, in England and the United States, and often even in Germany, were recognized as the most gifted descendants of the Germans. The scientific study of man provided supposedly empirical proofs for the assertions of propagandists and patriots." Id. at 43-44. "By the middle years of the nineteenth century the simple praise of Anglo-Saxon institutions and freedom, which had assumed such importance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had undergone a profound change in England. Rather than emphasizing earlier freedom as a basis for internal reform, the new theorists were envisaging a world shaped to the desires of a supposedly innately superior Anglo-Saxon race. There was a firm and increasing belief that what was good for the Anglo-Saxons was good for the world. In Germany in the early nineteenth century ideas of historic Teutonic greatness were used most frequently to strengthen demands for nationhood. But the English were attracted to the idea of their race as a regenerating force for the whole world, for in Great Britain, throughout her colonies, and in the United States the Anglo-Saxons were apparently completing that march begun in the dawn of history by Aryan tribesmen. It was this aspect of the new Teutonism that also found most fertile ground on the other side of the Atlantic, in the United States. There, ideas and dreams indigenous to American history melded with a variety of themes from Europe to transform Revolutionary ideals for human progress into an ideology of continental, hemispheric, and even world racial destiny for a particular chosen people." Id. at 77. "Though the early years of the nineteenth century both religion and science confirmed Americans in the view that mankind consisted of one human species, that the obvious physical differences were the result of environment, and that the vast differences in the human condition and accomplishments stemmed form the same cause. This view was to change radically in western European and transatlantic thought, but the change also came about because of the peculiarities of the American experience. New racial ideas which influenced the whole of Western society in the first half of the nineteenth century fell on especially fertile ground in the United States. Ideas flowed both ways across the Atlantic in the formative years of he new ethnology. The American experience and American conclusions drawn from this experience helped to shape western European attitudes. Racial differences were dramatized in the United States, for white, black and red were thrust together from the earliest settlements. While blacks, of course, were central to the general development of American thought on race, Indians were of particular importance in the development of American racial thought in the context of an expanding and aggressive nation. In dealing with the Indians the United States began to formulate a rationale of expansion which was readily adaptable to the needs of an advance over other peoples and to a world role." Id. at 99-100. Two point, both of which should be obvious but for which Americans are in constant denial. First, notwithstanding "race" being a mere social construct, one cannot understand American history and American politics without appeal to race. For example, Slavery, Jim Crow, Indian Removal, Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico [Non] Statehood, Chinese Exclusion, Gentleman's Agreement with Japan, Eastern European Immigration Restrictions, Mexican Immigration (both legal and illegal), the whole "Model Minority" hype, and so on. Second, there is a significant racial component to American thought and rhetoric regarding the so-called War on Terror. For example, Syrian Refugees. For the most part, the Founders grounded in the Enlightenment. The later generations have steadily moved away from the Enlightenment and embraced the darkness of superstition, racialism, and religious bigotry. That we Americans are an enlightened people(s) is a myth, if not an outright lie. The myth of American Anglo-Saxism has grave consequences.).

INDIVIDUALISM

Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1980) ("Constitutionalism and absolutism are labels for theories of the polity, alternative conceptions of the proper ordering and use of public power. They consider human beings as political entities, and deal with them only insofar as they have a place in the public realm. Individualism, in the form it took in French psychological and ethical theory in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, dealt with human beings primarily as private persons, and was more a mood or temper than a theory. It found expression in a variety of ideals during those centuries, Although individualism could be associated with the solitary life of the scholar in retreat form the world, it was more often associated with a pleasurable life of like-minded men (and sometime women( who eschewed regular public involvement to concentrate their energies in philosophy leisured discussion, and good fellowship with one another. Individualism promoted the joy of private life, the fulfillment of each person, the vita contemplativa rather than the vita activa. It was compatible with a greater or lesser awareness of public duties that needed to be performed to make such a way of life possible for those capable of enjoying it, The primary hallmark of individualism, in all it variants, was the exploration and fulfillment of the self." Id. at 83. "The role of the scholar in this impressively articulated order is to assist his king in understanding and applying the principles of philosophy that are the indispensable grounding of all human activity, from the conduct of the self to the government of principalities. Le Caron asserts that a philosopher true to the love of knowledge will also be a 'lover of la chose publique, tending to no other good but common utility, not living a life contrary to that of vulgar men but a better one, and giving no occasion to trouble the political order.' He contrasts such a life with that of the avaricious or ambitious man, the two types that became so prevalent in the social philosophy of the seventeenth century. Of the two, Le Caron regards ambition as more noble, since it imitates philosophy in its attention to public affairs, instead of remaining, as avarice, must always be, caught up in the inferior world of things. But the man who desires glory for its own sake rather than loving the public good corrupts his behavior to please other men, and 'nothing is virtuous or vicious to him but what pleases or displeases his master.' Only la souveraine philosophie comprehends 'the essence and truth of things' and provides a worthy motivation for excellence in human life." Id. at 85-86 (citations omitted).).

HERODOTUS & THUCYDIDES

Mortimer J. Adler, Editor in Chief, Great Books of the Western World, Volume 5: Herodotus, Thucydides (The History of Herodotus, translated by George Rawlinson; Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Richard Crawley, revised by R. Feetham) (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952, 1990).

MANY AMERICANS SENSE THAT THEY ARE PRESENTLY RELIVING WEIMAR GERMANY. AND WE KNOW WHAT FOLLOWED.

Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (New YorkL Tim Duggan Books, 2015) ("An instructive account of the mass murder of the Jews of Europe must be planetary, because Hitler's thought was ecological, treating Jews as a wound of nature. Such a history must be colonial, since Hitler wanted wars of extermination in neighboring lands where Jews lived. It must be international, for Germans and others murdered Jews not in Germany but in other countries. It must be chronological, in that Hitler's rise to power in Germany, only one part of the story, was followed by the conquest of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, advances that reformulate the Final Solution. It must be political, in a specific sense, since the German destruction of neighboring states created zone where, especially in the occupied Soviet Union, techniques of annihilation could be invented. It must be multifocal, providing perspectives beyond those of the Nazis themselves, using sources from all groups, from Jews to non-Jews, throughout the zone of killing. This in not only a matter of justice, but of understanding. Such a reckoning must also be human, chronicling the attempt to survive as well as the attempt to murder, describing Jews as they sought to live as well as those few non-Jews who sought to help them, accepting the innate and irreducible complexity of individuals and and encounters." "A history of the Holocaust must be contemporary, permitting us to experience what remains from the epoch of Hitter in our minds and in out lives. Hitler's worldview did not bring about the Holocaust by itself, but its hidden coherence generated new sorts of destructive politics, and new knowledge of the human capacity for mass murder. The precise combination of ideology and circumstance of the year 1941 will not appear again, but something like it might. Part of the effort to understand the past is thus the effort needed to understand ourselves. The Holocaust is not only history, but warning." Id. at xii-xiii. Also, see Michael R. Marcus, "Hitler's Ecological Fantasies," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/6/2015.).

JAMES MERRILL

Langdon Hammer, James Merrill: Life and Art (New York: Knopf, 2015) (See Jay Parini, "Their Poems," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 5/17/2015.).

POLITICAL POWER

Franz Neumann, The Democratic and The Authoritarian State: Essays in Political and Legal Theory, edited with a Preface by Herbert Marcuse (Glencoe, Illinois: The Falcon's Wing Press/ The Free Press, 1957) (From "Approaches to the Study of Political Power": "Political power is social power focused on the state. It involves control of other men for the purpose of influencing the behavior of the state, its legislative, administrative and judicial activities. Since political power is control of other men, political power (as contrasted with power over external nature) is always a two-sided relationship. Man is not simply a piece of external nature; he is an organism endowed with reason. although frequently not capable of, or prevented from, acting rationally. Consequently, those who wield political power are compelled to create emotional and rational responses in those whom they rule, inducing them to accept, implicitly or explicitly, the commands of the rulers. Failure to evoke emotional or intellectual responses in the ruled compels the rule to resort to simple violence, ultimately to liquidation." Id. at 3, 3-5."[The liberal attitude's] sole concern is the creation of fences around political power which is, allegedly, distrusted. Its aim is the dissolution of power into legal relationships, the elimination of the element of personal rule, and the substitution of the rule of law in which all relationships are to become purposive-rational, that is, predictable and calculable. In reality, of course, this is in large measure an ideology tending (often unintentionally) to prevent the search for the locus of political power and to render secure its actual holders. Power cannot be dissolved in law." Id. at 6-7. Therein lies one of the many naive conceits of legal education as general pursued at the typical law school: that many, if not most, problems come down to identifying the the appropriate legal rules. At their core, most issues come down to who has the power and who does not. The legal rules legislated, decreed, or administered will favor, in time, those with political power. Law is politic. From "Intellectual and Political Freedom": "To be sure, we know that since the French Revolution anti-liberal and anti-democratic theories have been propagated which champion the thesis that from democracy there must necessarily emerge the rule of the mob, a bloodthirsty mob which, in order to be able to exercise its rule, places a tyrant at its head. The total state then appears as the necessary fulfillment of democracy. De Maistre, Bonald, Donoso Cortes, Spengle, Ortega y Gasset repeat this idea in one form or another." "Most of them appeal to a supposedly Augustinian anthropology and claim that man, corrupt in his nature, must necessarily create a totally corrupt political regime of mob rule when, as with democracy, he must stand on his own feet." "The possibility of mob rule exists. As a rule, those who advocate this so-called Augustinian anthropology are after all the same who also strive to convert their theory into reality through propaganda and politics,; while on the contrary it seems to be the duty precisely of the intellectual, to oppose the tendencies of mob rule." "This tendency--but it is only a tendency, no more--is indeed inherent in democracy. It means that a purely democratic system has conformist tendencies, that is to say, that the fact of mass rule presses upon the whole intellectual and artistic life of the nation, in order to create a conformist monolithic culture." "These tendencies are not dangerous in themselves. There is anti-intellectualism in every mass movement. The suspicion that the intellectual will refuse to play the game is always present. Rightly or wrongly the mass sees the intellectual as Socrates had asked him to be: as a stranger, a metic, who is the name of truth must not and cannot fully identify himself with any political system." Id. at 201, 210-211.).

LAW AS TERROR APPARATUS OF THE NORMATIVE STATE

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in History and Memory (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2015) ("[T]he principal instrument of terror in Nazi Germany was not the concentration camp but the law--not, to use Ernst Frankel's terminology, the prerogative state but the normative state, not in other words the coercive apparatus created by Hitler, such as the SS, but the already existing state apparatus dating back decades or even centuries. This is not to belittle the camps role in 1933, of course. During 1933 perhaps 100,000 Germans were detained without trial in so-called 'protective custody' across Germany, most by by no means all of them members of the Communist and Social Democratic parties. The number of deaths in custody during this period has been estimated at around 600 and was almost certainly higher." Id. at 100. "It is important to remember the extreme extent to which civil liberties were destroyed in the course of the Nazi seizure of power. In the Third Reich it was illegal to belong to any political grouping apart from the Nazi Party or indeed any non-Nazi organisation of any kind apart from the Churches (and their ancillary lay organisations) and the army; it was illegal to tell jokes about Hitler; it was illegal to spread rumours about the government; it was illegal to discuss alternatives to the political status quo. The Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 made it legal for the police to open letters and tap telephones, and to detain people indefinitely and without a court order in so-called 'protective custody'. The same decree also abrogated the clauses in the Wiemar Constitution that guaranteed freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of expression. The Enabling Law allowed the Reich Chancellor and his cabinet to promulgate laws that violated the Wiemar Constitution, without needing the approval of the legislature or the elected President. The right of judicial appeal was effectively abolished for offense dealt with by the Special Courts and the People's Court. All this means that large numbers of offenders were sent to prison for political as well as ordinary criminal offense." Id. at 101.).

Also:
Stanley G. Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison, Wisconsin: U. of Wisconsin Press, 1980).

Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 (Madison, Wisconsin: U. of Wisconsin Press, 1995).

ON NATIONALISM

Frank M. Turner, European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche, edited by Richard A. Lofthouse (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2014) (From "Chapter 10, Nationalism": "It was always difficult to determine exactly which ethnic groups could be considered as nations with claims to separate territorial and political existence. In theory any of them could, but in reality nationhood came to be associated with those ethnic groups that were large enough to support a viable economy, that had a history of  significant cultural association, that possessed a cultural elite which allowed the language to spread and flourish, and that had the capacity either to conquer other peoples or to establish and protect their own independence. Throughout the [nineteenth] century there were smaller ethnic groups who claimed to fulfill those criteria, but which  could not effectively achieve either indolence or recognition. They could and  did, however, create domestic unrest." Id. at 157. Might those last two sentences trigger in one's mind thoughts on "white nationalism" in twenty-first century America?).

"MURDEROUS MODERNITY," HOLOCAUST NOT "METAHISTORICAL MORALITY TALE"

Konrad H. Jarausch, Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015) ("The brutality of the Holocaust, broadly defined, poses a fundamental challenge to the Western master narrative that views modernization as a civilizing process. If since the Middle Ages Europeans had been progressing toward a reduction of violence . . . , the sudden relapse into utter barbarity during the Nazi dictatorship is hard to explain. In order to maintain the optimistic Whig interpretation of ineluctable progress, democratic intellectuals have tended to claim that the Germans deviated form this liberal development, flowing a special path in an anti modern direction. But the Polish Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has challenged this self-exculpatory view, which understates Western imperialist crimes; instead, he claims that 'the historical study of the Holocaust has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Nazi-perpetrated genocide was a legitimate outcome of rational bureaucratic culture.' By producing a sense of 'moral indifference' among the perpetrators and conferring 'moral invisibility' on the victims, modernity itself was to blame. 'Both creation and destruction are inseparable aspects of what we call civilization." "In order to resolve this paradox, it is necessary to strop treating the Holocaust as metahistorical morality tale and to reinsert it into its actual historical setting. Hitler unleashed his wars of aggression primarily as an effort to gain hegemony over the European continent in order to strengthen Germany's base for global competition. The ensuing mass murder of civilians was the result of Nazi dreams of eastern settlement, which required the ethnic cleansing of the existing residents so as to create space for German colonists. The persecution of millions of Jews caught in ghettos and concentration camps stemmed moreover from a post-Jewish-emancipation form of racial anti-Semitism which, by arguing biologically, cut off any escape by religious conversion or sociocultural assimilation. Finally, the ideological war of annihilation against communism and the Soviet Union facilitated mass killing because the savagery of the fighting ruptured all moral restrains. By involving local auxiliaries and extending into the Balkans, the Nazi campaign of mass murder interwove these three separate strands in a more complex fashion than is commonly remembered." Id. at 365-366 (citations omitted). From the bookjacket: "Out of Ashes explores the paradox of the European encounter with modernity in the twentieth century, sheddng light on why it led to cataclysm, inhumanity, and self-destruction, but also social justice, democracy, and peace." Also, see Geoffrey Wheatcraft, "Continental Divides," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/2/2015.).

AFTER THE BOMBS FALL: THE IMPACT OF NUCLEAR WAR IN HUMAN TERMS

Susan Southard, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War (New York: Viking, 2015) (See Ian Buruma "Under a Cloud," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/2/2015.).

Below is a email I received regarding my comments on the NYT piece on rules pertaining to  halloween costumes. Read it. It makes good points, of which I am much sympathetic, so there is no need for a either/or debate. Moreover, reasonable people can, may, and do disagree.

Still, the point I want to make is that we are running the risk of sanitizing culture. I agree that we should not demean or dehumanize others, and that certain costumes are beyond the pale of decency. But the criteria cannot be that someone, or some group, will have their identity bent out out shape. I am reminded of a essay I read recently. It is from Amartya Sen's essay, "The Smallness Thrust Upon Us," which is reprinted in Amartya Sen, The Country of First Boys and Other Essays, edited by Antara Dev Sen & Pratik Kanjilal (New York: The Little Magazine/Oxford U. Press, 2015). In the essay, Sen begins:

'There used to be a me,' said Peter Sellers in a famous interview, 'but I had it surgically removed.' Removal is challenging enough,but no lees radical is surgical addition--or implantation--of a 'real me' by others who propel us in the direction of a new view of ourselves. We are suddenly informed that we are not really what we took ourselves to be: not Yugoslavs, but actually Serbs ('You and I don't like Albanians'), or not just Rwandans, but Hutus ('We hate Tutsis'), or--as some of us old enough may remember from the 1940s--that we are not primarily Indians, or human beings, but in fact just Hindus or Muslims (who must respectfully confront Muslims, or Hindus, on the 'other' side). 'Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,' Ogden Nash had proclaimed. 'But hating, my boy, is an art.' That art is widely practiced by skilled artists and instigators, and the weapon of choice is identity.

Id. at 43. We think we have something special to protect in our identity, but it is mainly a social-political construct thrust upon us by foes and, all to often, by 'friends'. It is primarily a tool for our being socially and politically manipulated by others, or for our politically manipulating others. In the final analysis is anyone essentially Irish, German, Polish, Japanese, American, or Indian, etc.? In the final analysis is anyone just a catholic, a jew, a moslem, a buddhist, a Jain, etc? In the final analysis is anyone essentially male, female, transgender, etc? In the final analysis is anyone essentially left- or right-handed? No! We are not essentially this or that? And we should not let other define of as essentially this or that, and we should especially not define ourselves as essentially this our that. Have some imagination. Be Walt Whitman, be large enough to contain the contradictions, the many differences. As Sen writes, 

[W]e belong to very many different groups, and we have to choose out priorities between them. Even though the allegedly irresistible demands of a parochial identity--of a sect or a community or even a nation--may be invoked to bully us into submission, we have to resist smallness being thrust upon us. 

Id. at 46. What the restrictions on halloween costumes does, though well-intended, is impose a subtle requirement on us to place identities on the others. Don't offend those who identify themselves racially, or ethnically, or gender-wise, or by professions, etc. Be parochial, and respect others being parochial. Be white bread. Be boring. Be neutered.

Not me! I want to live in a robust society, where there is diversity of thought and ideas, diversity of values, diversity of perspectives. Why, because I am not absolutely sure I am right about anything, let alone everything. So, unlike the fascist among us (be their conservative, or liberal, religious or secular, etc.) I need the diverse perspectives. Why would I want to live is a society where everyone is like me? Or like you? God, either would be HELL. But that is were we are headed in this sanitized society we are developing. Give me the discomfort of diversity, the risk of being insulted and hurt by others insensitivity to me. It will not kill me. It will make me stronger. And it will help me figure out who I want to be in all its contradictions, inconsistencies, etc.

Respectfully,

ME

Postscript Also, keep in mind that Halloween, or All Saints' Eve, or eve of All Hallows Day, originated as the beginning of the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. [citations omitted] Halloween is in part a evening of mocking death before we remember and honor the dead. Life/living mocks death. The fascists mock life/living.

---

From:
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2015 1:09 PM
To:
Subject: 

"Dear L, 

And yet, just a couple of weeks ago, you posted a thought-provoking piece about dehumanization. Could it be that these costumes, appropriating the culture of an exoticized "other," desensitize in the name of fun and contribute to a person's dehumanization of others? Maybe it's not so fun for everyone.  I agree that it is unfortunate we need rules to make people more conscious of this possibility. Certainly it would be preferable if everyone could just be more aware, but for educational institutions, perhaps it is our job to use rules to raise awareness so that it becomes inculcated and habitual.

Respectfully"

On Oct 31, 2015, at 12:16 PM, I wrote:

I get it. But things like this certainly sap the honest fun out of life. Universities and students are becoming neo-fascisit! RULE. RULES, AND MORE RULES!

Halloween Costume Correctness on Campus: Feel Free to Be You, but Not Me By KIRK JOHNSON  Universities and student groups are issuing recommendations about costumes, which tread a line between flattery and mockery that is not always obvious.