Author: chet8757

Graduate Oregon State University and Northern Illinois University, Former City Manager, Corporate Vice President, General Contractor, Non-Profit Project Manager, occasional free lance writer and photographer for the Las Vegas Review Journal.

LEADERSHIP

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Be Like the Fox (Machiavelli in His World)

By: Erica Benner

Narrated by: Karen Saltus

Erica Benner (Author, British political philosopher and historian)

Erica Benner gives context to Machiavelli and his role as a diplomat and advisor to leaders of the 15th and early 16th century. Machiavelli is not depicted as a supporter but as a clever advisor to tyrannic leaders of Florence and city-state regions of Italian power. What Benner reminds one of is that there is no country called Italy at this point in history.

There are three centers of power in the country now known as Italy. One is Florence where Machiavelli is born and raised, the second is in city-state regions, and the third is the Catholic Church in Rome. All are centers of power.

Benner’s history infers most of Machiavelli’s life is a duel with the Medici family’s power. The Medici family initially controls Florence when Machiavelli is a young man. The Medici family is dethroned in 1494. Machiavelli comes under suspicion as a possible co-conspirator. In August 1512, the Medici’s return to control of Florence.

Nicolo Machiavelli lives (1469-1527) in interesting times. The Renaissance occurs between the 1300s and 1700s. Benner infers Machiavelli is like a fox with nine lives.

When the Medici family is overthrown, Florence comes under the rule of a Dominican friar in 1494. The new leader is Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola is an ascetic who unwisely ridicules the Pope’s Catholic Church leadership and influence. He accuses the bishops of simony, mismanagement, and greed. Pope Alexander VI, a Borgia family descendent, becomes Pope and has Savonarola beheaded. Savonarola’s experience undoubtedly influences Machiavelli to keep his own counsel when dealing with power.

Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498, Ruled Florence from 1494-1498

Benner explains Machiavelli counsels the Borgia’s but only serves in a way that seems supportive. Benner suggests Machiavelli’s advice to the Borgias hides his real beliefs about city-state’ leadership. Machiavelli is in his twenties when serving the Borgias. These seem the formative years of Machiavelli’s future book, “The Prince”.

Cesare Borgia (1475-1507, died at the age of 31)

There are three Borgias that become Popes. It is the second, Pope Alexander VI, which has a son named Cesare Borgia which appears to be a model for Machiavelli’s “…Prince”. Benner suggests interpretation of Machiavelli is often wrong. After the Borgias, Machiavelli’s leadership beliefs are shown by Benner to be more nuanced. One might consider Machiavelli a political genius, ahead of his time. Benner explains “The Prince” is filled with irony while appearing to laud tyrannic power while his true belief is in just treatment of the ruled. Machiavelli warns of tyranny’s negative consequence.

Caterina Sforza (Noblewoman of Forli.)

An interesting acquaintance of Machiavelli in 1499, before the Medici restoration, is Caterina Sforza, an Italian noblewoman who succeeds her husband as a leader of an area identified as Forli. Women are shown as a force, even in the 15th century. She shows herself to be a tigress by facing down Borgia’s martial control of the town. The reason this is an interesting note is because Benner refers to a dream Machiavelli has of a forceful woman who counsels him to confront the new Medici rulers of Florence and offer his services as an experienced diplomat.

A not widely known contribution in Benner’s history is that Machiavelli promotes the idea of drafting citizens of a city-state into an army for defense of their homeland.

Most Italian city-states hired mercenaries to fight their battles and expand their fiefdoms. Machiavelli recognizes the concomitant risk with mercenaries who can turn on their benefactors for their own interests. Machiavelli convinces Florence’s leaders of the folly of using mercenaries because of their loyalty to whomever pays them best. Machiavelli is charged with raising what we today call a national guard. Soldiers would spend several days for training, and later be called-up when there is a threat to their country. By being citizens of their homeland, Machiavelli argues a home-grown army is more effective and reliable than a mercenary military force when defending their homeland.

Machiavelli is imprisoned and tortured when the Medici’s return to power. He is implicated in an effort to keep the Medici’s out of power in Florence.

With the support of Spain, and a Medici Pope, the Medici family returns to power in Florence. In 1513, a Medici Pope is elected by the Catholic Church. The Medici family returns to rule in the 16th century. Machiavelli’s career is partly resurrected when he writes to the Medici’s about how foreign powers should be handled. He is known to be speaking from personal experience. Though the Medici’s mistrust Machiavelli, they note the value of his understanding of negotiation and diplomacy.  Machiavelli is now in his 40s. “The Prince” is generally thought to have been published in 1513.

Another interesting note in Benner’s history is that Machiavelli becomes an accomplished playwright when the Medici family returns to Florence. His plays are comedies, dramas, and satires about Florentine customs and habits,

Two other momentous occurrences happen during Machiavelli’s life. One is Martin Luther’s attack on the Catholic Church and its purposeful belief that one can buy their way to heaven with indulgences offered for sale (aka simony) by the Church. The second momentous occurrence is the rise of the Muslim religion with the advance of Sulieman the Magnificent. Both were viewed as direct threats to the Church and Catholic faith. Machiavelli is near the end of his eventful life.

Martin Luther’s attack on the Catholic Church with the 95 Thesis in 1517.

Sulieman the Magnificent captures much of the middle east and spreads belief in the Muslim religion. (6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566)

Benner implies “The Prince” is a compilation of Machiavelli’s life as a diplomat. She suggests “The Prince” reflects on the dual nature of leadership with one side beneficent, the other maleficent. Bennet’s history suggests Machiavelli dies penniless and in obscurity because of his sly political fencing with great powers like the Borgia’s and Medici’s.

Machiavelli’s life story shows two leadership styles that effectively lead Italy’s city-states. In Benner’s opinion, Machiavelli’s life experience reinforces belief that beneficent (more democratic and enabling) rather than maleficent (autocratic, and top down) leadership is best. She argues “The Prince” satirically criticizes the second and extolls the first.

RELIVING THE PAST

Audio-book Review
            By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Dawn of Everything (A New History of Humanity)

By: David Graeber, David Wengrow

Narrated by: Mark Williams

David Rolfe Graeber (Co-Author, American anthropologist)
David Wengrow (Co-Author, British archaeologist, Professor of Comparative Archaeology.)

David Graeber and David Wengrow persuasively reject the view of farming as a critical step leading to tribes, hamlets, villages, cities, and future nation-states. Graber and Wengrow’s archeological research reveal human remains and structures are found in many areas of the world long before any evidence of farming. Their research suggests hunter-gatherer populations created and sustained stable communities with remnants of worship, government rule, and tools for construction, punishment, and defense. These early civilizations knew nothing of or practiced any form of organized farming.

Graeber and Wengrow argue early civilizations did not arrive as a result of organized farming.

The goal of the author’s research is to find an answer to the question of why inequality plagues civilization. They suggest inequality is (in part) created by the myth propounded  by stories like the bibles’ garden of Eden. The myth of original sin and redemption sets many precedents for inequality and redemption through good works. Their archaeological research suggests the plague of inequality has never been cured because history and archaeological evidence shows civilization wobbles between extremes. First, there is the altruism of sharing benefits of life with everyone. Second is the realism of what is mine is mine. Graeber and Wengrow argue there is history and archeological evidence proving both extremes exist but the second prevails more than the first. It would seem the first is more likely to preserve humanity, and the second to end it.

The goal of the author’s research is to find an answer to the question of why inequality plagues civilization.

Graeber and Wengrow offer a story of “sharing” by the American Indian leader Kondiaronk who saved his tribe by playing the Iroquois and French against each other to keep his tribe whole. Kondiaronk becomes an arbitrator for peace between the Iroquois and French. He secures peace for the French, Iroquois, and the Huron tribe of which he is a part.

Kondiaronk (French Canadian depiction.)

Kondiaronk becomes an arbitrator for peace between the Iroquois and French and secures peace for the French, Iroquois, and Huron tribe of which he is a part.

The authors say Kondiaronk is invited to France and finds monarchy a terrible form of government. He considers its hierarchy of wealth and privilege an abomination. His criticism revolves around the “mine is mine” hierarchal structure that impoverishes much of French society. Kondiaronk returns to Canada where he is buried in Montreal’s Notre-Dame church.

The “mine is mine” examples are more numerous than the “sharing” and distributive benefits Kondiaronk endorses. Schizogenesis is a phenomenon identified by Graeber and Wengrow in examination of Chinese, Roman, Persian, and other empires’ remains. Schizogenesis is defined as “creation of division”. It is social behavior of “get everything you can” and don’t worry about anyone else. The authors note archeological remains of most ancient civilizations are schizogenetic. Excerptions are a few North American Indian tribes and some Mesoamerican societies.

If authors’ stories of great empires schizogenesis are not enough, today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine is tomorrow’s archeological reminder of the phenomena.

There seems a slim hope for humanity in the example of Kondiaronk. Global warming is every nation’s problem. Humanity has a choice of “sharing” or continuing to fight each other until there is nothing left to fight over. In the past, many civilizations have fallen because of schizogenesis but now the world is at risk. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Global warming is every nation’s problem. Humanity has a choice of “sharing” or continuing to fight each other until there is nothing left to fight over.

This is a long book. It covers many subject areas that could be books of their own. As an example: the remains of civilization offer evidence that women’s equality, if not superiority, may have been exhibited during the hunter-gather phase of social development. The authors suggest women may have been the scientists of their time by experimenting with farming practices as farms became a part of civilization. Increasing and improving product grown on farms required experimentation. Who tended the farms?  The authors suggest it would have been women while men were hunting and gathering.

Part of the authors story covers America’s Mississippi River Valley and Etowah River area of Georgia to show how communal life grows in parts of what becomes the United States. Both areas leave burial mounds filled with hints of how their civilizations were formed, how they were governed, and why they disappeared. Both are founded on hereditary male leaders with some influence exercised by democratically elected council members. The authors note there is a belief in the importance of dreams that presage Freudian thought and its influence on lived life. It seems both areas grew with hierarchical governance by Tribal chiefs who lived, worked, and died in conflicts with competing tribes. (This is more evidence of schizogenetic life.) Farming is certainly a part of these societies but not as a formative cause of creation.

America’s Mississippi River Valley burial mounds.

The greater chiefs were memorialized by ritual mounds.

This is not light reading or listening, and it remains a speculative story of civilizations’ growth, and organization. It seems a more careful examination of archeological evidence than the farming explanations from different authors like Fukuyama, Diamond, Pinker, and Harari.

Francis Fukuyama
Jared Diamond
Stephen Pinker
Yuval Harari

Of course, Fukuyama is a political theorist, Diamond and Harari are historians, and Pinker is a cognitive scientist. All are well regarded professionals. What Graeber and Wengrow add is evidence that suggests a different interpretation of the past.

HUMANITY’S LEAKY BOAT

Audio-book Review
            By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland

By: Fintan O’Toole

Narrated by: Aidan Kelly

Fintan O’Toole (Author, award winning Irish journalist and political comentator for The Irish Times)

Fintan O’Toole helps one understand something about mid-20th century Ireland. O’Toole is born in Northern Ireland in 1958. That year becomes the beginning of his story. O’Toole touches on pre-1958 Ireland but only through literature and brief mentions of earlier history.

O’Toole’s story is fascinating but knowing an Irish population as an “…Ourselves…” is elusive. O’Toole is an excellent writer who reveals his self-understanding, but it is a vain effort to understand a singular society’s self-understanding. No population in the world can understand itself because of its complexity.

O’Toole explains post-WWII’ aid did not come to Ireland because of its neutrality during the war. The hardship in Ireland is difficult in years before and after WWII.

One suspects most Americans do not know that Ireland remained neutral in WWII. (This is not to say the Irish did not side with the west because thousands joined Allied forces on their own.) Education levels in Ireland were low because of little industrialization that would provide taxes or revenues needed for teachers and classrooms. The teaching available is through the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland and it is only after 1958 that the church began to fund education beyond grade school.

Great emphasis is placed on classroom order in Catholic schools with a ruler or open hand slap at young students who have wrong answers or who act in what is considered disruptive behavior.

Conditions of school in Northern Ireland were harsh with Catholic brethren who severely punished students for minor classroom disruptions. O’Toole notes many who experience that disciplinary environment retrospectively praise it as a character builder. However, O’Toole notes some students were sexually abused by their Catholic school masters. Pedophilia is a festering sore in Catholic church’ history. O’Toole implies it is a pox spread in Ireland’s 1960s Catholic schools. As history has shown, Catholic pedophilia extends far beyond Ireland.

O’Toole tells of many conflicts in the sixties through the nineties, without enough context. Because there is a mixture of religious conflict and Irish independence, it is difficult for a reader/listener to have perspective on O’Toole’s history of 30 years of “Troubles”.

Even we self-centered and ignorant Americans know one of the great conflicts of the world is between Irish Catholic’s and Protestant’s. The violence of each against the other is unfathomable to most Americans. O’Toole underestimates American knowledge of the causes and consequences of the “Troubles” in Ireland.

It seems most religions argue there is no God but God or Allah but Allah. Whether one calls themselves Catholic or Protestant, God seems the only concept upon which the largest religions agree. Religious conflict in Ireland is made more complex by the desire of some Irish to be independent of England while others wish for union. It would have been helpful to have a clearer explanation of the origin of the “Troubles”.

The cruelty during the time of the “Troubles” is horrendous. O’Toole’s stories of IRA atrocity are mind-numbing, including children in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the same time, captured IRA prisoners are as poorly clothed and cared for as though they were abandoned dogs. Many lived in their sweat, and excrement which made them either sick or dead. Some went on hunger strikes to resist with death as their end.

The Ireland of which O’Toole writes is Catholic because he is raised Catholic.

O’Toole explains “don’t ask, don’t see, don’t say” is a mantra of those who plan and do wrong. It applies to Irelands loosely explained “Troubles”, but he argues it also applies to the Catholic Church, and later the financial industry in Ireland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As wealth accumulates among those who benefit from Ireland’s economic growth, they look for ways to hide their earnings. The earnings are sometimes legitimately earned, sometimes not, but all wish to evade taxation and/or incarceration. O’Toole explains Ireland’s banking industry colludes with those money makers who wish to hide their income.

On February 6, 2002, Allied Irish Bank – Ireland’s second-biggest bank was investigated for apparent currency fraud at its Baltimore-based subsidiary, Allfirst, perpetrated by a trader named John Rusnak. 

Irish bankers and businessmen colluded to make it appear Irish residents lived abroad and should not be taxed for their income in Ireland. O’Toole explains the Irish government loses millions of pounds that could have been used for public services because of that collusion.

O’Toole’s notes women in Ireland of the 1950s and 60s are treated as child bearers and servers to men. They could not sue for divorce for any reason. They could not work outside the home. Women could not practice any form of birth control. Women were subject to their husband’s desires and could not object to either beatings or sexual intimacy.

O’Toole shows that any intelligent human being will overcome denied rights by fighting, fleeing, or subverting unequal treatment. Many Irish emigrate, some surreptitiously rebel. The example O’Toole gives is Irish doctors and pharmacists provide birth control pills to women based on falsely claimed menstrual problems to hide their real intent of avoiding pregnancy. Women had to fight unequal treatment or flee.

Misogyny in Ireland seems even more pernicious than in the earlier years of America.

O’Toole explains how prosperity comes to Ireland with acceptance into the European Union. (Northern Ireland later rejects the E.U. along with Great Britain.)

Eliminating trade barriers enriches farmers and begins industrializing the country while broadening economic diversification. To the church, O’Toole explains there is a concern over the loss of Catholic influence on the population. To the public there is great hope for an improvement in the Irish standard of living.

The benefit to farming is significant because of the price paid for goods within the E.U. O’Toole explains success in industrial growth is less significant, undoubtedly because of lack of infrastructure. There were also displaced workers in trades that could not compete with European prices. However, O’Toole notes women were significantly benefited by job opportunities created in a growing economy. Women were finally liberated from only working at home.

O’Toole explains economic improvement did not cure all Ireland’s ills and in fact created new 20th century problems beyond sexual inequality.

The gap between rich and poor did not change with economic wealth. Drugs became a serious health problem that O’Toole compares to the slums of New York. The biggest beneficiaries of joining the European Union were Irish farmers who were able to get better prices for their produce. Industry lagged and craftsmen disappeared. The truth of O’Toole’s view is that human nature is the same everywhere. America, China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea- all are motivated by money, power, and/or prestige. Human nature corrupts us all, regardless of government form, rule of law, or intent.

O’Toole chooses to become a journalist despite discouragement by a local paper that might have hired him out of college. O’Toole explains his life in a way that infers he is smarter than many of his peers. That intelligence paves his way through college and on to a successful career as an investigative journalist and author.

Neither Ireland nor the world have reason to believe they are morally or economically better or worse than other nations of the world. We are all in the same leaky boat. Only time and societal evolution will cure or kill us.

REBUILDING UKRAINE

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Chessboard and the Web

By: Anne Marie Slaughter

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin

Anne-Marie Slaughter (Author, foreign policy analyst, served as Director of Policy Planning under Hilliary Clinton.)

“The Chessboard and the Web” is not about rebuilding Ukraine. However, Slaughter presents an insightful view of diplomacy that confronts international conflict with an idea that applies to Ukraine’s future.

Ukraine is invaded by Russia in 2022, nearly 5 years after Anne Marie Slaughter’s book is published.

Inevitably, either Ukraine or Russia will sue for peace. Ukraine will survive as an independent nation-state. Neither Ukraine nor Russia will come away from this war with a satisfactory resolution. Ukraine’s challenge will be to rebuild their country within whatever boundary is part of a yet-to-be-determined peace agreement. No one knows what will happen to Putin, but President Zelensky will face the complex task of rebuilding Ukraine.

Slaughter gives several examples of how interconnectedness has changed the course of history in modern times and aided thousands of people impacted by natural disasters and internecine conflicts.

Slaughter argues natural disaster relief and international conflict is more constructively addressed by the interconnectedness of the world wide web.

Slaughter offers examples of how interconnectedness changes the nature of management. Though General Stanly McChrystal is discharged for disrespecting President Obama’s administration, he is instrumental in establishing a rebel fighting force in Afghanistan. McChrystal eliminates Al Qaeda’s leader by creating a web of interconnected Afghan rebels that advise the American military of Al Qaeda’s movements. McChrystal is widely acknowledged as an effective leader and accomplished soldier.

General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment in Afghanistan.)

In one way, the world wide web is an unstoppable technological change that invades everyone’s privacy. On the other hand, it offers a tool for cultural understanding, team building, and actionable public policy to deal with natural disasters, war’s destruction and its aftermath.  

Slaughter gives the following example: With web interconnectedness, two former Marines create a 38,000-person volunteer group called Team Rubicon that aids Haiti survivors after a 7.0 earthquake.

Either by design or circumstance, Ukraine citizens set up decentralized teams of fighters to repel the Russian army. Ukrainian fighters’ interconnectedness came, in part, from Elon Musk’s satellites. With that interconnectedness, Ukrainians successfully fought off Russia’s invading army. Zelensky is the leader of Ukraine’s defensive effort. But it is individual group leaders, connected by the web, that have successfully defended Ukraine. Zelensky is the President and leader of the country, but he wisely allows respective team leaders to conduct the war against the Russian invaders. That same system can be used to rebuild Ukraine when peace is achieved.

What Slaughter reveals is an idea that should be adopted by President Zelensky to rebuild Ukraine when Putin’s criminal invasion is defeated. Zelensky has done a heroic job of leading his country in war. He shows the capability of being a leader for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

The team leaders of Ukraine’s defense are prime candidates for team leadership when the war is over. President Zelensky knows who the best team leaders have been during the war.

Slaughter is not arguing this is a simple way of rebuilding a country, managing re-construction after a natural disaster, or resolving political crises. Her point is the complexity of international relations, war, and reconstruction can be met by decentralized teams organized around competent leaders using the internet. Their interconnectedness can address complexity based on intimate knowledge and decentralized command. Zelensky would need to establish a financial review process to monitor team results and discipline bad actors, but field decisions would be left to interconnected on-site leaders.

Human nature is what it is, and some leaders will succumb to the lure of money, power, and prestige.  However, through careful oversight, theft can be mitigated, and team leaders can be replaced as circumstances demand.

No leadership system, interconnected or not, is full proof. Slaughter’s service in Obama’s government, under the wing of Hillary Clinton, did not eliminate mistakes. The murder of Libya’s leader created a political mess during Clinton’s and Obama’s watch. Syria’s use of chemical weapons killed Syrian civilians. Obama is certainly right to not have invaded Syria for that transgression, but Obama and his red-line comment unnecessarily made America look weak. There were Obama successes. By the same token, re-construction of Ukraine will suffer from mistakes, but Ukraine’s President has shown how mistakes can be corrected. Zelensky acted against corruption by Ukranian team leaders who tried to profit from war material scams.

Slaughter’s last chapters explain the difference between leadership styles of the past and present. In the internet age, wide interconnection of disparate interests suggests a new leadership style, more like being a gardener than a martinet who insists on followers doing it her or his way.

The world wide web and interconnectedness is a two-edged sword. As with all ideas, web interconnectedness can be good or evil.  As with any plan for action, there is always potential for unintended consequence. Re-building is going to be a major undertaking for the Ukrainian people and government. Every American hopes the war will be over soon and Ukraine’s reconstruction can begin.

PSYCHIATRY

Audio-book Review
            By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Mind Fixers (Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness)

By: Anne Harrington

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Anne Harrington (Author, historian, Ph.D. in the History of Science from Oxford.)

Anne Harrington’s history is a reminder of the particular importance of psychiatry. Harrington explains how psychiatry evolved from quackery to a respectable treatment, if not cure, for mental dysfunction. Like treatment for cancer, the history of psychiatry ranges from brutality to rehabilitative treatment for damaged lives.

The initial interpretation of aberrant human behavior is noted as a neurological disorder, a diagnosis of disordered nerves.

Harrington notes a neurological explanation of psychiatry changes in the early 19th century. In the 1800s, it seems treatment for people who were tetched were generally isolated in asylums or cared for by immediate family members who dealt with patient aberrant behavior by isolation and/or restraint.  The idea of treatment and cure is limited, if not non-existent in that century.

In the 20th century, neurological interpretation of psychiatric disorder is expanded. Sigmund Freud becomes famous by treating patients who exhibit abnormal social behavior by delving into their family histories.

Freud develops theories of psycho-sexual development from detailed interpretation of patient interviews about their lives. Psychoanalysis becomes an integral part of psychiatry as defined by neurologists, though each suspects the other as less effective in treating psychological imbalance.     

The third stage of development in psychiatry is drug treatment. New drugs are expensive to develop, but once an effective drug is found, its value is immense.

The big drug treatment breakthrough is in the 1950s with Chlorpromazine (aka Thorazine) that treats psychotic disorders like schizophrenia. Its limitations were found in its application when the patient becomes anesthetized, uncaring about life and living.

As time and experience accumulates psychoanalysis and neurological disciplines are married to drug treatments prescribed by practices of the newly combined disciplines. It is not a smooth transition. Each discipline makes mistakes, patients become victims of improperly supervised treatments, misdiagnoses, implanted false memories, shock therapy, lobotomy surgery, and drug therapy damage. As is true of science and medical advances, the victims and beneficiaries of medical breakthroughs are patients who trust their physicians.

A part of Harrington’s story is about other disciplines that deny scientific discovery and believe Christian Scientists, Scientologists, or faith in God as the best therapy for psychiatric maladies.

WWI, WWII, and surprisingly post Covid19 are wake-up calls for psychiatry. Though recovery from war is not the same as recovery from a pandemic, social reintegration is similar for both returning war veterans and pandemic survivors. Americans who survived war and those surviving Covid19 show similar social reintegration problems.

An estimated 1 million Americans (and still counting) died from Covid19. An estimated 53,000 Americans died in WWI and 290,000 in WWII.

United States cases

Updated Mar 4 at 2:32 PM local

Confirmed

Deaths

1,129,424

Isolation during Covid 19 created “foxhole” relationships in families that changed the social dynamic of relationships and individual roles in society.

There seems a need today for as much psychiatric help for Americans after the pandemic as Harrington writes about after two world wars. One might argue the rise in 21st century crime, unemployed young, and homelessness is partly a consequence of recovery from the pandemic.

Irvin D. Yalom (Author, Doctor of Medicine, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.)

Author of “When Nietzsche Wept”

Harrington’s history of the evolution of psychiatry offers a possible cure, or at least improvement for what ails 21st Century America. That improvement is expensive. The question every American might ask themselves–are more jobs all that is needed? Listening or reading “Mind Fixers” implies jobs are only a part of the answer.  

UNDERSTANDING CHINA

Audio-book Review
            By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power

By: Thomas Christensen

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Thomas J. Christensen (Author, American political scientist, professor of international relations at Columbia University, advisor to U.S. Presidents.)

Thomas Christensen addresses “The China Challenge” with a capsulized history of communist party’ leadership from Mao to Xi. Christensen offers perspective to China’s support of North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Russia in the 21st century.

MAO ZEDONG (1893-1976, FOUNDING FATHER OF PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)
XI JINPING (GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA AND PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

North Korea is losing the war when Mao commits the Chinese Army that pushes American troops back to the 38th parallel. That demarcation became part of a peace agreement that created two nation-states, North and South Korea. Despite the obvious domestic mistakes of the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution, Mao’s entry to the Korean war made him a revered hero to China and the communist party. Mao’s nearly divine adoration is evident to anyone who visits Beijing’s Memorial Hall Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

Nationalism and history are at the heart of China’s support of non-western countries. Though “The China Challenge” is published in 2015, before Ukraine’s invasion, it offers insight to China’s response to international events that seem irrational to many western citizens. Christensen’s history disabuses reader/listeners of Xi’s irrationality. Mao’s resolve in the Korean war reinforces President Xi’s belief in the utility and strength of the Chinese Communist Party.

North Korea—The brutality of the Korean war killed an estimated 1,500,000 North Koreans, and 716,000 Chinese

Development difference between South and North Korea exemplified by light projection at night.

Christensen notes the importance of China’s tempering influence on North Korean provocation while refusing to treat North Korean leadership as either rogue or irrational.

Contrary to George Bush’s monumental mistakes in Iraq, Christensen shows the American administration’s concerted effort to stop North Korea’s nuclear bomb ambitions. Along with Bush’s successful diplomatic effort to reduce tension with China over Taiwan by speaking of a “one China policy”, the Bush administration puts an economic initiative together for American economic support of North Korea in return for denuclearization. China supports the effort, but North Korea turns it down.

Christensen is unable to disclose the details of an economic package for North Korea in return for denuclearization but George Bush’s success in getting China’s support is remarkable and largely unrealized by the public.

Syria—Despite the brutality of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, China maintains close ties with Syria because of Xi’s belief in defending Syria’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. This is a consistent posture of China regarding other nations hostile to democracy.

Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria

Xi consistently supports authoritarian rulers’ right to rule without interference from outside interests.

Iran—Xi criticizes President Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation agreement. Christensen notes China, like other nuclear powers in the world, believes in non-proliferation of nuclear bomb capability. Xi consistently supports Iran’s independence for the same reason noted for Syria.

Ali Khamenei (Iran Supreme Leader)

Xi believes every nation has a right to rule without interference from outside interests. An added economic reason is Iran’s supply of oil and petrochemicals to China.

Russia— Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Xi is not considered. The invasion is not addressed by Christensen because it had not happened at the time of this book. Russia’s invasion seems a violation of the sovereignty principal Xi endorses. Ukraine’s history as once being a part of the U.S.S.R. gives  political spin to Xi. Of course, this relates to China’s interest in repatriating Taiwan. An interesting point noted by Christensen about Taiwan is America’s choice to provide F-16s for their defense during George Bush ‘s administration, contrasting with President Biden’s statement that any supply of arms by China to Russia will have consequences. Biden reminds Xi of the many corporations that left Russia when they invaded Ukraine. One wonders about America’s threat to Xi if China chooses to provide arms to Russia. In light of America’s supply of F-16s to Taiwan, Xi might not care about the economic consequence of American companies leaving China.

Ukraine War

Christensen implies there is a love/hate relationship between Russia and China. The love is Xi’s policy of non-intervention in a countries sovereignty. The hate is the history of Chinese leaders who chose the path of communism and found Russia abandoned Stalinist beliefs that Mao supported. Xi is an authoritarian. He believes in the importance of the communist party and uses it to achieve nationalist objectives.

MAO AND STALIN

Christensen goes on to write about global warming and the world’s inadequate response.

Over 60% of the world’s pollution is caused by four government jurisdictions, i.e., America, China, the E.U., and India. China and America alone cause 40% of the pollution. On a per-capita basis, America is the worst, but China shows the most visible impact, measured by air quality and water. In a trip to China, one can see the main rivers in China are loaded with refuse.

At times, air pollution is so thick in Beijing that one cannot safely drive a car because drivers are unable to see the road or other vehicles.

Christensen does not believe either China or America or any nation-state will be singular hegemons of the world. Christensen implies “balance of power” will always be the guiding principle of international relations. China is faced with problems greater than America because of demographics (high population and aging statistics) and its early stage of economic development. China’s present economy and environmental conditions create a longer road for China’s rise to broad citizen prosperity.

The fundamental theme of Christensen’s book is American leadership needs to understand China better. Only with understanding will respect be engendered and comity restored. Both China’s and America’s leaders realize humanity lives on spaceship earth. Without nation-state respect and comity, all nations (not to mention humans) are destined for the grave.

REBELLION

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606

By: James Shapiro

Narrated by: Robert Fass

James Shapiro (Author, Shakespeare Scholar, Professor at Columbia University.)

As a Shakesperean scholar, James Shapiro addresses Shakespeare’s plays during King James I’s reign. His history reveals the times in which Shakespeare is producing his most memorable plays. The three most relevant in this review are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth.

King James I (Scottish King of England 1603-1625, Succeeded by Charles I.)

Part of Shapiro’s theme is the use of the word equivocation. The word first appears in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is a common technique used in Shakespeare’s plays to avoid giving definitive answers to questions. Shakespeare is purposefully obscuring some unclearly expressed truth. It is a way of misleading without flatly lying. Shakespeare conceals the evil nature of the witches. Their predictions of Macbeth’s existence are true, but they obscure the precise truth of events that unfold.

King James I is possibly best remembered by Americans as the English King who commissioned the first English translation of the bible.

King James also lent his name to the first permanent English colony in America. Shapiro reminds reader/listeners King James I was the first joint ruler of Scotland and England and was nearly assassinated by treasonous Catholic terrorists in the gunpowder plot of 1605.

A presumed rendering of the House of Lords (where the gunpowder plot was to be executed).

Though Shapiro’s book is about Shakespeare’s plays, it is also about the history of that era in which the gunpowder plot of 1605, the plague, and the reign of James I occur. The events of that time offer precedent for today’s makers of history.

Most interestingly, today’s master of equivocation is former President Trump.

In a January 26, 2017, article in GQ by Jay Willis, the following examples were noted as Trump’s classic use of equivocation:

  • If people are registered wrongly, if illegals are registered to vote, which they are—if dead people are registered to vote and voting, which they do. There are some. I don’t know how many.
  • Our country has enough problems without allowing people to come in who, in many cases or in some cases, are looking to do tremendous destruction.
  • You’re looking at people that come in, in many cases, in some cases with evil intentions. I don’t want that. They’re ISIS.
  • I had a tremendous victory, one of the great victories ever. In terms of counties I think the most ever or just about the most ever.
  • There are millions of [illegal] votes, in my opinion. … I didn’t say there are millions. But I think there could very well be millions of people.

And of course, there is the 2021 “stolen election” equivocation that misled thousands of Americans who storm the US Capitol. None of these Americans committed treason but all appear to have fallen prey to Trump’s equivocations that led to the January 6, 2o21 rebellion.

Another parallel to the King James I era to modern times is Covid19’s impact on today’s society and economy. London’s social interactions became hostile as the spread of plague diminished care and respect for others. Violence became commonplace as plague attacks neighbors and diminishes social gatherings. Shakespeare’s plays and other entertainments were no longer conducted. The London economy spiraled downward. These events are repeated today as Covid19 subsides, with a rise in violent crime and a halting return to economic growth. Today is not yesterday but, as Mark Twain suggested, history may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.

Treason is a proper appellation for Robert Catesby and the Wintour brothers in Shapiro’s Shakespearean history. They hatched a plan to bomb The House of Lords, the seat of English government, in London.

Guy Fawkes is caught in the basement of the House of Lords with barrels of gunpowder and fire ignitors that would have killed or injured anyone meeting at this chamber of government. Shapiro explains many, if not all, who had a hand in the conspiracy were caught, tried, hung, and quartered when the plot was revealed.

The gruesome detail of quartering is explained by Shapiro. While still conscious after being hung, bodies are castrated and then dismembered. (Shapiro notes Fawkes avoids the conscious brutality of castration and dismembering because his neck is broken when he is hung.)

Protestant discrimination of Roman Catholics and religious intolerance motivate the gunpowder rebellion. Religion plays a part of Americans’ discontent in modern times but not to the degree of treasonous acts; undoubtedly, because of America’s Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.

The 1605 gunpowder rebellion is principally motivated by different religious belief. In England, Catholics suffer from discrimination because of the dominance of the royally mandated Church of England and the control of a Protestant King.

The gunpowder rebellion’ conspirators are relentlessly pursued by officers of James I’s rule. Though the conviction consequence is not the same for America’s January 6 ,2021 rebellion, the perpetrators are relentlessly pursued.

Many of the January 6’ participants have been arrested and taken to court. Some have been jailed and fined. Others have been reprimanded and released. Some are still in court or at large.

Though Spiro is not addressing any of what has happened in America today, it seems relevant to consider Donald Trump as the “equivocator and chief” that fomented America’s January 6,2021 rebellion.

Another interesting parallel revealed in Shakespeare’s plays is America’s aged Presidents in the last two elections.

Like the story of King Lear, one wonders if dementia is not a threat to American governance.

James Spiro offers an insightful history of the greatest playwright of all time. For today’s events, Shakespearean plays are as relevant today as in the 1600s.

WRITING INTIMACY

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Priestdaddy: A Memoir

By: Patricia Lockwood

Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood

Patricia Lockwood (Author, poet, novelist, and essayist. Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Dylan Thomas Prize.)

This is the second Lockwood’ book listened to with interest and limited praise. Praise is limited because Lockwood writes with a customized perception of the world that diminishes its broad appeal. Like this critic’s review of “No One is Talking About This”, “Priestdaddy” reinforces Lockwood’s singular perception of the world. However, “Priestdaddy” adds depth to her personalized view of life. “Priestdaddy” has broader meaning than “No One is Talking…” but its appeal remains singular more than universal.

The broad meaning of “Priestdaddy” is that children are genetically marked and shaped by their parents in good and bad ways.

Lockwood’s literary success is remarkable considering the life she reveals. Lockwood’s sense of humor seems inherited from her mother, but her view of the world seems locked in a struggle with perception of her “Priestdaddy” father. Her father became a Catholic Priest, which is possible after marriage with the support of the church. In Lockwood’s struggle with her “Priestdaddy” and unrelated 20th century revelations about Catholic Bishop’ pedophilia, she loses faith in organized religion.

Relationship with one’s parents and the church are only part of Lockwood’s world view. Personal life experiences revealed in “Priestdaddy” also affect Lockwood’s perception of the world.

Reference to the author’s rape and miscreant priests that abuse children is a reminder of the horrors of human perversion. The broader contribution Lockwood offers is the extreme intimacy required to achieve success as an acclaimed writer. Not everyone has the courage, willingness, or skill to tell stories of their personal lives to the public. A listener will agree or disagree with Lockwood’s personal view of the world based on their own parental inheritance and life experience.

Praise is something all writers seek but few achieve. Lockwood is an interesting writer, recognized with national awards for her writing, and praise by many of her readers.

To some extent, one’s interest in Lockwood’s writing is because of the intimacy of her stories. Others fail to have wider appreciation of Lockwood’s writing because her story is not their story. When reading or listening to a book, many are looking for a broader understanding of life, not necessarily revealed by perceptions of a writer’s intimate experience.

SKEPTICAL OR STUPID

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

You Bet Your Life (From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation)

By: Paul A. Offit, MD

Narrated by: James Hoban

Paul Offit (Author, American pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, vaccines, immunology, and virology.)

Like Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies”, Paul Offit reflects on patients who risk their lives based on medical treatment and prescribed drugs by educated scientists, physicians, and drug manufacturers. Both Mukherjee and Offit write of the medical causes of death and attempts made by the medical profession to save lives. What both books have in common is that the medical industry, just as in all life’s work, is influenced by money, power, and prestige. Those influences carry risks and rewards.

Both Mukherjee and Offit are doctors with wide expertise in their respective fields. Offit’s book is shorter but equally important and impactful. Medical practice is just what the words mean.

Both physician/authors imply the word “practice” entails experiment on human beings. A physician can only be sure of successful medical procedures and treatment based on repeated healthful results for human beings.

Doctors, scientists, drug manufacturers, and medical employees make good and bad decisions based on educational achievement, hands-on medical experience, and personal motivation. That is true in all forms of work employment. The difference is we who are not part of the medical industry are intimately and mortally affected by its practice and advertisement.

Bad medical decisions can end a life; good medical decisions can save a life.

As a surgeon, Mukherjee reviews the history of cancer treatments and medical decisions that both killed and saved lives. Offit, a pediatrician, and member of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), reviews the history of medical innovations and treatment of infectious diseases that killed and saved lives. In the age of Covid19, Offit’s history is enlightening and somewhat frightening.

The hard push (called “warp speed) for a vaccine that treated Covid required risks to be taken. Putting aside the politics enshrined in American freedom of choice, in 2020 nearly 700,000 Americans may not have died if the vaccine had been accepted more quickly by the public. On the other hand, Offit’s history shows errors have been made by both physicians and drug manufacturers that have killed Americans in search for cure. Even with the great success of polio elimination in America, some died from improperly manufactured vaccines.

Offit reminds listeners of the history of heart transplants, blood transfusions, and anesthesia that reminds one of the gruesome details reported by Mukherjee about cancer in the early days of a search for cure.

Louis Washkansky lived for 18 days after having his heart replaced by a human donor’s heart. Only after years of research on rejection, did heart transplants give years of life to recipients.

Ryan White, a teenage Indiana boy, is saved from hemophilia after being given a blood transfusion that infects him with HIV. He was diagnosed in 1984 and given six months to live. He lived until 1990 but was ostracized by schools and society because of American fear of the disease. Too little was known about how the Auto Immune Deficiency was transmitted.

The search for a way to conduct surgery without pain led to the use of chloroform in the 1800s. Hannah Greener, a 15-year-old, dies from application of chloroform for surgical removal of an infected toenail in 1848. Offit does go on to explain chloroform became notorious for criminal use in robberies. In any case, the principle of anesthesia made a great contribution to surgical practice.

Hannah Greener (1833-1848, dies from an overdose of chloroform when anesthetized.)

Contrary to Offit’s claim of an overdose, the cause of death may have been aspiration of fluids in trying to bring her back to consciousness.

There are many more interesting stories from Offit’s historical account of medical innovation. The fundamental point of both Offit and Mukherjee is that errors will be made by the medical industry. Risks are taken by patients who rely on the industry to cure or ameliorate the ravishes of ill health. Government oversight, like the FDA, CDC, USDA, and the World Health Organization, work on minimizing risk to society but risk reduction is a work in progress. Offit notes there are many ways for medical cures to go wrong. From misleading advertising to poor medical practice, to human greed for money-power-prestige, human risk abounds. Of course, the ultimate risk is the patients.

The lesson one draws from these two physicians is that the public has a right to be skeptical but there is no right to be stupid. Dying will always be a part of our lives, whether mistakes are made or not.

OPPORTUNITY & FAILURE

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Out of the Gobi (My Story of China and America)

By: Weijian Shan

Narrated by: David Shih

Weijian Shan (Author, CEO of a private equity firm PAG, former partner in TPG Asia, holds a Ph.D. from Univ. of CA.)

Weijian Shan is a capitalist, a Chinese economist, CEO of an Asian investment company, and former professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School. Weijian Shan was born and raised in China during the Mao era.

Shan has written a memoir of his experience in the Chinese Cultural Revolution which began in 1966 and ended with the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Shan writes about China’s and America’s economic and political differences.

In 1966, Shan is barely a teenager, having only completed his grade school years. Shan, and many other teenagers, are sent to the Gobi Desert during the Cultural Revolution in China. Shan’s compelling story tells of his experience during the Revolution with an explanation of how he is chosen, at the age of 21, to go to college in Beijing. “Out of the Gobi” is published in 2019. Shan offers insight to Mao’s communist political ideas and gives listeners some thoughts about what Mao’s politics mean in the age of Xi Jinping’s rule of China.

Shan is sent to the Gobi Desert during the Cultural Revolution.

Shan’s experience in the Gobi Desert is among many Chinese citizens who are ordered to leave their city homes to experience rural China’s farm life. The irony is that neither China’s Gobi Desert farmers, the bourgeoise, nor displaced youth were culturally, intellectually, or financially benefited. Rural farmers were victimized because citizen relocations impacted food availability for what were subsistence farms. Many farmers were barely able to feed themselves, let alone thousands of relocated city dwellers. Relocated youth were denied higher education and forced into labor camps that had a negative effect on rural prosperity.

From a political perspective, Mao’s Cultural Revolution is a brilliant idea.

This is not to praise Mao as an intellectual but as a pragmatic politician who understood the value of the Cultural Revolution’s youth-relocations to advance his vision of Chinese communism. Mao cleverly instills a sense of discipline and teamwork by indoctrinating China’s next generation with Maoist communism. Today’s Xi benefits from Mao’s Cultural relocation with a generation raised in the time of the 1966 Revolution.

Shan’s story is the triumph of Weijian Shan’s intellectual development without a structured pre-college education.

(Uighur re-education camp in the 21st century.)

Shan’s memoir is a tribute to his personal strength and determination. Reaching the age of 21 in the Gobi Desert did not impede his intellectual development. Through work experience, social engineering among peers, and a commitment to read everything he could find, Shan overcame his Gobi Desert relocation and lack of a high school education.

With little English language skill, Shan begins his education at a Beijing college to become a student of foreign trade relations.

This educational opportunity is presented to Shan at the time of Nixon’s opening of Mao’s China to the world. Shan had firsthand experience of Mao’s communist mistakes. Shan tells the story of lost prosperity and peace for Gobi Desert dwellers and intruders.

In the Gobi Desert, Shan experiences the deficiency of a government system based on bureaucratic control that distorts productivity reports to make superiors look good. The disconnect between real progress and reports of progress hides the truth of economic waste and deterioration. Shan shows how orders from above depress productivity in two ways. One, by government superiors being ignorant of true productivity, and two, by discouraging the value of competition.

Shan reveals the strength and weakness of Deng Xiaoping’s opening of China after the death of Mao.

Without question, Deng contributed to China becoming the world’s second largest economy by GDP in 2010. On the other hand, Shan suggests Deng’s decision to crush the Tiananmen Square demonstration is the Communist Party’s misreading of demonstrators’ intent and support of economic revisionism. Deng (though reported to have given the order to jail or kill demonstrators) is revealed as a foil to Mao’s dictatorial beliefs in communism. Shan points to the odd fact that Mao removes Deng from leadership but refuses to remove Deng from the Party. The inference is that Mao may have understood the value of capitalism as a communist precursor (as noted by Marx).

XI JINPING (GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA AND PRESIDENT OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA)

President Xi is reestablishing communist party authoritarianism and may make the same mistakes Mao made, without a foil like Deng. Singular authoritarian leaders in the 21st century often deny the merits of democratic free enterprise that reduces the threat of kleptocratic bureaucracy.