Harmony and pragmatism undoubtedly remain important characteristics of Chinese society. Time will tell whether societal harmony can be maintained by an increasingly authoritarian leader.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Chinese Looking Glass (The most illuminating book yet written on China and her enigmatic people.)
By: Dennis Bloodworth
Dennis Bloodworth (1919-2005) Author, journalist, British writer at The Observer, first British journalist allowed to visit China in 1955.
“The Chinese Looking Glass” is a whirlwind journey across the vast history of China by the first British writer allowed to visit China in 1955. It is a primer for a general understanding of China that was originally published in 1966 and updated in 1980. The author’s marriage to Liang Ching Ping adds credibility to his view of Chinese culture.
One reads Bloodworth’s book and is somewhat overwhelmed by its breadth. So many generations of Chinese culture are too much to cover in a 400+page book.
The author manages to give a broad understanding of a Chinese worldview that is shaped by Confucian and Taoist history, a collective identity that often conflicts with the Western culture of individualism. He notes Chinese traditions are based on filial piety (meaning duties, respect and devotion of children to their parents). Bloodworth notes, through many generations of Chinese culture, behavior and decision-making there is a focus on social harmony. Both Confucianism and Taoism play significant roles in shaping Chinese society.
Bloodworth notes Confucianism and Taoism shape Chinese society.
Piety, respect for hierarchy, education, and a focus on societal harmony were philosophical foundations of Chinese governance. Piety led governance toward strict rules and centralized authority. Historical figures like Confucius, Laozi, and Sun Tzu influenced Chinese culture and thought. The spiritual tradition of Buddhism reinforced the teaching of these cultural influencers. Buddhism emphasizes the suffering of life is caused by desire, and attachment. Buddhist teaching is that desire and attachment must be replaced by understanding and rejection of both through meditation and mindfulness.
Because democracy focuses on individual rights and freedoms, the ideals of collective harmony, hierarchical structure, and centralize authority make communism a better fit for Chinese culture.
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
Mao unified China after decades of war and instability. Bloodworth suggests Mao Zedong had a nuanced impact on China.
However, Mao’s centralized power resulted in big economic mistakes like the famine of the Great Leap Forward that caused misleading food production reports meant to please the government when production was much less than what was needed to sustain life for Chinese citizens. With famine, the Cultural Revolution is unleashed, and China’s growth and stability were set back. Bloodworth had observed China’s governing always included pragmatism and adaptability to their drive for cultural harmony.
Though Bloodworth mentions Deng Xiaoping in the last chapters of his expanded edition of “The Chinese Looking Glass”, he does not foresee the opening of the Chinese economy and its rapid economic expansion.
The pragmatic realization that collectivization of farming led to misleading information about production compelled Deng to open agricultural production to a more market-driven incentive to preserve social stability. Deng was an authoritarian as is evidenced by his decision on the Tienanmen Square crises.
Though Bloodworth did not live to see the next iteration of China’s leadership, an element of recidivism enters with Xi’s control of the government.
Harmony and pragmatism undoubtedly remain important characteristics of Chinese society. Time will tell whether societal harmony can be maintained by an increasingly authoritarian leader.
One wonders if Abdulrazak Gurnah is proffering an opinion about race relations in the world or just leaving a lifeline for those disappointed by relationship failures.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Admiring Silence
By: Abdulerazak Gurnah
Narrated By: Unnamed person from Zanzibar
Abdulerazak Gurnah (Author, Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic, moved to the UK in 1960.)
A little context for “Admiring Silence” will help understand Abdulerazak Gurnah’s interesting and troubling story. Gurnah received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021. “Admiring Silence” is the latest book published by Gurnah in 2020. He had written four earlier books: Memory of Departure (1987), Paradise (1994), By the Sea (2001), and Desertion (2005).
“Admiring Silence” is not a biography but an interesting story about a long-term relationship of a Black emigrant and a white woman who meet in Zanzibar (an island archipelago off the coast of Tanzania) and move to London. The two had met in a Zanzibar’ restaurant where they both worked. The Black emigrant leaves his native country with his restaurant mate.
Gurnah describes the two as lovers who are struggling restaurant workers who wish to improve their lives through higher education. An opportunity to attend a university leads the two to decide to emigrate to London because of their similar academic ambition. The two are enrolled at a university and both become teachers in England. Gurnah sets a table for understanding what life is like for an unwed mixed-race couple in mid-twentieth century England.
Their life together is complicated by the birth of a daughter and the father’s decision to visit his homeland when he is in his forties.
No one in Zanzibar knows he has a teenage daughter with an unmarried white woman he lives with in England. His mother wishes to fix him up with a future Black Muslim wife. The interest one has grows with the circumstances of Gurnah’s imaginative story.
What is it like to be in a racially mixed marriage in 1960s England?
How does a mixed-race child feel about her life in a predominantly white country?
What does a Black family think about their son having a mixed-race family?
Having lived together for 20 years and had a child, why haven’t they married?
How does the relationship between different races affect the feelings of a couple that chooses not to marry but have a child born to them?
Is Gurnah’s story representative enough to give one the answers?
The first question is largely unanswered. The last question is impossible to answer but the other four imply Gurnah’s opinion. Marriage is always a work in progress whether it is of a mixed-race couple or not. However, there is a distinction based on race when it comes to a man’s and woman’s personal relationship because of the dimension of racism. Every couple chooses to work through differences and become more or less committed to staying together but two people of different races face discrimination associated with racism, unequal treatment, and economic inequality existing in a country’s dominant racial profile.
Gurnah does not address how a mixed-race child deals with life in a predominantly white country, but one can imagine it depends in part on how distinctive a difference is in the color of their skin in relation to the dominate racial profile.
In terms of the daughter’s relationship with her parents, one presumes it is likely the same parent/child conflicts of all families. Some fathers are more distant than others just as some mothers range from helicopter to equally distant parents.
That these two lovers who have been together for so long without getting married, after their daughter is born, seems like a flashing yellow light, a cautionary notice of something is about to change.
When the father’s mother writes from Zanzibar to have him visit after being away for so long, flashes a yellow light that eventually turns red. He returns for a visit to Zanzibar at the encouragement of his partner. The partner’s encouragement seems disingenuous, i.e. more like a desire for a relationship break than a supportive gesture. The last chapters confirm that suspicion. A break-up occurs soon after the father returns. There is a brief father/daughter reconciliation, but the daughter also decides to separate from her father.
An interesting point is made by Gurnah about a Muslim Black person leaving a poverty-stricken country of his birth to a country of wealth and a different culture.
It is the wish of his Zanzibar’ family for the father to return to help with the disarray and economic disparity of his home country; as well as marry a local Black Muslim girl who wishes to become a doctor. The presumption is that if one leaves their poor country to become prosperous in a wealthy country, they have some magical power to help their poverty-stricken home-countries. It is of little concern to the family about his committed relationship to another but more about what his life is like in his newly adopted country and what he can offer to his homeland from what he has learned. The Muslim girl the mother wishes him to marry is twenty years old. Her son is in his 40s. Tt appears the primary reason for such a marriage is to help the young woman become a doctor. In the end, the son recognizes this is not practical but clearly understandable considering the poverty in Zanzibar.
Gurnah cleverly injects a conversation with a Nigerian Muslim woman on his plane ride back to London before his white lover’s rejection of their relationship.
The Nigerian woman has been divorced from her English husband for several years. It was an emotionally difficult divorce for her. A mix-up on a missing passport allows the father to find contact information for the divorcee. One wonders if Gurnah is proffering an opinion about race relations in the world or just leaving a lifeline for those disappointed by relationship failures.
Robert Kaplan’s inference is that all nation-state governments are being challenged by an increasingly polarized society. The question is whether Trump is a symptom or cure for the decline of America.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Waste Land (A World of Permanent Crises)
By: Robert Kaplan
Narrated By: Robert Petkoff
Robert D. Kaplan (Author, writer for The Atlantic, Washinton Post, New York Times, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, and the Wall Street Journal)
Robert Kaplan’s book makes one pessimistic about the future of democratic government. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, along with the re-election of Donald Trump, and the economic retrenchment of Xi in China reinforce some of the themes of Kaplan’s “Waste Land”. One who reads or hears national news understands why Kaplan argues there is a growing decline in Russia’s, China’s and America’s governments. He argues the cause of that decline is increased world interconnectedness, and rising government instability. His biggest concern is what he believes is a nascent parallel to the rise of Naziism.
The advent of the internet has been a mixed blessing because it is used to spread false information as well as the truth.
The consequence has been to make societies more polarized. An example is a widespread opinion by Trump appointees that the rise in the number of government employees is wasting taxpayer dollars for public education, science research, foreign aid, veterans’ affairs, the national park service and the IRS. (For example, an estimated 76,000 employees–16% of the work force has been discharged from Veterans Affairs. The VA provides healthcare services for eligible veterans, handles disability compensation, pensions, education assistance, like the GI bill, and home loans to citizens who have honorably served America.) These reductions in workforce are not based on any analysis of work performance but solely to reduce the cost of government. Trump, like Xi and Putin, believe Thucydides’ observation that “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
Trump’s firings are being done by an appointed agent of the President who decimated the work force of Twitter in the same way he is arbitrarily discharging American government employees.
Kaplan argues today’s political atmosphere in America, Russia, and China are similar to the societal condition of Germany before the rise of Hitler. He points to the fragility of authoritarians and the rise of societal polarization in today’s world. He compares economic instability, social discontent, and political extremism of the Weimar Republic to what he implies is a growing condition in both Western democracies and Eastern autocracies. The last chapters of Kaplan’s book focus on urbanization of the world and its consequent polarization of society that is deconstructed governance in a way that reminds him of the Weimar Republic’s deterioration. He infers Trump’s re-election, the dismantling of the American government, and America’s social disruption is similar to what happened in Germany in the early 1930s.
An example of the disruption of which Kaplan writes is the Venezuela immigrants who were flown to El Salvador and frog-walked to an El Salvador prison without adjudication by America’s judicial system.
Kaplan’s argument is that President Trump is destabilizing the American government by violating the Constitution of the United States.
A federal judge ordered a plane full of alleged immigrants (identified as gang members) to be returned to the United States. The plane was in the air when the President in apparent defiance of a direct court order chose to not have the plane turned around. The deported were filmed as they were frog-walked into a foreign jail while being denied any hearing or adjudication of their alleged criminality. The President of the United States appears to have ignored a Federal Court, the Third Branch of American government, designed to balance arbitrary actions of either a President or Congress for denying due process of law.
America re-elected Trump despite his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records for paying “hush money” to Stormy Daniels when first elected in 2016.
Though Trump’s conviction does not rise to the level of Hitler’s high treason in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, willingness to lie under oath is a troubling characteristic for a President, let alone, any citizen of the United States. According to news reports, Trump says he did not know he had been asked to turn the plane around by a Federal Judge. One might ask why should America believe what he says?
Trump is challenging the authority of Congress and the Judiciary by taking actions without consideration of the Constitution of the United States.
This reminds one of human rights violations in the early days of Hitler’s rise in Germany. Hitler gathered sympathizers from disillusioned veterans, business leaders, the middle class, the German youth, and Far-Right Nationalists. Trump appears to have had similar support in his re-election. Trump decides to pardon all January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attackers. Those pardons are a diminishment of American democracy akin to Hitler’s support of Nazi sympathizers.
Attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021–Trump pardons all attackers on 1/20/25, after being re-elected as President of the United States.
Deng led a transformative change in China’s economy after Mao’s death. With a pragmatic judgement that “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice”
In the last third of Kaplan’s book, the incredible success of China under Deng Xiaoping is addressed. Kaplan explains Deng became the leader of China between 1978 and 1989. Though Deng was a contemporary leader during the Mao administration, Deng led a transformative change in China’s economy after Mao’s death. With a pragmatic judgement that “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice” he opened China to the pursuit of personal, and individual citizen’ prosperity. The result of Deng’s pragmatism was the unprecedented economic growth and wealth of China. Much of what Deng started has been reversed by the Xi administration. In Kaplan’s opinion, the resurgence of the communist party has led to a reversal of economic growth in China. Kaplan infers a return to collectivism is a reflection of societal interconnectedness with a government-controlled internet that denies freedom of thought and action by China’s citizens.
Kaplan refers to Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) and the urbanization of America. He notes Oswald Spengler (1929-1936) recognized the implication of urbanization is government deterioration as a part of the natural lifecycle of every civilization. The point Kaplan makes is that nation-states have become like the early cities Jacobs refers to but with an interconnectedness that accelerates and shortens government lifecycles. Robert Kaplan’s inference is that all nation-state governments are being challenged by an increasingly polarized society caused by internet connectedness. The question is whether Trump is a symptom or cure for the decline of America.
From Fukuyama’s intellectual musing to our eyes and ears, one hopes he is correct about America’s future in the technological age.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
The Great Disruption (Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order)
By: Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama (Author, political scientist, political economist, international relations scholar.)
Francis Fukuyama argues America is at the threshold of a social reconstitution. Fukuyama believes we are at Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” that is changing social norms and rebuilding America’s social order. He argues the innovation of technology, like the industrial revolution, is deconstructing social relationships and economics while reconstructing capitalist democracy.
The immense power of big technology companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook have outsized influence on American society. They change the tone of social interaction through their ability to disseminate both accurate and misleading information. They erode privacy and create algorithms tailored to disparate interest groups that polarize society. The media giant’s objective is to increase clicks on their platforms to attract more advertisers who pay for public exposure of their service, merchandise, and brand.
To reduce outsize influence of big tech companies, Fukuyama suggests more technology has an answer.
There should be more antitrust measures instituted by the government to break monopolistic practices and encourage competition with large technology companies. Algorithms created by oversight government organizations can ensure transparency and reduce harmful content to reduce big tech companies influence on society. (One doubts expansion of government agencies is a likely scenario in today’s government.)
On the one hand, technology has improved convenience, communication, and a wider distribution of information.
On the other, technology has flooded society with misinformation, invaded privacy, and polarized society. Technology has created new jobs while increasing loss of traditional industry jobs with automation. Trying to return to past labor-intensive manufacturing companies is a fool’s errand in the age of technology.
Luddites during the Industrial Revolution.
Like the industrial revolution, the tech revolution’s social impact is mixed with a potential for greater social isolation, and job displacement with the addition of wide distribution of misinformation. The positives of new technology are improvements in healthcare product and services, renewable energy, and climate understanding with potential for improved control.
Face-to-face interactions become less and less necessary. Children’s access to technology impacts parental supervision and relationship. Fukuyama suggests setting boundaries for technology use needs to be a priority in American families. Technology can open the door to better education, but it also becomes a source of misinformation that can come from the internet of things. Employers have the opportunity to help with work-life balance by encouraging flexible hours and remote work. (Oddly, that suggestion is being undermined by the current government administration and many American companies.)
Economic growth, access to information, and global connectivity have been positively impacted by technology. However, the concentration of power, misinformation, and surveillance of social media has diminished privacy and eroded individual freedom. There are concerns about technology and how it is good and bad for democratic capitalism.
The good lies in increased efficiency, innovation and creation of new markets, through globalization. However, today’s American government shows how tariffs are a destroyer of globalization. Fukuyama implies A.I. and automation is displacing workers and aggravating economic inequality because it is being misunderstood for its true potential and also being misused. Personal data is used to manipulate consumers in ways that challenge the balance between corporations and consumers.
Fukuyama argues private parties will grow in America to create software that will filter and customize online services.
With that effort control of the influence of big tech companies will be diminished. With decentralization of big tech power and influence, society will theoretically become less polarized and more consensus oriented. The capitalist opportunity for tech savvy startups that diminish influence of big tech companies will re-create diversification like that which the matured industrial revolution gave to new manufacturers. Like Standard Oil and other conglomerates of the industrial revolution, businesses like Amazon, Google, and Facebook will have competition that diminishes their power and influence.
American Government will grow to regulate the internet of things just as it has grown to regulate banks, industries, and social services.
Today, some look at the American government with concern. Are we at a tipping point in America?
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.
Revenge of the Tipping Point (Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering)
By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated By: Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell (Canadian Author, journalist, public speaker, staff writer for The New Yorker.)
Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of “…Tipping Point” that originally explored how small actions or events can trigger significant changes in society. “Revenge of the Tipping Point” provides several stories of tipping points that have had vengeful consequences for society.
One of the most consequential tipping point stories is about America’s attempt to engineer social equality.
America is struggling with social diversity. Gladwell infers social diversity is a great strength in American society. However, our government and domestic leaders have legislated discrimination, fought wars, murdered innocents, and promoted ethnic separation throughout its history as a nation. Despite our most famous statement of American value, i.e. “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one), America has failed.
The value of social diversity is it allows Americans to achieve great things despite inequality that exists in America.
Gladwell tells the story of a community in Florida that prides itself on being an exemplar of American society because of its strong educational values, cultural pride, community support, and economic mobility. The people who live in this community focus on preserving and celebrating their ethnic heritage, traditions, and identity. They assemble an island of cultural sameness that overtly and covertly resists change. Those who are not of the right ethnic heritage or race who may have the same drive for high educational achievement, community participation, and relative wealth are not welcome. The tipping point revenge Gladwell notes is in the stress this community places on its children to excel academically and conform to expectation. Gladwell notes student suicides are disproportionately high because of the social pressure children feel to conform. The social pressure for conformity and educational expectation overwhelms some who live in the community. Some parents choose to send their children outside the community school system to allay the social pressure they feel.
Gladwell notes the 2023 Supreme Court rejection of college acceptance based on diversity. The Court denies the right of colleges to recruit students based on ethnicity or race.
On the face of it, that seems an unfair decision but Gladwell notes that the schools being challenged on their diversity policies refuse to explain how they determine who should be admitted based on a percentage figure of fair representation. Gladwell notes the primary criteria for college selection has little to do with a drive for diversity but are based on revenue producing university sports programs and donor money. Minority preference admissions are based on income potential for the university, not social diversity.
The Supreme Court ruling does not preclude consideration of an applicant’s personal life experience, but Gladwell notes it nevertheless has nothing to do with a drive for equality or diversity.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court decision may cause a reevaluation of outreach to minorities who have been denied equal opportunity for personal success. Gladwell’s ironic point is that American diversity in the pre-Supreme Court decision was never based on creating diversity but on raising money for university foundations.
Gladwell explains the drug crises is more of an American problem than for most other nations of the world.
One asks oneself, what makes America the center of opioid addiction and death.
From the greed of drug dealers, medicine manufacturers and doctors who prescribe opioids, America has the highest opioid deaths in the world. Though Estonia has the highest opioid death’s per capita because of its smaller population, the manufacturers and doctor-prescribed synthetic opioids have greatly increased American’s deaths. Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed OxyContin with the owners, the Sackler family, reaching a multibillion-dollar settlement. Many doctors like Dr. Hsiu-Ying Tseng and Dr. Nelson Onaro have been prosecuted for overprescribing opioids or running “pill mills” that provided opioids to the public.
Gladwell suggests it is the superspreaders, worldwide legal and illegal manufacturers and sellers of opioids, and incompetent/greedy medical prescribers as tipping point causes of America’s addiction crises. However, he argues there are environmental and systemic societal factors that create a receptive user base in America. Economic stability is unattainable for many Americans because of economic, racial, and ethnic differences. He argues small actions and decisions lead to widespread consequences. Every human being has a tipping point based on their experience in the world. The ideals of America conflict with its reality. The pain of that realization leads some to relief through drugs, a step-by-step addiction that can lead to death.
Berlin Memorial to the Holocaust.
There are other tipping points Gladwell explains. One that resonates with my life experience is the ignorance many have of the history of the world. Some would argue, Americans became aware of the Holocaust after the end of the war in 1945. However, Gladwell argues most Americans remained ignorant of its reality until 1978 following the release of the NBC miniseries “Holocaust”. Until then, Gladwell argues there was little broad cultural understanding of its atrocity. Having graduated from high school in 1965, much of what Gladwell notes about ignorance of the Holocaust rings loudly and clearly.
I doubt that many were completely ignorant of the Holocaust, but its brutal reality was not taught in the high school I attended in the 60s. Having visited Auschwitz and viewed its gas chamber, piles of discarded shoes and clothes, and pictures of murdered human beings, the truth and guilt that one feels for being a part of humanity is overwhelming.
We have an FBI director that wants to have men and women of the agency coordinate training with the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), headquartered in Las Vegas. We have a President who publicly chastises Ukraine’s President and suggests they caused Russia’s invasion of their country. We have a President that insists America is being taken advantage of by lower cost production of product of other countries and that tariffs are a way to balance the American budget. We have a Palestinian protester at Columbia University who is arrested for social disruption. The head of the Department of Health Services orders lie detector tests for employees to find any leaks about the current Administration’s actions.
Tariffs have historically been found to damage America’s economy. Is the FBI a military force that needs to be schooled in hand-to-hand combat? One need only read Adam Smith about free trade to understand the fallacy of Tariffs. Have we forgotten the invasions of Austria and Poland by Germany at the beginnings of WWII? Is free speech a crime because of tents that disrupt college life? Should we use lie detector tests to determine the loyalty of employees?
Are these incidents a tipping point for American Democracy to turn into something different and demonstrably less than the founding principles of American government?
Ideally, public good and ethics will be taught in advance of the melding of technology and government, i.e., not after mistakes are made. However, history suggests humans will blunder down the road of experience with A.I., making mistakes, and trying to correct them after they occur.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.
The Technological Republic (Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West)
By: Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska
Narrated By: Nicholas W. Zamiska
Alex Karp (Founder of software firm Palantir Technologies)Nicholas Zamiska (CEO Palantir Technolgies
The authors are the founder and operations manager of the American software company, Palantir Technolgies. Palantir has been hired by the U. S. Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, agencies of NATO countries, and Western corporations to provide analytic platforms for defense analysis, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing.
They believe artificial intelligence research and development has lost its way.
They argue Silicon Valley has lost focus on what is important for survival of society and Western values. They suggest A.I. should be focusing on serving humanity in ways that responsibly regulate nuclear weapons and protect society from existential risks like climate change, pandemics, asteroid collisions, etc., that threaten human extinction. The authors provide a powerful criticism of technology and its national purpose.
Karp and Zamiska argue that technology is focusing on consumerism rather nuclear annihilation or existential risk.
By focusing on convenience and entertainment for financial success, fundamental problems like the threat of nuclear war, homelessness, inequality, and climate change are ignored or relegated to the trash heap of history. (“Trash heap of history” is the belief that what happens, happens and society can do nothing about it.) The west has become complacent with short-term focus on profit and consumer demand. The authors argue that the greater good is no longer thought of as an important societal goal. The primary goal is making money that enriches creators and company owners by making purchases more convenient to and for consumers.
Aldous Huxley (English writer and philosopher, 1894-1963, author of “Brave New World”.)
Their argument is there should be more collaboration between tech and government. Historically, government is only as good as the information it has to make societal decisions. A computer program can be programmed with false information like the error of weapons of mass destruction that led to an invasion of Iraq that was a bad decision. The domino theory input that led to the Vietnam war; so, on and so on. There is also the threat of an elected President that uses the power of technology to do the wrong thing because of his/her incompetence. There is the risk of government gathering personal information and using it to cross the line into a “Brave New World” where innovation, free thought, and independent action are discouraged or legislated against so people can be sent to jail for breaking the law?
Possibly, melding technology with government is an answer, but it is a chicken and egg concern. Education about public good and ethical practices should begin as soon as the egg cracks, not after hatchlings are already old enough to work. Phrases that come to mind are “What’s done is done” or “The die is cast”.
The authors argue the West needs to up-its-game if it wishes to create a peaceful and prosperous future for a society that is founded on the ideal of human freedom.
Without future generations creating policies based on ethical purpose for the public good, one infers western culture will spiral into individual isolation and self-interest that diminishes western culture and ideals.
Ideally, public good and ethics will be taught in advance of the melding of technology and government, i.e., not after mistakes are made. However, history suggests humans will blunder down the road of experience with A.I., making mistakes, and trying to correct them after they occur.
The United States is the 7th richest nation in the world on a per capita basis. Why is homelessness a growing problem in outwardly prosperous American cities?
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Seeking Shelter (A Working Mother, Her Children and a Story of Homelessness in America)
By: Jeff Hobbes
Narrated By: Julia Whelan
Jeff Hobbes (Author, graduate of Yale with a BA in English language and literature.)
Homelessness can be seen in most large cities of the world. In personal travels to what look like prosperous cities like Vilnius, Lithuania, Hong Kong, China, and even Scandanavian countries, homelessness exists. However, the scope of homelessness does not compare to what is seen on the streets of Las Vegas, NV. and Seattle, WA, two larger American cities considered prosperous and growing. In 2024, there were an estimated 7,928 homeless in Clark County (the Las Vegas area) and 16,385 in King County (the Seattle area). Walking around these two cities, let alone reading or listening to the news, suggests those numbers are grossly undercounting the homeless. The United States is the 7th richest nation in the world on a per capita basis. Why is homelessness a growing problem in outwardly prosperous American cities?
Trump followers would argue homelessness is because of illegal immigration and laziness.
The real reasons are decades of underbuilding in major American cities, high cost of existing inventory, regulatory barriers for affordable housing, economic inequality, an attitude of “not in my back yard”, investment conglomerates that capture housing for rent, and the decline of federally funded affordable housing.
Jeff Hobbes brings all of these reasons for homelessness to light with the plight of working mothers and their children who are moving from one area of California to another because they cannot afford a place to live, school their children, and feed their family.
Hobbes’ example is of a family on the road with savings of $4,000 in a search for a job, a school for her children, and a place to live that they can afford. What is abundantly clear in Hobbes’ book is women hold broken families together more often than men. Misogyny is a reinforced truth in the world. Men spread their seed, begat children, and leave. Women take on the burden of the world’s future.
Homeless single parents with children to care for must often leave their children alone while seeking work to pay for the basic needs of life.
A woman faces greater obstacles than a homeless man because of unequal opportunities ranging from income for work to their presumed and assumed responsibility for children’s care. The general public often presumes they have their own lives to live and have no responsibility for others who have made foolish decisions in their lives. However, a rational person knows children are the future of the world. A child left on his/her own have diminishing opportunities for success without parental support. A child of a homeless single parent’s support is compromised when that single parent has to work to earn enough for the family to have a home and food to eat.
Having the personal experience of being raised by a single parent with an older brother, Hobbes’ history of a mother, on her own, fairly explains how difficult it is to avoid homelessness while looking for work and caring for her children.
The price paid for homelessness on the emotional and intellectual ability of a mother and her children is immeasurable. The cost to society is partly explained by Jeff Hobbes’ in “Seeking Shelter”. California’s system of caring for the homeless is encouraging but undoubtedly inadequate based on what one reads in the press.
Listening to the stories of homeless families is a harsh lesson for those who have escaped poverty and think if they can do it, why can’t every American do it?
Failure to address homelessness is a societal flaw. Whatever its cause, homelessness makes every citizen of prosperous nations guilty of neglect.
Tara Westover’s trials are distressing for a listener/reader of her memoir, but all children are born into a struggle to find their own identity. “Educated” is evidence of Tara’s escape from prejudice and ignorance. It is an encouraging story of recovery with an education she acquires from a lived life.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Educated (A Memoir)
By: Tara Westover
Narrated By: Julia Whelan
Tara Westover (Author, memoirist, essayist and historian.)
“Educated” is a memoir of Tara Westover’s childhood in America. Her story is personal but universal. Some children are born in caring and nurturing families, all are subject to parents’ strengths and weaknesses. Tara reflects on the life of her family with a father, mother, and siblings raised in a family with a survivalist father who has strong religious beliefs and antigovernment views of life. He raises his sons and a daughter with a wife who conforms to his wishes and a mother-in-law who believes he is wrong about public education and the value of extreme beliefs in independence.
Tara Westover reminds listener/readers that every culture in the world is blessed and cursed by diversity.
Westover’s father would be called an American “antigovernment extremist” and “survivalist”. He does not believe in institutions of government or public services and argues all forms of regulation outside the family distort the natural state of society. He believes it is necessary to hoard food, fuel, and human necessities to assure self-sufficiency in the event of natural disasters or government-imposed laws.
The Weaver Family Tragedy in August 1992 is an important symbol to Tara’s father.
Randy Weaver held antigovernment and white separatist views. His wife and son were killed by FBI agents on Ruby Ridge. A settlement of $3.1 million for wrongful deaths is awarded Weaver on August 15, 1995.
The Westover father grooms his children to support the family in a scrap metal business that evolves into a contracting company. As the children of the family mature, some leave while the father expands the family business with employment of outsiders. As Tara matures, she reluctantly becomes a worker in the family business to earn enough money to go to college. As Westover writes her story one wonders if her father will be the cause of the next Weaver Family Tragedy.
Westover shows how work and American life is not a fairy tale but for most a struggle for survival just as it is in every culture.
Desire has no limits. Freedom allows one to cope with life and, in some cases, exceed its limitations. Some cultures offer more freedom than others. Whether raised in America or somewhere else, one’s education comes from the culture in which they live. The circumstances of family are a part of a child’s education, but formal education varies within and between nations. Most nations have some form of public education, but education occurs whether publicly or privately pursued. The Westover family, in their children’s grade school and high school years rely on their mother’s home schooling.
The Westover’ family is neither a “Leave it to Beaver”, “My Three Sons”, or TV produced fantasy.
It is a reflection of a family dealing with the hardship of life in America that is sustained by a culture of independence and self-determination. Every child is impacted by the family in which they are raised. Whether government supported education or not, every child becomes an educated adult in different ways. Some like Tara Westover grow to adulthood with an education that comes from self-determination and grit despite her father’s influence and her sibling’s erratic behavior toward her.
Children do not choose their parents. Every child grows to adulthood in their own way.
There is always some level of care and nurturing in every family. The level of care they receive varies but ultimately it is how they deal with the circumstances in which they live that determines who they become. Two nearly fatal car accidents for Tara’s family and her near ejection from her family at age 16 seem to make her stronger. Her ability to write this memoir is a tribute to her determination to live a fulfilling life. The genetics of life have magnified and fortified the Westover children’s successes and failures in life.
Breaking free of prejudice and ignorance, whether one is formally educated or un-schooled, is difficult.
Prejudice is difficult because it is founded on emotional blindness shared by fellow travelers. Ignorance is founded on refusal of facts and knowledge of history. Two of the Westover sons and Tara seem to break the cycle. The first boy to leave the nest is on his way to Purdue after graduating from BYU. The second boy is believed by his father to be a genius and given license by his father to apply to BYU. One wonders whether the second boy will escape the curse of prejudice and ignorance of his remarkable family. Tara Westover’s trials are distressing for a listener/reader of her memoir, but all children are born into a struggle to find their own identity. “Educated” is evidence of Tara’s escape from prejudice and ignorance. It is an encouraging story of recovery with an education she acquires from a lived life.
Today is a time for Americans to look at their motivations to act in ways that diminish human flourishing and happiness. They need to decide whether they are choosing to be evil and act out of malice to do evil things.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Open Socrates (The Case for a Philosophical Life)
By: Agnes Callard
Narrated By: Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard (Author, American philosopher, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago.)
“Open Socrates” is not an easy listen but offers insight to the philosophy of Socrates as perceived by a tenured Philosophy professor at the University of Chicago.One of Socrates famous sayings is “Οἶδα τι οὐδὲν οἶδα”, “I know something that I know nothing”. The daunting meaning of the phrase is explained by Callard as something that is found through conversational engagement with others. Socrates believed what truth there is in the world is revealed through public engagement which is difficult for introverts because we fear having our ignorance exposed.
Callard notes that Socrates is an interrogator who elicits others to understand the meaning of human life.
There is a human desire to have meaning in our lives, but we don’t know where to begin or what questions to ask. Callard notes how Tolstoy is contemplating suicide despite his great fame and success as a writer because he does not believe there is any meaning to his life. Callard argues Socrates would say Tolstoy fails to ask questions in conversation with others that would offer the answer he seeks. As a listener/reader one might understand Tolstoy’s reluctance to ask others for their opinion because it exposes his vulnerability. Collard argues one must be willing to admit their errors to get to meaningful conversations with others about what they are discussing. However, few have the strength of character to expose themselves in a way that will continue further conversation.
Collard is preparing listeners for an understanding of the Socratic method, a cooperative dialogue, i.e. asking and answering questions to make one think about underlying assumptions and ideas to uncover inconsistencies to try to discover truth.
One wonders in this exercise, if Socrates is pursuing understanding or building a case to undermine human understanding. The result of a dialog with Socrates seems at best a pursuit of knowledge without finding a definitive answer. At times it seems the Socratic method only reveals the truth of human ignorance.
Collard notes that sophists as reflected in the Platonic and Aristotelian writings about Socrates were often incensed by the Socratic method because Socrates’ interrogations often made them look ignorant and uninformed. However, Socrates offers some definitions of important human characteristics like virtue and knowledge that are as relevant today as they were in ancient times.
Socrates defines virtue as a form of knowledge of right and wrong and those that use that knowledge will act virtuously.
Collard notes Alcibiades who lived in the time of Socrates. He was relentlessly interrogated by Socrates in an effort to elicit a better understanding of himself as Alcibiades, a politician and leader. Alcibiades made many political enemies because of shifting allegiances and political actions. He betrayed Athens in their fight with Sparta. After the fall of Athens, he is considered a threat to its new rulers.
Alcibiades (450BC-404BC, died at age 45 or 46, Athenian statesman and general.)
Alcibiades is known for his ambition, desire for power, and hedonistic lifestyle. He came into conflict with Socrates over belief in the values of wisdom and virtue. Though Alcibiades is noted in Plato’s “Symposium” to have admired and respected, Socrates, Collard notes he fundamentally disagreed with much of what Socrates reveals to him as his lack of wisdom and virtue. Alcibiades lacked self-discipline and moral integrity.
Socrates defines good as that which brings about human flourishing and happiness for one to live a fulfilling life.
Socrates argues evil is based on ignorance that compels human beings to act out of malice to do evil things.
Today is a time for Americans to look at their motivations to act in ways that diminish human flourishing and happiness. They need to decide whether they are choosing to be evil and act out of malice to do evil things.
Though Yovanovitch had nothing to do with Poroshenko’s defeat by Zelensky, it seems clear that her tenure as Ambassador to Ukraine set the table for a change in direction for Ukraine.
Books of Interest Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Lessons from the Edge (A Memoir)
By: Marie Yovanovitch
Narrated By: Marie Yovanovitch
Marie Yovanovitch (Canadian-American Author, retired senior member of the US Foreign Service.)
Marie Yovanovitch is retired from the US Foreign Service but as is widely known she was fired in the first Trump administration as US Ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. A reported reason for her firing is she is said to have resisted Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. One suspects that is partially true, but Yovanovitch shows she was a believer in equal rights for women and a supporter of Hilliary Clinton which may be additional reasons for Trump’s action to fire her. “Lessons from the Edge” is a memoir of Yovanovitch’s career as an American diplomat.
“Lessons from the Edge” is interesting because it reveals the history of how one becomes an American diplomat and what his/her role is as a representative of America. One may wonder what qualifies one to be a diplomat when some are appointed because of political connection rather than educational accomplishment or training.
Yovanovitch became a diplomat because of her education and personal ambition. Because of her background as the daughter of a Russian born father, she chooses to take classes in Russian which leads to her eventual assignment in Ukraine. Her memoir explains how her journey began and how it ended. It is a highly personal memoir that is enlightening. However, this mild journey explodes at its end. Yovanovitch comes across as a decent person caught up in the events of history, not as a giant of diplomacy but an honest and hard-working diplomat.
Marie Yovanovitch earned a BA in History and Russian Studies at Princeton. During her career she studied at the Pushkin Institute of Moscow and acquired a Master of Science in National Security Strategy from the National War College. Her background certainly qualified her for diplomatic posts. Her early assignments were in Africa which eventually led to Russian speaking countries like Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine.
Russian speaking countries.
An example of the difficulty of her job is when America wishes to maintain the American Kyrgyzstan’ Air Force base because of America’s role in Afghanistan in 2009. Kyrgyzstan offers closer logistic support for the American military.
The Kyger’ President demands an increase from a $17.4 million-dollar annual rent payment (Yovanovich indicated the rent payment was $2,000,000/yr) to $200,000,000 per year for the continuation of Kyrgyzstan’s American military base. Yovanovich implies Kyrgyzstan’s President, Mr. Bakiyev, demand for higher rent would be to line his pockets with stolen revenue, not help the citizens of Kyrgyzstan.
A final settlement increased annual rent to $60 million per year with additional payments of $37 million and $30 million for new aircraft slots and additional land for location of a new American navigation system.
Kyrgyzstan’s American Air Force Base.
Many questions come to mind in listening/reading Yovanovitch’s book. How important are the presence of American military bases around the world? What is the difference between isolationism and internationalism? Should America remain isolated from other nations or engage and collaborate with other countries of the world? Where is the line to be drawn between American influence and the cost of that influence? This last question is answered in the last chapters of “Lessons from the Edge”.
Yovanovich takes on the complicated role of American Ambassador to Armenia from 2008 to 2011.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are a source of political and territorial tension. There is a dispute over a region called Nagorno-Karabakh that is under the control of Armenia with a majority Armenian population. Turkey supports Azerbaijan while Armenia has a close relationship with Russia. Armenia and Turkey’s relationship is strained because of a WWI Armenian Genocide perpetrated by Turkey. An estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed between 1915 and 1917. Turkey refuses to identify it as genocide which aggravates Turkey’s relationship with Armenia. Russia has a military base in Armenia and has tried to mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without much success. Because of energy projects and trade relations, Russia has managed a balanced relationship with Azerbaijan.
Yovanovitch decides to return to the U.S. because of her aging mother and an offer to take the role of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. However, as Ukraine becomes embroiled in a conflict with Russia and her previous assignment and knowledge of Ukraine, she returns as America’s Ambassador. Her mother’s decision to accompany her made the opportunity worth taking.
When Ukraine became independent of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, its transition to a market economy was marked by widespread corruption in the same way as alleged in Russia.
The assets of the country fell into the hands of Ukraine’s leaders who became wealthy oligarchs at the expense of the general population. Election to the leadership of Ukraine gave Presidents like Viktor Yanukovych, who served from 2010 to 2014, license to embezzle state funds. Compounding that corruption were Ukrainian bank owners who were equally corrupt. The fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko faces allegations of corruption with his ownership of the International Investment Bank (IIB).
Rudy Giuliani (American politician, former NY mayor, former U.S. Associate Attorney General–now a disbarred lawyer.)
As if Rudy Giuliani needs no further damage to his reputation than his lies about election fraud, Yovanovitch reveals his role in discrediting her reputation with false accusations about badmouthing Trump as the new President of the United States. Judging from Yovanovitch’s book, Trump is unlikely to have been someone she admired. However, as an experienced diplomat, it is inconceivable that she would have undermined Trump or any U.S. President’s reputation. Trump ordered Yovanovitch’s removal. She is recalled in May 2019.
Volodymyr Zelensky became the President of Ukraine in May of 2019.
Zelensky soundly defeated the corrupt Vasily Poroshenko with 73% of the vote.
Though Yovanovitch had nothing to do with Poroshenko’s defeat by Zelensky, it seems clear that her tenure as Ambassador to Ukraine set the table for a change in direction for Ukraine. This is a very personal memoir of Yovanovitch’s career that is somewhat marred by a plaintive melancholy about life and an aging mother but “Lessons from the Edge” is highly informative about what it takes to be an American diplomat.
America makes a mistake if it chooses to isolate itself from allied countries that have similar economic and political aspirations. It may be time to reset America’s international relations, but isolation is not a rational alternative for an interdependent ecological and economic world.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 