Category: HUMANITY

FATHERS

One recognizes the many mistakes a father or parent can make in their lives in failing to be the best they can be for their children.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“An Odyssey” A Father, a Son, and an Epic

By: Daniel Mendelsohn

Narrated By: Bronson Pinchot

Daniel Adam Mendelsohn (Author, essayist, critic, columnist, and translator, Professor of Humanities at Bard College.)


“An Odyssey” is a memoir that combines Mendelsohn’s life and educational experiences with Homer’s “… Odyssey”. As most know, “The Odyssey” is one of two ancient Greek epic poems, the other being “The Iliad”. Both are attributed to Homer who is questioned by some scholars as neither the soul creator nor (necessarily) its singular author. Both poems are said to have come from an oral tradition in ancient times, told and re-told, with no written editions until the late 8th or early 7th century BCE. Homer is believed to have lived in the 9th or 8th century BCE which makes it possible for him to be the originator, but no one really knows. Homer seems a singular source, or one of many who told and retold the epic poems.

In a broad sense, Daniel Mendelsohn’s memoir is about parenting but in a more succinct view, it is about fatherhood and the inevitability of death.

“An Odyssey” is a tribute to Mendelsohn’s father, his intellect and his impact on his son’s understanding of life. Mendelsohn cleverly intersperses “The Odyssey” of the heroic life of Odysseus with the accomplished life of his father.

The two poems tell the history of the Trojan War with the main character of “The Iliad” being Achilles, while Odysseus is the main character of “The Odyssey”.

Both heroes are characterized in “The Odyssey”. Achilles is recalled as the greatest warrior of the Trojan War who dies as a hero. Odysseus is also a warrior but is noted as a strategist who skillfully manipulates others with his cunning wit and intelligence. In Odysseus’ return, he meets Achilles in a nether world to find Achilles regrets his fate. Achilles explains he would have rather continued in life than being remembered by the living as heroic in the nether world of death.

Daniel Mendelsohn, like Odysseus, is a witty teacher who uses his intelligence to dissect “The Odyssey” by giving listeners a memoir of his relationship with his father.

In that dissection, one gains some understanding of “The Odyssey” while glimpsing what it was like to be raised by a loving but strict father.

What Mendelsohn introduces is every father’s role in raising children.

A theme that runs through “The Odyssey” is Odysseus’s troubled ten-year journey to Ithaca after the Trojan war but what Mendelsohn introduces is every father’s role in raising children. Mendelsohn’s father is nearing the end of his life. He is a retired engineer who worked for the American government on high security projects before becoming a professor. In retirement, his father chooses to attend his son’s class on “The Odyssey”. Mendelsohn combines his father’s attendance in his class with a real and reimagined trip they take to retrace Odysseus’s travels in “The Odyssey”.

Mendelsohn’s father has strong opinions about the character of Odysseus, and he expresses them in class.

Mendelsohn’s father characterizes Odysseus as a poor leader who lost all his men in his return to his homeland. Mendelson’s father gives the example of the cyclops who imprisons and eats some of Odysseus’s men but, after a clever escape, Odysseus foolishly chooses to taunt the cyclops. The cyclops nearly sinks the ship and appeals to Poseidon to kill the escaped sailors (none of which survive) because of Odysseus’s taunt. Mendelsohn’s father characterizes Odysseus as a poor leader of men, a braggart, liar, and cheater on his wife, Penelope.

There is a sense of the Professor learning many things about his father from discussions in the class. At the same time, listeners gain personal knowledge of the epic poem, its universal meaning, and why it is considered a classic. From the class discussion about Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, one realizes the tale is about the role of fathers and, to a lesser extent, mothers in educating their children. Mendelson admires his father for his intelligence, fidelity and what he believes is unbending truthfulness. On the other hand, Mendelson is embarrassed by his father’s slovenly dress, eating habits, and what he perceives as his father’s parental neglect during his childhood.

Mendelsohn’s father does not fear death but is afraid of the mental and physical deterioration that comes before death.

Mendelsohn seems hurt by his father’s emotional distancing but becomes less hurt as he gains a clearer understanding of where that distancing comes from. Mendelsohn’s father lives in a black and white world. Everything is one way or another. The end of one’s life is often gradual and only becomes one way or another at the very end. There is an inkling of tragedy to come as his father finally dies.

Truth and a lie are two sides of a coin. The fear of losing one’s physical or mental abilities is not a choice but something beyond one’s control.

Understanding what is black, white, true, or false loses meaning as one nears the end of life. Mendelsohn’s father has lived a life where he depended on himself. He made his own choices. As one’s body or mind deteriorates, depending on oneself become problematic. That loss of control is the fear of Mendelsohn’s father. Here is the tragedy of Mendelsohn’s story.

Mendelsohn’s father’s life is extended by the desires of his family and his doctor’s ministrations, despite the diminishing quality of his father’s life. Mendelsohn’s brilliant father lives months after his debilitating stroke. The only point one can see in the extension of life when death is imminent seems to be a family’s grief, and a kind of selfishness over loss of a loved one. There seems a high degree of selfishness in extending the life of one who is at the end of their life.

As a father, there is much more to be learned in Mendelsohn’s story about what it means to be a good father.

One recognizes the many mistakes a father or parent can make in their lives in failing to be the best they can be for their children.

SOCIAL CHANGE

Social change for human equality is a long and arduous process. The election of 2025 will either be a step forward or backward.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Unexampled Courage” The blinding of Sgt Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring

By: Richard Gergel

Narrated By: Tom Zingarelli

Richard Gergel (Author, American lawyer, assumed office 2010 as US District Court Judge for the District of South Carolina, graduate of Duke University School of Law in 1979.)

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, as an executive order by Abraham Lincoln. It purportedly ended slavery, but it was only the beginning of a generational fight that is still being waged. “Unexampled Courage” is a history of a twentieth century turning point in the fight for equal treatment of Black Americans. The blinding of a Black veteran of WWII, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, in 1946 signified another major turning point for equal treatment of former American slaves. On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 which banned racial discrimination in the military. The blinding of Woodard by a white Sheriff in South Carolina and Harry Truman’s executive action are connected by Gergel’s history of Woodard’s horrid and brutal experience.

In 1946, a South Carolina police chief beat Sergeant Isaac Woodard’s head and used the butt of a Blackjack handle to gouge Woodard’s eye sockets.

Sergeant Woodard was beaten and blinded by a Batesburg, South Carolina police chief for drinking (and alleged disorderly conduct) on a Greyhound bus. Several white and Black soldiers were drinking and talking among themselves while returning from the service after the end of World War II. Woodard asked for a bathroom break from the bus driver and was refused. At a Batesburg, South Carolina bus stop, the driver left the bus to report Woodard to the police chief. The police chief attacked Woodard and beat him around his head and eyes with a leather Blackjack similar to the one shown above. Gergel reports Woodard’s eyes were directly poked and grinded by the butt of the police chief’s Blackjack before being thrown unconscious in a jail cell. The next morning, a local physician examined Woodard and he was taken to a veteran’s hospital, but any care provided was ineffectual. The assault on Woodard’s eyes is later determined to have caused an incurable blindness.

Orson Wells becomes aware of the horrid treatment of Woodard and chooses to broadcast the incident to American listeners. Orson had become famous for his 1938 “…War of the Worlds” radio broadcast.

When Wells broadcast the Woodard’ incident on public radio, he mistakenly identified the wrong South Carolina’ town in which the incident occurred. However, he continued investigating the incident and committed to correcting his error and identifying the police chief who battered Woodard to the point of blindness. The police chief and the town of Batesburg were correctly identified, and the wheels of justice slowly turned toward injustice, rather than justice.

Julius Waties Waring (1880-1968, U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of South Carolina.)

Though the police chief was tried for beating Woodard, he was acquitted by a South Carolina’ court. The story of Woodard’s blinding was prosecuted in the U.S. District court of Judge, J. Waites Waring. Waring was outraged by the inept prosecution by the federal prosecutors. After the acquittal, Waring began a movement in South Carolina for Black Americans’ equal rights. Waring’s outrage was supplemented by President Harry Truman who convened a commission on civil rights. After the report from the commission, Truman arranged a speech before the NAACP to reveal the findings of the commission and actions the Federal Government would take to address unequal treatment of Black Americans.

Harry S. Truman (1884-1972, 33rd President of the U.S.)

Truman is in the midst of a campaign to be re-elected as President of the United States in 1948. Gergel argues Truman decides to use his speech before the NAACP to announce his plan to fight for Negro equal rights, in part because of the blinded Woodard, but also because of many unjust southern murders and discriminatory actions against Black Americans.

Thomas E. Dewey (1902-1971, American lawyer and politician, 47th governor of New York 1943 to 1954.)

As most Americans know, President Truman was expected to lose to Thomas Dewey in his re-election campaign. A major reason for that belief was because of executive action to integrate the military and the opposition from southern voters who insisted on the inequality of Black Americans. From a coalition of labor, Blacks, Jews, mid-western farmers, and some number of southern states, Truman won re-election by a slim margin.

Gergel makes it clear that a fight for equal rights is not won and in fact was resisted by military leaders who tried to stop integration of the military after Truman’s executive action.

The military leaders fail to change Truman’s mind and military leaders finally took the required steps to integrate and assure a level of equality among white and Black Americans. Of course, equal treatment remains an issue in the military, as well as throughout America. Social change seems to conflict with genetic inheritance, compounded and multiplied by human ignorance.

Gergel shows social change for human equality is a long and arduous process.

The Civil War only dated the beginning of the American fight for equality. It has become a broader effort, including racial, gender, LGBTQ, marriage, civil, economic, natural, and political equality. One wonders if humans, let alone Americans, will ever get there. The election of 2025 will either be a step forward or backward.

AN IMMIGRANT LIFE

Immigrants treated equitably are more likely to bring positive additions to countries in which they choose to live.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The House of Broken Angels”

By: Luis Alberto Urrea

Narrated By: Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea (Author, Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.)

“The House of Broken Angels” tells many Americans what they may not know about Latino Mexican culture. Luise Alberto Urrea explains what it is like to be Mexican American and/or raised in Mexico before emigrating. The Mexican American’ picture is harsh, but Urrea’s picture of being raised in Mexico is heart rending.

Not surprisingly, emigrating to America raises more social barriers for non-white immigrants than white immigrants.

The first barrier is skin color, but there is also language, education, and most importantly gainful employment. When a Mexican enters the country, all four barriers make their lives hard. If they were raised in Mexico, Urrea suggests they are poor and misogynistic but spiritually tough.

Poverty in Mexico and America comes from low wages and few jobs.

Misogyny lives in most countries of the world, but it is exacerbated by the strong patriarchal nature of families in Mexico. On the other hand, spiritual toughness comes from patriarchal parents (when they are present) because of influences like the Catholic Church in Mexican culture. Urrea explains how some Mexican fathers beat their male children to make them understand life is hard with belief that physical beatings will make them tough. He goes on to suggest Mexican’ girls are raised as bearers of children and companions or servers of men. Mexican fathers set the stage for their sons to be either tough or hopeless. Urrea infers Mexican mothers and fathers insist their children be raised to believe in God because the way people live make heaven or hell life’s only destination.

Urrea paints a picture of being poor and raised in Mexico.

He infers a table is set for many Mexican Americans who use their spiritual toughness and survival experience to get ahead. Women seem relegated to being wives, sex-objects, or mothers, rather than independent, potentially successful human beings. Spiritual toughness may lead to excelling in a job, or at school for men, and a minority of women, to become productive citizens of their new country. Urrea infers the spiritual and physical toughness can take different courses in an immigrant’s life, one is criminal, and the other is not.

Urrea’s story notes some Mexican immigrants choose to join gangs and use their toughness to fight for higher position, more money, and power within a gang.

Education and jobs are one of the ladders, but gang membership and crime become a less difficult path to follow in a foreign culture. Both ladders suffer from macho and misogynistic views of life, but Urrea argues Mexican immigrant life is tempered by the strength of paternalistic family hierarchies and religion.

The main character in “The House of Broken Angels” is Big Angel, the patriarch of a family with many sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Big Angel is born in Mexico and is raised by a mother whose husband leaves his mother with nothing but a motorcycle which she is compelled to sell to feed her family. Big Angel chooses to leave home. He tries to make a living in Mexico but leaves under suspicious circumstances to join his father in America. Big Angel becomes a self-educated technology programmer through hard work and self-discipline. His offspring in Urrea’s story is about immigrant offspring and their lives in America.

America is shown to be less hospitable than one would hope considering how valuable immigrants have been to its economic growth.

Some like Big Angel choose to stay within the culture of their new homeland with the intent of becoming a positive contribution to society. They take the best lessons of their lives to adjust to a new culture despite unequal treatment. The generations that are related to Big Angel, like all humans, make their own choices in life. Their innate intelligence and life experiences are not the same as Big Angel’s, but they are influenced by his paternal care.

Some listener/readers will use Urrea’s story to argue immigration is bad for America because some choices made by descendants of immigrants have violently robbed, injured, or murdered others.

The fallacy of their argument is that bad actors come from all walks of life. Mexican culture, like all cultures that have survived history, have good and bad qualities. Immigrants treated equitably are more likely to bring positive additions to countries in which they choose to live. That is not Urrea’s story, but he explains how one Mexican immigrant overcame unfair treatment to become a contributor to his adopted country. Big Angel brought something valuable from Mexico to America. Big Angel’s story brought hard work, family, and caring for others as examples of what truly makes America Great.

INDIGENOUS

Orange’s book shows how culture can kill. What citizens of the world need to do is understand how a broader culture can be built.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“There There: A Novel”

By: Tommy Orange

Narrated By: Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Ceurvo, Kyla Garcia

Tommy Orange (Author, received a Master of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, winner of the 2019 American Book Award for “There There…”)

Tommy Orange illustrates how culture is the god of creation and destruction. “There There…” offers a glimpse of what it is like to be poor and indigenous in Oakland, California. The name “Indians” for the indigenous of America is said to have been created by Christopher Columbus in the 1400s. Orange has the idea at a gathering of native Americans to have each write their stories, i.e., their memories of what life has been for them in Oakland, California in the 20th and 21st centuries. Their stories are the substance of Orange’s book. They reveal the crushing reality of being descendants of the indigenous in Oakland, and believably all of America. A grant from Oakland becomes the funding source for Orange’s idea. Fighting to making a living as an author is at the core of “There There…” Orange undoubtedly calls “There There…” a novel to protect the story tellers.

Orange shows recycling-poverty, addiction, and misogynistic abuse are big problems for “Indians” in Oakland. The stories reveal an underlying frustration, if not anger, of indigenous Americans who are being molded by government programs that ignore native traditions and emphasize integration into whatever American society has become. There is justification for anger among American minorities. However, there is a fundamental misunderstanding when suggesting government programs are meant to mold Americans. The goal of government is not to mold its citizens but to create cultural norms for a diverse culture. Government fails because ethnic norms of minorities protect American citizens who are treated unequally.

Names like “Two Shoes”, “Red Feather” and the “Indian symbol” that once tested color on televisions are interesting examples of the significance of native influence in American culture.

Though America has and continues to try to Americanize natives, cultural influence is a two-way street. The stories in “There There…” illustrate how everything from influence of addiction to spousal abuse to abortion to overeating to violence are revealed as problems in native American’ lives. This is a hard novel to listen to because it denigrates Indian heritage and justifiably blames American culture.

One is drawn to wonder what can be done to correct the truth of American culture’s blame. The answer is in the Constitution of the United States.

All men are created equal, and the job of government is to provide for the health, education, and welfare of its citizens. American government is struggling to find a way of doing what it is meant to do because of the nature of human beings. Neither capitalism, utopianism, socialism, or communism change human nature. Ironically, only culture has the potential for achieving the goal of equality and fraternity.

Orange’s stories illustrate how Indian poverty is destructive and ethnic cultural inheritance is destroying native Americans.

One presumes Orange would object to the category of American when referring to indigenous peoples. However, it is only with change in culture that all citizens become more socially cohesive than one ethnic identity. If America can institute policies that genuinely provide equality for health, education, and welfare of all, culture will heal itself. When that is achieved, one can be Black, white, Latino, indigenous, or whatever ethnic group one wishes–but within broader American culture.

Orange’s book shows how culture can kill. What citizens of the world need to do is understand how a broader culture can be built.

BEING HUMAN

Robinson shows society treats people unequally, wages war for power, lacks control over behavior, and deceives itself about human nature.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Gilead”

By: Marilynne Robinson

Narrated By: Tim Jerome

Marilynne Robinson (Author, received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “Gilead”.)

“Gilead” is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It is cleverly written by Marilynne Robinson and beautifully narrated by Tim Jerome. Some listeners may have a hard time getting through its religious point of view. It is largely about belief in God. However, it’s truth about human nature makes it a classic regardless of one’s religious beliefs.

In broad outline, it is about three generations of preachers, a grandfather, his son, and a grandson, who live in Gilead, Iowa.

There is the grandfather who fights on the Union side of the Civil War in Kansas, presumably because of belief in human equality and union. However, it appears his son cannot justify killing of any human being, for any reason. Later, a listener/reader finds there is a rift between the Civil War’ preacher and his son who also becomes a preacher. The son becomes a father who has his own son. This book is like a letter to his son to explain his journey through life and what he has learned. The story begins by recalling a trip he and his son take to discover the grandfather’s grave in Kansas.

The journey is in the late 19th century.

The grandson accompanies his father on the arduous journey from Gilead to Kansas. They begin in a horse drawn carriage but because of weather leave the horse and carriage to walk the last miles. It is hot. One realizes the father’s decision to travel with his son is for many reasons beyond companionship. One presumes the father is ambivalent about the grandfather’s decision to join union soldiers with a willingness to kill secessionists opposed to abolition. One wonders if the father is saying there is no justification for War. The story gains broader interest at this point.

KILLING IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.

After having found the grave, the father relates a story of burying his father’s gun and some shirts. The gun and clothing are dug up. The bloodied and dirty clothes are washed, but they do not come clean. The wife of the letter writer and preacher finally throws them away, but the gun is reburied, dug up again, dismantled and thrown into a lake by the preacher. The vignette suggests the father believes killing is never justified, even in a war meant to preserve union and abolish slavery.

Preachers.

The father’s writing suggests there is a gap in ages between him and his wife. We find he is 67 when he marries his wife who is in her 30s. The preacher is nearing death by the time of the letter to his son is written. With the gap in their ages, there is a hint of jealousy about a man raised by the preacher’s best friend, who is also a preacher of the cloth. The son is Jack Boughton. Jack often played baseball with the preacher’s son, but the preacher had been told by Jack Boughton’s father to be wary of Jack.

The carrot and stick of parenting.

The impact of neglectful parenting is referred to in a sermon noted in the preacher’s story. Jack Boughton’s intelligence and education combined with parental neglect is inferred to be a cause of atheism and a penchant for illicit behavior. This creates a tension between the preacher and his close friend’s son, particularly when the childhood friend visits the preacher’s wife and son.

iNEQUALITY
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
MORE WAR
MORE WAR
HUMAN NATURE

One comes away from Robinson’s story with a summary of the flaws of humanity. At the end of the author’s story, Jack Boughton has created a second human nature crises that will resolve itself in either happiness or tragedy. Robinson shows society treats people unequally, wages war for power, lacks control over behavior, and deceives itself about human nature.

RAISED FIST

American Democracy will either fail or evolve by choosing to ignore or address the stated purposes of the Constitution.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Solitary: Unbroken by four decades in solitary confinement. My story of transformation and hope”

By: Albert Woodfox

Narrated By: JD Jackson

Albert Woodfox, (1947-2022) Author who spent 43 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana’s Angola prison.

Woodfox dies at the age of 75 after being released in 2016.

“Solitary” is about American injustice on many levels. Every societal injustice is magnified by America’s penal system. There is racial discrimination, healthcare disparity, legal system bias, and law enforcement use-of-force to name the most prominent magnifications. Albert Woodfox’s story is a lived life in prison that exposes those levels of societal injustice.

Woodfox’s book is about America’s prison system, but it addresses growing up in the baby-boom generation.

Woodfox, like every human being, is a prisoner of mind but he becomes a physical prisoner in Angola, one of many prisons in America. Woodfox’s tragic life appears emblematic of many poverty-stricken baby-boomer’ lives in the 1960s. His story tells the world what it was, and undoubtedly still is, to live life in America when you are poor, ill-educated, living in a broken home, and/or Black.

Albert is born in Louisiana to a Black father (who retires after 25 years in the Navy) and a loving illiterate Black mother.

When Albert is a young child, his mother is compelled to leave her husband because he becomes a violent abuser after retiring from the Navy. Albert is raised in New Orleans by a single parent. His mother struggles to feed and clothe Albert and his siblings. Albert’s life in New Orleans includes petty theft and the troubles of untethered youth in a home where a single parent is not present because he/she is working to feed and house the family.

After several releases and returns to Angola, in 1971 Albert becomes known as an acolyte of the Black Panthers.

Albert grows up tough and independent but without purpose in his life. He quits school and evolves from petty criminal to armed robber. He first becomes acquainted with the Black Panther movement when he is jailed in New York. Association with the Panther movement changes his life. He is arrested and imprisoned in New York. He becomes a participant in the New York prison riots and adopts much of the Black Panther philosophy, i.e., a belief in Black nationalism, socialism and armed self-defense in the face of white discrimination. Albert began to believe in himself, improving his education by reading, and more importantly, respecting what is right in his life rather than what is expedient.

Woodfox is released from the New York prison system but is remanded to Angola for escaping the Louisiana prison system from an earlier crime.

He finds Angola is the same pit of despair it was when he was first imprisoned in Louisiana. Angola remains poorly maintained and continues to treat inmates, particularly Black inmates, inhumanely. However, Albert’s life is changed by the Panther’ philosophy. He begins to feel there is purpose in his life. His purpose becomes uniting prisoners (the Black Panther’ symbol of a closed fist meaning a “coming together” like the 5 fingers of a hand). Black prisoners come together in an effort to improve their treatment and education in prison. He allies himself with another devotee to begin a chapter of the Panther’ movement in the Angola prison.

The Black Panther movement began in 1966 with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Their plan was to unify African Americans to challenge police brutality in Oakland, California.

The movement failed because of internal tension, the FBI’s successful effort to undermine the movement, and determined white American resistance. Despite the demise of the movement, the idea of unifying African Americans against white privilege and unequal treatment survived despite the fall of the Black Panther movement. The movement has had a lasting impact on prison reform, community programs to improve education, and health services in poor black communities.

In 1974, Albert Woodfox is tried and convicted for murdering Brent Miller, a prison guard who is a third-generation guard at the Angola prison farm on which inmates worked. There is no concrete evidence to show Woodfox murdered Miller

He is put in solitary and remains in solitary for 40 years where he spends 23 hours a day with 1 hour for prison-yard exercise per day. That one hour per day is reduced to 3 hours a week in his last year of imprisonment. Amazingly, Woodfox survives and after several appeals, delayed and fought by the State of Louisiana, Woodfox is released to die a free man.

“Solitary” is an amazing tribute to the strength and resilience of human beings.

Woodfox becomes a self-educated American despite his horrendous treatment in the American prison system. He, and other prisoners, expose the failure of the American penal system to be more than an incarceration system to separate criminals from the general public. In that exposure, Woodfox shows changes were made in Angola and other prisons but far from turning prison into the rehabilitative need of society.

The fundamental cause of America’s failure is not achieving the stated purpose of equal opportunity for all in the Constitution of the United States.

The inferences one draws from “Solitary” reinforces America’s need to address the root causes of failure in its prison system. All men are created equal. America must improve government policies that assure the health, education, and welfare of its citizens. Woodfox’s story of Angola suggests socialism will cure the ills of American society. The truth seems more to be whether American Democracy will evolve or fail by choosing to ignore or address the stated purposes of the Constitution.

GOVERNANCE

Machiavelli describes effective governance as brutal, manipulative, and amoral. St. Augustine infers good governance comes from belief in God and adhering to scripture.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“On Grand Strategy”

By: John Lewis Gaddis

Narrated By: Mike Chamberlain

John Lewis Gaddis (Author, historian, political scientist, professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University.)

In a September 21, 2021 article in “The New York Times” Beverly Gage resigned as the course leader for “…Grand Strategy” (where Gaddis is a professor), “…saying the university failed to stand up for academic freedom…” She is noted to have said ‘I am not teaching “…Grand Strategy” the way Henry Kissinger would.’

Beverly Gage, in her resignation from Yale is noted to have said ‘I am not teaching “…Grand Strategy” the way Henry Kissinger would.’

The book author, John Lewis Gaddis, implies every accomplished political leader has a Grand Strategy. Historians can always criticize another’s study of political leaders or their place in history but having a strategy is a paramount requirement whether one is an American President or course leader at Yale. So here is a puzzle about the Gage’s resignation and her critical comment about Yale’s Grand Strategy for a teacher’s academic freedom.

One wonders what Ms. Gage meant in referring to Kissinger.

In any case, this is a review of John Lewis Gaddis’s book, “The Grand Strategy”. He begins with an animal analogy by suggesting good governance relies on being like a fox or a hedgehog when acting as a political leader. A fox characteristic is surreptitious and sly while the hedgehog is straightforward and aggressive. He argues governance that uses only one of these characteristics achieve singular objectives but balance between the two achieves the best results. The entire book is about the history of governments that have prospered or declined based on the presence or absence of balance.

In the beginning of “On Grand Strategy”, one becomes somewhat bored with Gaddis’s history of Athens’ and Sparta’s conflicts with Greece and its defeat of the Persian army (492 BCE and 449 BCE). However, mid-way through the book, one becomes engrossed in Gaddis’s evolutionary theory of nation-state’ governance.

In the Persian Army and its defeat by the Greeks and Spartans, Gaddis explains Xerxes neglected the common sense of moving his vast army across the Mediterranean, let alone feeding and supplying its needs. Xerxes was thinking like a hedgehog. Later, Gaddis explains Napoleon makes the same mistake as Xerxes by attacking Russia without considering the vast size of the country and logistic difficulties in feeding and supplying his army. Gaddis notes Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” chapters that explain how the battle of Borodino is a turning point in Napoleon’s hedgehog action.

Gaddis notes the need for political leaders to keep their eye on the prize. He gives the example of Civil War policies by Lincoln who sought end games for union of the States and emancipation.

When endorsing government policy or ordering military action, Gaddis suggests Lincoln was a leader who understood the need for common sense, i.e., always balancing what can be done with what could be done. Gaddis notes there are times when it appears Lincoln is contradicting himself when, in fact, he is being the fox rather than the hedgehog. For example, some argue Lincoln went back and forth on emancipation, but Gaddis infers he was being a fox because of the political heat surrounding the question and the government’s action.

SAINT AUGUSTINE (354-430, DIED AT AGE 75)
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527 DIED AT AGE 58)

At this mid-point, Gaddis’s history becomes more interesting. He recalls the history of two important characters in modern theory of society, i.e. St. Augustine and Machiavelli. Of course, they lived centuries apart, but each represent critical beliefs that impact nation-state governance. In the 4th century, St. Augustine wrote two influential works, “Confessions” and “City of God” that outline why God was important to him and why everyone should become followers of Christianity to save themselves for the reward of eternity in heaven. Christianity begins to replace leadership beliefs based on the Great Caesars of civilization. Rome does lead the world for another 70 years, but Christianity and other religions redefine the relationship between citizens and their rulers. The centralization of Catholicism by Emperor Constantine in the 4th century diminished the power of secular governments. Life on earth became secondary to the possibility of eternal life in St. Augustine’s “City of God”.

Jumping to the 15th century, Machiavelli’s concept of “The Prince” exemplifies power of governance by secular leaders.

Machiavelli returns political leadership to life on earth in “The Prince”. It is not an abandonment of the “City of God” but a recognition of leadership as it is in this world. Machiavelli experiences the power of political leaders in this world by being imprisoned and tortured for alleged conspiracy to overthrow the Medici family in Italy. Machiavelli’s “The Prince” explains a political theory and leadership of rulers in the “city of man”. “The Prince” returns the idea of governance to the beneficence and cruelty of life here, i.e. not in heaven.

Queen Elizabeth I is Gaddis’ s next example of the changing nature of governance.

Contrary to her half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots who supported Catholicism, Elizabeth reestablished the Protestant Church of England. Elizabeth recognizes the fundamental importance of England’s citizens to her reign as Queen of England. Elizabeth practices the less punitive aspects of “The Prince” to build a foundation for love and respect from England’s protestant, if not Catholic, citizens. The city of God is replaced by the city of man in Elizabeth’s rule.

One can think of many examples that reinforce Gaddis’s theme in “The Grand Strategy” as practiced in America. The senior Bush carefully planned the ejection of Sadam Hussein from Kuwait by building international support for America’s action in the first Iraq war. America’s generals carefully planned the movement of a massive military force, including supply lines, to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The senior Bush did not make Xerxes mistakes. In contrast John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and H. W. Bush’s son, failed to use common sense in America’s mistakes in Vietnam and Iraq. It took a sly fox in the Nixon administration to get America out of Vietnam. This is not to suggest any of these actions were wholly good or bad, but a reflection on the balance between using fox or hedgehog thought and actions to achieve common sense results.

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997, Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas.)

Gaddis takes reader/listeners through WWI and WWII from America’s perspective. On several occasions, Gaddis refers to Isaiah Berlin and his intellectual contributions to political theory and history. Berlin was born in Russia and educated in Great Britain. He spoke several languages and was particularly fluent in Russian, French, German, and Italian. He believed in individual freedom but explained conflicting values coexist and that there is no single universal truth in life. This reminds one of Machiavelli and makes one wonder if Berlin, who is alleged to have a strong sense of Jewish identify, was an atheist.

Woodrow Wilson
Abraham Lincoln
Franklin Roosevelt

Gaddis suggests America has had a series of foxes and hedgehogs that have become American Presidents. Some have been intellectuals, others not. Considering President Wilson was a racist hedgehog while Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were at times foxes and hedgehogs, America survived and prospered through three disastrous wars. Gaddis’s point is that America’s best Presidents have been both foxes and hedgehogs, while most have been one or the other. It may be that America survives because, with the brief exception of Franklin Roosevelt, none have served more than two terms. One President may be a hedgehog while the next President is a fox.

Machiavelli describes effective governance as brutal, manipulative, and amoral. St. Augustine infers good governance comes from belief in God. Gaddis’s history of governance explains why and how both qualities are evident and have served America well.

FRANTZ FANON

Frantz Fanon decried colonization and racism to promote individual dignity and family reconnection in his psychiatric practice

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Rebel’s Clinic” The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon

By: Adam Shatz

Narrated By: Terrence Kidd

Adam Shatz (Author, editor, professor at Bard College)

Adam Shatz introduces Frantz Fanon to listeners. Fanon was a Black Frenchman, born in the colony of Martinique, an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies. Fanon may be classified in many ways but first and foremost one understands he would want to be known as a Frenchman, i.e., a Black individual of French heritage.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961, graduated from the University of Lyon in France.)

Shatz tells the story of Fanon’s life. Fanon is educated as a psychiatrist who was influenced by Aimé Césaire, a leader of a movement titled Négritude. Négritude was a protest against French colonial rule and assimilation in the early to mid-twentieth century. Fanon lives life by asserting himself as a Black Frenchman with a sense of Black cultural pride.

After an affair with Michele Weyer in college, a daughter is born. The daughter becomes Mirelle Fanon Mendes-France.

Mirelle Fanon Mendes-France (Born in 1948 to Michele Weyer and Frantz Fanon.)

Fanon later marries Marie-Josephe Duble in 1952. Duble was an intellectual, a journalist, and liberation fighter who died in 1989. Fanon and Duble have a son named Olivier who is thought to be engaged with his father’s legacy. Weyer’s and Fanon’s daughter is a scholar and member of the Frantz Fanon Foundation who also works with a United Nations Working Group on African Descent.

Fanon marries a Marie-Josephe Duble. Duble, aka Josie, married Fanon in 1952.

Shatz explains how much more Fanon was than a psychiatrist. Some suggest Fanon was a Marxist because of his anti-colonial beliefs but Fanon’s philosophy extended far beyond Marxist belief in society as an economic class struggle. Fanon was equally concerned about sexism, racism, and colonialism. He embraced a form of humanism. Fannon believed in self-identification as an acculturation process. He considered himself a Black Frenchman, born on a French colonialist island in the West Indies. His life experience as a minority in a colonial country led him to become a practicing psychiatrist in Algeria.

In the 1950s, Algeria was largely populated by Muslim Arabs with a minority of European nationalities.

Arabs in Algeria were poorly treated at a hospital Fanon joined in 1953. He gradually improved their treatment by opening doors to their ethnic identify. Algeria began a fight for independence in 1954. The movement was for social democracy within an Islamic framework that would offer equal citizenship for all citizens of the country. Fanon did not align himself with any religion in what became a violent conflict between French colonization and those who identified themselves as Algerian.

Fanon conflated imperialism and colonialism with racism by institutionalizing control over another based on cultural and/or racial bias.

Shatz shows who Fanon became in the way he treated his patients in Algeria. Fanon argued mentally troubled patients needed to be reconnected to their families and community rather than institutionalized.

Fanon’s focus was on the psychological impact of human torture and the tit for tat revenge of French occupiers and the Algerian resistance.

Fanon was sympathetic to the Arab desire for freedom and independence for citizens of a country searching for its own identity. Shatz shows Fanon abhorred colonization and its social restrictions. Shatz infers he equally abhorred the revolution’s leaders and followers who tortured and murdered non-combatants, including children. What happened in Algeria reminds one of today’s daily slaughter of children and non-combatants in Ukraine and Gaza.

WAR IN UKRAINE
WAR IN GAZA

Algeria became an independent nation in 1962 with its own government, culture, and identity. Its ethnic and cultural identity remains the same today as then. It is considered a Muslim country with a majority being Sunni Muslims whose practices play a prominent role in their daily life.

Frantz Fanon dies at the age of 36 from leukemia in 1961, 7 years after the Algerian uprising.

An interesting point in the biography of Fanon is that he recognizes himself as Black in a country that does not commonly describe themselves as people of color but as Algerian Arabs, Berbers, or Europeans. Fanon grows to believe he is Algerian but identifies himself as Black. Black is a broader category of race that makes his story applicable to a wider world but magnifies real-world discrimination based on the color of one’s skin rather than the truth of equal humanness. Of course, as the author notes, the color of skin in Africa is predominantly black and became a frontier for colonization between 1884 and the 1960s.

AFRICA BECAME THE FRONTIER FOR COLONIZATION BETWEEN 1884 AND THE 1960s.

Shatz infers Fanon fought the good fight. He decried colonization and racism to promote individual dignity and family reconnection in his psychiatric practice. He wrote about and aided people who were different, underserved, and underrepresented. He wrote two books about his life experience to explain why colonialization and racism were culturally wrong and socially destructive. “Black Skin, White Masks” was published in 1952, and “The Wretched of the Earth” in 1961.

EUGENICS

On the one hand, genetic science may cure the incurable. On the other, genetic science may destroy civilization.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Why Fish Don’t Exist” A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

By: Lulu Miller

Narrated By: Lulu Miller

Louisa Elizabeth Miller (Author, Peabody Award-winning science reporter for NPR.)

Lulu Miller’s “Why Fish Don’t Exist” reveals the flaw in believing intelligence or position are measures of admirability. David Star Jordan is a founding president of Stanford University. He served from 1891 to 1913 after being the Indiana University president from 1884 to 1891. Jordan gained his academic qualification as a recognized ichthyologist (a zoologist who specializes in studying fish species).

David Starr Jordan (1851-1931, Scientist, founding president of Stanford University.)

Miller begins her memoir in admiration of Jordan but ends in vilification. Jane Stanford appointed Jordan as the first President of Stanford. Their collaboration laid the foundation for what became a research powerhouse for engineering, business, humanities, and sciences. Ms. Stanford’s relationship with Jordan is reported as less than harmonious because in the University’s beginnings there were financial difficulties and differences of opinion about faculty.

Jane Elizabeth Lathrop Stanford (1828-1905, American philanthropist and co-founder of Stanford University.)

Jane Stanford rejects an economics professor’s contract renewal because of his politics and his criticism of immigration. (Ms. Stanford’s and her husband’s wealth came from the railroad industry which was hugely benefited by immigration.) It is alleged that she pressured Jordan to refuse the professor’s contract renewal. Five faculty members resigned after the professor’s termination. Ms. Stanford had a reputation for requiring total devotion to her beliefs which, at times, conflicted with Jordan’s management of the University. More significantly, Ms. Stanford’s drive alienates and makes enemies of many people associated with the University.

Ms. Stanford dies in Hawaii in her 70s. The cause of death is attributed by authorities to be poisoning from strychnine.

What makes her death an ongoing mystery is that Jordan hires a medical investigator who argues Ms. Stanford died from natural causes, a heart attack, brought on by overeating. In much of America, Jordan’s hired investigators’ cause of death is accepted. That is, until a book is written by Richard White in the 21st century, that reaffirms the authority’s earlier opinion. Miller does not suggest Jordan had anything to do with Stanford’s murder, but Miller’s inference is that he initiated a cover-up.

In one sense, Miller is Jordan’s character assassin. In another, Miller reveals the dark side of science.

Jordan is shown to believe in eugenics that advocates selective breeding of the human race. Eugenics is a science meant to selectively breed human beings. Miller explains Jordan believes in forced sterilization (which surprisingly exists in the United States until 1981). Eugenics is the same belief held by Adolf Hitler when he tried to exterminate Jews and create an exclusive Nordic or Aryan race. Hitler established laws for forced sterilization, euthanasia, and selective human breeding.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Miller’s memoir of David Starr Jordan shows how science is a mixed blessing. Jordan’s remarkable work in zoology and his role as the first President of Stanford is tainted by his expressed belief in eugenics. The threat of eugenics is greater today than in the past. On the one hand, genetic science may cure the incurable. On the other, genetic science may destroy civilization.

DEATH WITH DIGNITY

Tisdale’s book is hard to listen to but worth one’s time and effort for understanding.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Advice for Future Corpses” And Those Who Love Them, A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying

By: Sallie Tisdale

Narrated By: Gabra Zackman

Sallie Tisdale (Author, essayist, who earned a nursing degree in 1983, born in 1957.)

The title of Sallie Tisdale’s book is off-putting but an apt description of her advice about “…Death and Dying”. Tisdale is a registered nurse who has written several books. Her experience makes her advice about death relevant and important. Those of a certain age or physical condition are shown how to prepare themselves for the inevitability of death.

The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami wrote “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

Tisdale explains how a person can manage the inevitability of their death. To some, this seems a macabre thought, but nothing can be depended upon in life except its end. Why not manage that end with at least as much skill as one chooses to live? The reason people choose not to think about planning for death is because they are dealing with the everyday issues of living.

The irony is that Tisdale argues “planning for death” is an everyday issue.

Even if one knows they will eventually die, why care about it? Most lives are unplanned and seem out of our control anyway. How many plans for living are turned upside down by unforeseen events? Unforeseen events like Covid19, the rise of Hitler, WWII, the atomic bomb, and so on and so on. Yes, the occurrences of history change human plans. However, the difference is that death of the individual is a known inevitability. When one knows, their death is going to happen, why not have a plan?

Tisdale gives listeners the details of a plan for death.

Prepare Healthcare Directives

  • Decide to provide or not provide organ donation.
  • Explain burial or cremation wishes.
  • Maintain a financial inventory of accounts and assets.

Create a Will covering heirs and their inheritance. Review the plan based on life changes.

Having a will takes asset distribution out of the hands of a state court system. Health directives show your medical wishes and notes who has the right to make decisions for you in the event of incapacitation. A Health Care Directive stipulates whether extraordinary measures or comfort until death is to be administered. Written directives can explain how the body, after death, is to be cared for, i.e., is the body to be used for medical research, organ transplant, cremation, or burial. Time is of the essence when a person dies because living tissues and organs die soon after death of the person.

Beyond paperwork, Tisdale explains what is important to the dying when diagnosed as terminal.

To a family or caregiver, the hardest part is helping the dying cope with growing incapacity. When one is terminal, providing as much comfort as possible until death is of primary importance. The hardest part to the dying person is loss of control over one’s body. Listening to Tisdale’s real-life experience illustrate how American hospice and hospital care fails the terminally ill.

On the one hand, it is the fault of the dying for not having a clear plan for what is to be done in the event of a terminal diagnosis or illness, but Tisdale’s point is that neither hospice nor hospital’s services offer consistency in their care for the dying. Tisdale believes that once a person is diagnosed as terminal, the obligation of hospice’ and hospital’ care is to give comfort until death. However, institutions and doctors do not have the time nor inclination and American families do not have the money. Tisdale mentions Japanese elder care by noting the majority of those who are dying, die at home. The inference is that institutions are unlikely to provide the same care as the family of one who is dying.

Tisdale believes “Death with Dignity” laws passed in Oregon, Washinton, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, and Washinton, D.C. are on the right side of history.

They emphasize the importance of comfort for the terminally ill. A “Death with Dignity” law allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to end a terminally ill person’s life as long as the injected drug is not administered by the doctor or institution for which he/she works.

Tisdale’s book is hard to listen to but worth one’s time and effort for understanding.