MOST INTERESTING ESSAYS 2/5/26: THEORY & TRUTH, MEMORY & INTELLIGENCE, PSYCHIATRY, WRITING, EGYPT IN 2019, LIVE OR DIE, GARDEN OF EDEN, SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION, DEATH ROW, RIGHT & WRONG, FRANTZ FANON, TRUTHINESS, CONSPIRACY, LIBERALITY, LIFE IS LIQUID, BECOMING god-LIKE, TIPPING POINT, VANISHING WORLD, JESUS SAYS
Patricia Wiltshire (Welsh Author, forensic ecologist, botanist and palynologist.)
Patricia Wiltshire details the magic of forensic analysis while revealing the history of her life. Wiltshire bluntly and forthrightly reveals as much about her life as she does about the details of victims of crime. Her forensic analysis aids law enforcement in indicting and arresting murderers and rapists. Wiltshire explains her forensic evidence often leads to admissions of guilt or, at least, a trail of evidence for courts to judge.
Wiltshire’s gathering of evidence is gruesome and will be off-putting to some but, as she notes, the body is a chemical construct that lives, dies, and returns to the earth from which it came.
Wiltshire’s belief is that there is no heaven or hell but only being and nothingness for a life that is either well or poorly lived. Wiltshire intersperses facts of her life that help one understand why she became a scientist who eschews God but appreciates life. The implied view Wiltshire has is that society is comprised of humans who think and act rationally and irrationally, with good and bad intent.
Wiltshire reflects on a tumultuous relationship with her mother, the care of her grandmother, and the philandering nature of her father. Her remembrances give weight to why she became a scientist and why she views life as a journey filled with both hardship and satisfaction, if not necessarily joy.
Wiltshire eventually reconciles with her mother and notes, before her mother’s death, that her mother loves and respects her accomplishment. Wiltshire reflects on the hardship of her deceased grandmother and how much of an influence both had on her chosen profession.
The evidence gathered by a competent forensic scientist from a dead and discarded body are precisely explained by Wiltshire. Because of her education as a palynologist (one who studies pollen grains and other spores), Wiltshire shows that human hair, a nasal swab, and the remains of intestine, gut, and internal organs can lead to the location, cause, and details of a victim’s death. With that evidence, the law may be led to the perpetrator of the crime.
A cautionary point made by Wiltshire is that law enforcement must not bias their search for evidence to corroborate presumed guilt. The objective of forensic investigations is to reveal truth, not to confirm preconceived notions of guilt.
The collection of evidence from a deceased human requires an objectivity and dissociation that makes Wiltshire’s book enlightening but brutal.
Wilshire’s biographic notes help explain how she is able to cope with life and an important profession. Her story may not be every book-listener’s cup of tea, but it clearly explains how forensic science is a valuable tool in the search for truth, and hopefully, justice.
Windfall (How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens American Power.)
By: Meghan L. O’Sullivan
Narrated by: Eliza Foss
Meghan L. O’Sullivan (Author, Harvard professor, Former deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan, worked in the George Bush administration.)
Meghan O’Sullivan offers an intelligent but flawed view of today’s world. It is true that energy is critical for economic growth and improved human life. It is also true that energy need and development cause international conflicts in the post-industrial world. O’Sullivan does a masterful job explaining the role of energy, noting its cost while explaining fossil fuels are at a turning point in history.
Fossil fuel prices fluctuated dramatically in the 20th century but O’Sullivan suggests the trend in the 21st century, despite the rise between 2000 and 2008, will trend downward for three reasons.
One is the recognition of energy’s environmental consequence and conservationists’ political response; two, energy’s extraction is becoming less costly for most fossil fuels. And three, technological advancement offers alternative sources of energy.
What O’Sullivan correctly notes is that energy will remain a driving force behind international relations.
However, her argument is flawed by suggesting governmental restrictions on discovery and growth of fossil fuels should be weakened. Even in the few years since publication of O’Sullivan’s book, the science of fossil fuel pollution is showing accelerating global warming with potential for a “no-return” human’ consequence. Global warming seems self-evident. That evidence does not change O’Sullivan’s insight to the outsize role energy plays in the real-politic world of today, yesterday, and tomorrow.
O’Sullivan loses a bet with a colleague that Russia would challenge world peace within five years of 2013. She was right, but it took a couple years longer for Russia’s re-invasion of Ukraine.
O’Sullivan correctly foretold Putin’s kleptocratic government’s intent to re-establish Russia’s place in the world by using its fossil fuel abundance to lure Europe and Asia with their need for energy. Putin’s drive to offer oil and/or gas pipelines to Germany, China, and Turkiye are meant to assuage their opposition to Ukraine’s invasion. Though China is somewhat supportive of Putin, it has little to do with its energy need but more to do with China’s opposition to U.S. involvement in their sphere of influence. In response to the Ukraine invasion, Germany found alternative sources for Putin’s pipelined energy with imported LNG (liquified natural gas). To some extent, Putin’s energy ploy worked. China, India, and Turkiye continue to buy oil from Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. Their national interests outweigh their concern about Russia’s invasion, just as Putin undoubtedly calculated.
Energy’s role in the modern world is well documented by O’Sullivan. She notes the history and future of energy and how it will continue to roil international relations.
The cost of energy influences world leaders to exploit the environment despite its harm to society.
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
Coal continues to be burned for energy around the world because it is the least expensive.
Malaysia coal fire plant.
Technological innovation is decreasing natural gas costs which, though less environmental damaging than oil or coal, is becoming more widely used. Natural gas remains a pollutant. It is estimated to be 50-60 percent less polluting than coal and 20-30 percent less polluting than oil. (A caveat to the less pollution from natural gas is that it is being used in newer and more efficient energy producing facilities.) This argument does not change O’Sullivan’s flawed argument that restrictions should be removed, weakened, or moderated for further fossil fuel technological development and extraction.
Weather around the world, forest fires, and northern arctic warming are dramatic 21st century proof of continuing global warming. Science and nature tells us the world is warming. That warming is, at the least, greater because of fossil fuel use.
O’Sullivan remains correct in noting how energy is key to peace in the world. The vast natural gas find by Israel, called the Leviathan Reservoir, makes Israel’s influence in the Middle East much greater. Israelis use their natural gas’ find to improve their relationship with Middle East powers. On the other hand, it seems to give license to Israel to repress dislocated Palestinians as irreconcilable enemies.
Energy is both a weapon and tool of peace.
Where O’Sullivan’s book is less convincing is in its inference that the energy industry should be given free rein to continue developing fossil fuels. Even if energy is critical to the sovereign right of every country in the world, degradation of today’s environment makes fools of us all.
Walter Isaacson (American author, journalist, and professor.)
Walter Isaacson is an interesting and thorough historian as shown in his biographies of Steve Jobs and Leonardo DaVinci. “The Code Breaker” is a history of the human genetic code’s discovery and its societal importance. The stories of Francis Crick, and James Watson are fairly well known because of their discovery of the structure of DNA. They received the Nobel Prize for their discovery in 1962. Less well known are Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins.
There are three avenues of knowledge in the book’s title “The Code Breaker”. One is the brief bios of the human genetic code breakers, two, the monumental risk in genetic code’s discovery and three, the potential reward of its discovery.
Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004)
In the late ’40s and early ’50s, as a biophysicist, Maurice Wilkins did diffraction studies of DNA.
Isaacson suggests Wilkins’ studies aided Crick’s and Watson’s discovery of DNA’s structure in 1953. However, Crick and Watson were at a standstill and may never have discovered the structure of DNA if Rosalind Franklin had not introduced X-ray crystallography to their search. Isaacson implies Franklin would have received the Nobel Prize for DNA’s structure but she died at age 37 in 1958. Isaacson notes the Nobel is not given posthumously. (That is not quite true because the Nobel Prize had been awarded posthumously, twice, i.e., once for literature and once for physiology. One wonders if inequality may not have had something to do with the Nobel decision. Isaacson notes Ms. Franklin was somewhat prickly in her relationship with others, not that it would be a reason for Franklin’s lack of Nobel recognition.)
Beyond the syllabus: The discovery of the double helix. Erwin Chargaff (1951): Rule of Base pairing. Rosalind Franklin & Maurice Wilkins (1953): X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA. James Watson & Francis Crick (1953): Molecular structure of DNA.
After discovery of the structure of DNA, the next great advance in science is made by a Spanish microbiologist, Francisco Mojica. Mojica discovers what becomes known as CRISPR in 1993. CRISPR is an acronym for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. It is the arrangement of the genetic code letters in the structure of DNA that can be read forward and backward. It is a written code for the description of a single gene.
Jennifer Doudna in 2o21 @ age of 59.Emmanuelle Charpentier in 1968 @ age of 54
Isaacson introduces Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier to his biographic history of DNA. They are co-discoverers of what becomes known as CRISPR-Cas9. This is a gene editing tool discovered by Doudna’s team of scientists that could find anomalies in a gene’s genetic code and, with the aid of a virus, implant a revised code or modify a gene that causes harm to its host. That discovery opens a door to human control of genetic code. In principle, CRISPR-Cas9 takes the place of nature’s random selection of who or what a living thing becomes. It is a tool that can change the course of life for all living things; more particularly the lives of human beings who suffer from diagnosed diseases or illnesses.
Doudna and her scientific team’s work is with prokaryotic cells rather than eukaryotic cells.
Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus with genetic material while prokaryotic cells have no nucleus with free floating genetic material. Humans have many prokaryotes but they are not enclosed within a nucleus. That leaves a door open to other scientists to claim precedent over Doudna’s pioneering work on the genetic code.
Feng Zhang (Chinese American biochemist.)
Zhang opens the door to eukaryotic cell modification with CRISPR-Cas9 which suggests he becomes the discover of human genetic code breaking before Doudna.
Doudna takes Zhang to court over a patent issue on CRISPR-Cas9 and eventually wins the patent right for genetic code breaking and its medical potential. There are a number of other scientists involved in Isaacson’s book but Doudna, Charpentier, and Zhang seem most consequential for understanding the significance of genetic code breaking.
CRISPR-Cas 9’s discovery and use gives science a tool for human’ control of evolution rather than Darwinian natural selection’s control .
The remainder of Isaacson’s history is an exploration of the good and bad potential of that discovery for the human race. Without doubt, the world’s recovery from Covid19 is due to CRISPR Cas9’s use in finding a vaccine for the pandemic. On the other hand, Cas9 opens the door to indiscriminate gene modification.
This brings up the story of Jiankui He who modified the genetic code of one of the twins of a Chinese family whose husband had AIDs.
Jiankui’s medical intervention violated Chinese law and ethics rules set by the Academic Committee of the Department of Biology. At the same time, it was found that Jiankui botched the use of the CRISPR Cas9 tool. He was sentenced to three years in prison and the equivalent of a $430,000 fine.
James Watson is now in his 90s.
The last chapters of Isaacson’s book address the controversial comments of James Watson about race and intelligence and his fall from grace despite being co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.
At a visit by Isaacson and Doudna to Watson’s home when he is 90, one cannot forget nor forgive Watson’s blind spot about race but understand his unshakable belief in the value human modification of genes to cure disease and his admittedly controversial ideas of enhancing human looks and intelligence.
Is behavioral hope a genetically identifiable characteristic by CRISPR-Cas9? Is it possible to modify human genes to create a more empathetic world? Or is gene manipulation a Mary Shelley nightmare with societies’ death like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster that dies from sorrow and guilt from the death of its creator?
The final significant note of “The Code Breaker” is Doudna’s and Emmanuelle Charpentier’s receipt of Nobel Prizes in 2020 for their discovery of CRISPR-Cas 9. By the end of “The Code Breaker”, a listener understands how the human race may become happy, healthy, or dead with control of the genetic code. Breaking the genetic code becomes a matter of human volition rather than nature’s decree. In whose hands will humans choose to be?
The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree (How I Fought to Save Myself, My Sister, and Thousands of Girls Worldwide.)
By: Nice Leng’ete
Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
Nice Nailantei Leng’ete (Author at Age of 31 or 32, Graduate of Kenya Methodist University.)
Nice Leng’ete offers the story of her life in “The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree”. A large part of her story is about her life from age 4 to 10 years of age. She is born into a Christian family in Kenya. The final chapters address the lessons of her life and her journey to adulthood. Her father and mother die early in Leng’ete’s life. She explains both her parents died from AIDs. (Auto Immune Disease is first diagnosed in Kenya in 1984. By 1996, it is estimated that 10.5% of Kenyans were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDs. The virus weakens a person’s immune system by destroying cells that fight disease and infection.)
Leng’ete is born into a blended family of two mothers. She explains the patriarchal Maasai culture is polygamous and her father had children from another wife.
Though her father dies when she is but 6 or 7, she recalls him as a leader of his village. Her father enriches their Maasai community by working with the Kenyan government to establish a natural preserve managed by local young men of their village. Leng’ete’s memory of both her father and mother seem to have formed her character. Her memory of her parents is that they loved each other and raised her to become the woman of this story.
Leng’ete is from southern Kenya, born into an East African tribe of the Maasai people.
Leng’ete shows herself to be an unconventional woman as well as an extraordinary Maasai. She breaks many international misogynist beliefs as well as Maasai traditional roles for women in her native country.
Coming from a rural area of Kenya, she moves to the capitol city of Nairobi, Leng’ete confronts the anonymity of big cities with a mentality to “do what ever it takes” to succeed.
Leng’ete’s poverty, youth and ambition lead her to live with three young men to afford a place to live in Kenya’s capital city. She is at once encouraged by the help she receives. On the other hand, she is surprised by the duplicity of a Nairobi’ con man that dupes her into believing he is an agent for international models. What Leng’ete does not forget is her village and Maasai traditions that suppress women and her village’s potential for cultural change.
Leng’ete returns to her village to work with local leaders to change the tradition of female genital mutilation (FGM). Leng’ete understands her culture and recruits a local male friend to open a door to some of the village elders. That door could not be opened by a woman without the help of her male friend. At the beginning of Leng’ete’s return she notes none of the elders would stay when she began to speak. With the help of her male friend’s participation in the meetings, a few elders began to listen. Without the elders’ understanding, she knows there is little chance for cultural change. The elders power and influence were needed.
Cultural change begins to show promise when a few elders stay and begin to listen to Leng’ete. Her objective is to explain how the the tradition of FGM diminishes Maasai’ culture.
Based on the advice of Leng’ete’s deceased father, she begins by asking questions of the elders to get them to think about the consequence of genital mutilation of women. She asks elders of the village if they think their partners enjoy sex. When they say no, she asks would they like their partners to enjoy sex? They say, yes. These questions open a door to understanding the consequence of women’s genital mutilation.
Leng’ete notes in her book that men are circumcised as a traditional path to manhood but the consequence is rarely death.
There are various reasons for genital cutting in different cultures. In the Maasai, FGM is a rite of passage into adulthood and a pre-requisite for marriage. In men, it is penile foreskin cutting but in females it is removal of the clitoris, a female sex organ that is a source of female sexual pleasure. Leng’ete explains to the elders how genital cutting of women’s genitals often cause excessive blood loss, infection, and high fevers that cause the death of women in their tribe. In the past, such deaths were believed to be unrelated to the cutting but to supernatural causes. In truth, Leng’ete notes many of the deaths are from unsterile instruments and imprecise cutting of the clitoris.
The broader cultural reality of FGM is that it reinforces sexual inequality.
Leng’ete tells the story of her older sister, Soila, who survives FGM and has children but is brutally abused by her husband. Her husband beats her and blames it on his drinking when it is implied to be related to Maasai patriarchal culture. Soila is trapped in the tradition of Maasai culture that says when a woman is married she is married for life. Leng’ete confronts Soila’s husband with the truth of his abuse. Surprising to Leng’ete, the husband gives up the tradition of life-long servitude of a wife by saying Soila is now Leng’ete’s responsibility. He releases Soila from their marriage, contrary to Maasai cultural tradition.
Leng’ete manages to get a college education but on her way she is hired as a social case worker in Kenya. That experience leads to organizational success that leads her to become a public speaker at a Netherlands event about women’s sexual and reproductive rights. She returns to Kenya to give another speech about the same subject to the Maasai, including village elders.
Leng’ete becomes the first woman to ever receive Kenya’s Black Walking Stick award which signifies leadership, respect and power within her community.
George Jack Makari (American author, psychiatrist and historian, professor at Weill Cornell Medical College.)
George Makari notes his family emigrated from Lebanon to the United States when he was a young boy. This is an interesting note because of the diverse cosmopolitan history of Lebanon that reaches back more than 5,000 years. Lebanon is a country of many cultural, religious, and ethnic groups including Arabs & Syriac, Armenians, Kurds, Turks, and others.
Makari’s education and family background are well-suited for his explanation and history of the psychology of race and ethnicity. For Beirut to have become a cultural center for a period of time must have required high tolerance for difference among its residents.
Beirut got the name “Paris of the Middle East” following WWII when it became a vibrant cultural and intellectual center, largely influenced by the French.
Makari notes WWII’s end and implies society’s relief ameliorated conflict between Lebanon’s disparate cultures. However, that relief falls away in the 1970’s Lebanese civil war.
Beirut, Lebanon’s capitol, is a city some 40 miles from Makari’s hometown. It became a graveyard and failed state after the Lebanese civil war.
As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his 1933 inauguration, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Roosevelt is, of course, referring to fear felt by Americans during the Great Depression.
In “Of Fear and Strangers”, Makari suggests fear is at the heart of race and ethnic discrimination. Undoubtedly, the end of WWII reduced fear in the people of Lebanon. Reduction in fear might be the motivation for Beirut’s acceptance of cultural diversity, peace, and prosperity between 1945 and the 70s.
As a psychiatrist and historian, Makari offers a theory of how and why people become xenophobic.
He suggests it begins early in life. Makari argues the rise of Hitler and the horrid reality of the Holocaust lay at the feet of an authoritarian culture that suppressed freedom, demanded conformity, and used vilification of the “other” to reinforce a false belief in superiority.
Makari explains discrimination is largely based on fear of those who are different from us, i.e., us being anyone of a different race or ethnicity.
Makari’s history is about xenophobia, i.e., the fear or hatred of people who are different. The definition of xenophobia is first noted in 1880 with the combination of two ancient Greek words, i.e., “Xenos” meaning stranger and “Phobos” meaning fight or fear.
Makari argues the key to ameliorate fear of strangers or the “other” lies in the way parents raise their children.
Realigning fear of the stranger will not change the past and seems unlikely to change the future. However, Makari argues the key to ameliorate fear of strangers or the “other” lies in the way parents raise their children. He argues parenting that is less authoritarian and more open and nurturing will fundamentally change society to be more empathetic. Makari persuasively argues the rise of Hitler is partially related to German culture and the relationship between parents and their offspring. He suggests only with childhood experience of freedom will equal rights and equal opportunities be realized by society.
Makari suggests that family dynamic before WWII created German psychological projections for distrust of “others” and displacement that exhibits itself as anger and sometimes rage.
Makari suggests German family’ dynamics are culturally stricter and more demanding than those of many countries. He implies relationship change between parents and children would create a more empathetic generation in Germany.
Makari’s theory goes beyond individual psychological projection (an ego defense mechanism against unconscious impulses) by explaining how group psychology works to heighten rage against the “other”. Displacement (a redirection of a negative emotion) takes the form of rage against the “other”. Makari argues distrust of the “other” and rage is magnified by group hysteria. That hysteria is exhibited by Hitler’s followers. German rage led to the genocidal murder of Jews. Makari suggests one who is empathetic no longer fears the stranger and welcomes others as fellow humans–living lives, both different and the same as themselves. There is no motivation for displacement rage among those who are empathetic.
(Before this book was published, America experienced group rage in the January 6, 2021 attack on the capitol.)
The last chapters of Makari’s history of xenophobia explain how psychiatric and philosophical theories of mostly men (like Kraepelin, Freud, Adorno, Marx, Locke, Sartre, Camus, Foucault, and Simone de Beauvoir) provide a basis for his beliefs about histories’ recurrence of xenophobia.
Humanity will never become egalitarian without a common purpose.
What is ironic about Makari’s theory of the history of xenophobia is that it offers hope for the future. The experience of Lebanon after WWII suggests global warming, like WWII, may give common purpose to many, if not all, peoples of the world. (An exception would be those nations that insist on adherence to myths of hegemonic power and religious zealotry.)
According to Kamari’s theory, it begins with parenting. If he is right, change will begin with how future generations are raised. Might does not make right. Less authoritarianism will allow the world to more constructively address global warming’s world-wide risk.
Of course, this book was written before Russia invaded Ukraine. Kamari notes the rise of Trump, and his supporters implies group rage and xenophobia remain a clear and present danger in America.
Peter Frankopan, (Author, Professor of Global History at Oxford University, Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research.)
Peter Frankopan journeys from pre-history to the present to offer perspective on the earth’s global warming crisis. He reviews what is either speculated or known of disastrous world events. Frankopan recalls histories of major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, famines, pandemics, and epidemics that have changed the course of history.
In the beginning, one thinks Frankopan is setting up a rationalization to argue global warming is just another world changing crisis that will be managed by humanity.
However, Frankopan is explaining the history of world crises and how humanity dealt with its eternal recurrence. In broad outline, he suggests world crises are dealt with in two ways, i.e., one, with religion or mysticism, and/or two, with adaptation. In every historical crisis, leadership is the presumed key to survival.
Frankopan explains the common denominator for crises that change the world is death.
Just as America and the world recovers from Covid-19, millions have died. We who remain carry on.
Whether a catastrophic event is geological, climatological, or pathogenic, life is a victim. Before history is written, Frankopan offers explanations of what happened to life based on fossilized remains. Causes for death are either geological (like earthquakes), climatological (like volcanic dust that blocks the sun), pathogenic (like the plague or a virus), or manmade (like the nuclear bomb). When written history begins, Frankopan’s evidence of world crises is more precisely explained. (From an objective perspective of any historian’s story, any history of the past is trapped in His/Her’s interpretation of other’s reported facts.)
Frankopan argues life on earth has come and gone through centuries of crises.
The evolution of human beings shows they have managed to ameliorate past crises by meeting them head-on. Humans have overcome crises by adapting to change, whether manmade or environmental. If the past is prologue to life’s survival, global warming’s threat will be met and ameliorated by human response. Just as all crises in world history have ended lives, the same is true of global warming. That does not necessarily mean all human life ends. Frankopan’s history infers life will be changed by global warming but leaves unanswered whether human life will end.
Jumping ahead in Frankopan’s scholarly review of history, the age of Sputnik emphasized the growing importance of science in the ecology of the world.
The Russian Launch of Sputnik in 1957.
Ironically, Russia’s giant step ahead of America in the space race awakened the world to the importance of science. Frankopan notes the hubris of humanity taking center stage with Khrushchev’s comments about humankind’s need and ability to control nature. To Frankopan, control of nature is a turning point in the hubris of humankind. He notes the U.S.S.R. experiments with weather control as a way to improve agricultural productivity. Frankopan suggests the real objective is to realize the potential of weather control as a weapon of war and goes on to explain how America capitalizes on that idea in the Vietnam war.
The irony and hubris of humanity in believing it can control the weather is evident in the despoiling of earth by human ignorance and action.
The profligate use of carbon-based energy for industrial growth far outstrips any science driven effort by humanity to control the weather. World ecology has proven too complex for constructive control by human beings. It is as though the world is being turned back to religion and myth to explain the phenomenon of world existence.
The last two chapters address overwhelming evidence for causes and consequences of late 20th and early 21st century world’ environmental damage.
From deforestation in the Amazon, to automobile increase in China, to waterway dams and aquifer depletion, a listener/reader’s fear and depression are kindled.
Harvard educated politicians like Ted Cruz and poorly educated Presidents like Donald Trump insist global warming is a hoax. As political power representatives of the wealthiest country in the world, one cannot but be appalled by climate change deniers.
The world’s future is based on an unknown solution to global warming.
Some suggest A.I. is key to solving global warming. Frankopan’s history suggests it is human beings that gave humanity the ability to overcome past crises. A.I. is one of humanities tools. It seems fair to suggest today’s crises will be another difficult chapter in the history of humanity. Judging by Frankopan’s history of human adaptation, global warming may not be humanities last chapter. However, Frankopan warns listerner/readers against the hubristic belief that nature can be controlled by humankind.
Stephen Hawking suggested humanity will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth and that human survival depends on colonization elsewhere in the Solar System. Frankopan seems to infer, humanity does not have that much time.
Frankopan wryly observes global warming is a crisis, but that human life is more likely to end from some other cataclysmic natural event like that which killed the dinosaurs (a meteor strike), a massive underwater volcanic eruption, or nuclear war before global warming kills us all.
One hopes histories past lessons inform a future that includes a place for the youth of this, the next, and future generations. World change brought on by crises have been overcome in the past through human adaptation. It seems reasonable to presume, despite the ignorance of some national leaders, that humanity will survive today’s global warming crisis.
Salar Abdoh (Author, Iranian American, family forced to leave Iran when he was 14, Graduated from U.C. Berkley and City College of New York.)
Salar Abdoh’s book title, “Out of Mesopotamia”, implies an opinion about the Middle East. Abdoh entertains a listener/reader with his wry sense of humor, colored by the tragedy of political turmoil, murder, and martyrdom in the Middle East. His personal life and academic education infer a better understanding of western and middle eastern cultures than most Americans.
Abdoh’s novel idealizes a belief in pan Arabism with return of a borderless Middle Eastern area like Mesopotamia. His novel expresses love for Arab culture.
Whether Mesopotamia may have been a land of erudition, agriculture, domesticated animals, and social classes its culture changed with the creation of nation-states rather than singular settled communities. But, that change is unlikely to have been as quiescent as Abdoh implies.
Mesopotamia means between rivers which are known today as the Tigris and Euphrates. It was originally made of city states peopled by Sumerians between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. These city states each had their own king which implies there were borders and undoubtedly periodic conflicts.
As noted by Abdoh, the level of conflict remains today. The difference is, rather than combat with words, fists, and clubs, today’s nation-states use guns, bombs, and weapons of mass destruction to resolve disputes.
Abdoh’s main character is a reporter, sometimes combatant, who decries Iranian religious rule and Syrian slaughter of innocents. One senses the author’s visceral love for Arab culture and a yearning for return to his native country.
A large part of Abdoh’s story is to explain martyrdom to its listeners.
Most understand religious beliefs are the proximate and most obvious reason for martyrdom. Participants of a holy war are memorialized by dedicated monuments to their deaths. Their belief is that they arrive in paradise while being memorialized by those remaining in life. Abdoh explains paradise and earthly memorialization are only two of many reasons people seek martyrdom.
For some, martyrdom is penitence for a sinful life. For others, it is to escape from what they view as a meaningless existence. For a few, it is a choice to end one’s life for what they believe is a meaningful purpose.
From soldiers, to sinners, to artists, and the remaining living, Abdoh infers martyrdom is a wasted life.
Abdoh’s writing is engaging, in part because of its substance but also because of his sense of humor and point of view. He weaves a story of emotion, and disgust by using irony, humor, affection, love, disgust, and intellect of characters who keep one entertained and engaged. The engagement comes from agreement and disagreement with his character’s point of view.
The relationship between America and the Middle East is complicated.
America and the Middle East’s relationship is challenged by cultural differences that seem irreconcilable because of national and individual self-interests, made even more difficult by language. The failure of most Americans to understand more than their own language breeds ignorance and arrogance. As noted by other authors, the story of the Arab world is tightly woven into the fabric of their language.
Abdoh’s story reflects the ignorance of American policy and how it deals with the Middle East.
He does not suggest it is because of malevolence but infers it is from not caring enough and being consumed by American national self-interest. America is described by Abdoh as an apparition and nuisance to the Middle East. Without mutual cultural understanding, there is, nor will there be, peace in the Middle East or world.
“Burning Down George Orwell’s House” seems a reification of John Ford’s “The Sports Writer”. Ervin’s main character, Ray Welter, is like Ford’s Frank Bascombe, but Welter is an alcoholic with a particular taste for aged whiskey.
Both Welter and Bascombe tend to look at women as sex objects, but Ervin characterizes women as equally capable of treating men as sex objects.
By the end of Andrew Ervin’s story, one realizes “Burning Down…” is not just about a man’s view of the world but about human nature and cultural difference. Ervin gives listeners a glimpse of Emily Fridlund’s “History of Wolves” by creating self-actualized women, one an adult, the other a teenager.
The island of Jura, aside from the location of George Orwell’s house, is known for its natural beauty, soaring mountains, and seasoned whiskey. Welter is an advertising executive with an obsession with Orwell who wrote about “newspeak” (a form of persuasion like advertising) and its influence in the world.
The story of culture is woven into “Burning Down George Orwell’s House” by Welter’s decision to leave America and spend several months on a Scottish Island where Orwell wrote “1984”.
Welter is at a crossroads in life. He has been a successful advertising executive but is soon to be divorced by his wife. He is unsure of what to do with his life. He chooses to escape to Jura to better understand the meaning of Orwell’s “1984” but finds a culture that is uniquely different from the life he lived in Chicago.
Welter chooses to let himself be seduced by a 17-year-old islander who is being raised by a violent father who gives her a black eye. The father tries to murder Welter. The young girl is a talented, head strong, graphic artist who is at the beginning of her adult life. She is unsure of what she should do with her life which seems entirely plausible for a 17-year-old. She is torn by her desire to be more than a young woman living her whole life on Jura or one who leaves Jura to see what else life has to offer.
There are many threads of life and culture in Jura that are similar but different than the American life Welter lived in Chicago. There is an underlying belief of Jura’s citizens that their culture is being destroyed by visiting foreigners and the ocean’s rising tides.
The Aisle of Jura’s culture is threatened by both foreign influence and its disappearance from the world by a rising sea.
Greta Thunberg – Swedish Environmental Activist who also happens to be a teenager.
Her father’s attempts to murder Welter based on two concerns. The father’s motive is a mixture of rage over the presumed seduction of his daughter and a wish to have his daughter remain in Jura for as long as he is alive. Jura’s culture is quite different from America’s. Welter decides to leave Jura but arranges for a full scholarship for the Jura teenager at his former wife’s university in Chicago.
Welter’s former employer plans to re-start an advertising business specializing in environmental preservation and wishes Welter to become a limited partner to manage the vaguely defined new business.
There are several transgressions and ironies that a listener will choose from Ervin’s story. The teenager decides to stay in Jura and not travel to Chicago despite her father’s bizarre physical abuse and murderous proclivity. Is there any justification for a 30- or 40-year-old man from Chicago to have sex with a 17-year-old girl? (Welter’s age is undisclosed.) Can Orwell’s “newspeak” help an advertising company make money while saving the environment? Are foreigners’ visits to other cultures a benefit or detriment to indigenous cultures? Is it in the best interest of humanity for all cultures to become less indigenous and more acculturated?
This is a well written story that resonates with life as it is rather than how life should be. Alcoholism and wanton sexual relations are two of many sources of human weakness and conflict in society; neither are likely to disappear, regardless of whether cultures remain distinct or unified.
Yan Lianke (Chinese author of novels and short stories based in Beijing. Received the Franz Kafka Prize in 2014. Winner of the Man Booker International Prize twice.)
“The Four Books” is a satire exposing the fallibility of belief in a Christian God. Yan Lianke is a Chinese author living in Beijing whose books and short stories are banned by the government.
Lianke’s book satirizes most religions and government leaders.
The main character in Lianke’s story is called “Author” who is charged with responsibility for two of “The Four Books”. Two books are titled “criminal records” and “secret reports” written by “Author” for a camp commandant to know who and what everyone is thinking and doing in a prison camp. The other two books are less clearly identified but there is the “Scholar’s” book and presumably, the Christian Bible. The main characters in Lianke’s book are the “Boy”, the “Scholar”, the “Musician”, and the “Author”.
The character named “Author” reports thoughts and actions of fellow re-education prisoners in return for special privileges.
The “Boy” is the camp commandant. The “Scholar”, “Musician”, and “Author” are college educated prisoners, along with other city intellectuals, who are sent to re-education camps in the country. Their jobs are to farm the land and manufacture steel from black sand deposits in the country. The idea is to re-educate scholars on the importance of serving the economic advancement of their country with labor, rather than thought.
The setting of Lianke’s story is the Chinese famine during the “Great Leap Forward” which occurred between 1958 and 1962.
Neither the “Great Leap Forward” nor Mao are mentioned in Lianke’s book. Undoubtedly it is because of personal risk that such mention might have for Lianke. However, “The Four Books” universal appeal goes beyond Mao’s mistakes in China.
Most, if not all, religions and governments fail to provide an economic and social environment in which prosperity and peace can be equitably maintained.
Lianke chooses one period in China’s history as an example of religions’ and governments’ failure to peacefully guide or manage society. Undoubtedly, Lianke chooses China’s story because that is the culture he most intimately understands.
Lianke shows how religion and government ineptly handle human nature.
Whether one is rich, poor, formally educated, or uneducated–the masculine, feminine, neuter, and common person is motivated by self-interest. Religions and governments have tried to deal with human nature by preaching belief in something greater than the individual. Religions have threatened, cajoled, and forgiven society in a vain attempt to control human self-interest. Governments have done the same with similar mixed and failed results.
“The Four Books” uses the history of the “Great Leap Forward” because human nature is at its worst in times of great upheaval.
What Lianke reveals is the reality of human nature when neither religion nor government forthrightly deals with human nature under stress. The philosophy of leadership in “The Four Books” is to mandate economic development at whatever cost society is compelled or willing to bear. The choice of China’s leadership is to turn all formally educated urban citizens into rural workers by moving them from whatever jobs they may have had to jobs needed by leadership to rapidly advance China’s economic growth. Little consideration is given to the self-interest of individuals by government leaders’ preaching “the good of the country”.
What Lianke’s story shows is that government uses the same tools as organized religion to advance institutional rather than the self-interests of its people.
Religion preaches heaven, like government preaches economic growth. Religion and government do not deal with realities of today but with a future to be realized. Human beings are viewed as means to an end rather than ends in themselves.
There is no supreme God or deity in Buddhist’ teaching.
Is it possible to serve society with a belief system that equitably treats individual self-interest? Lianke implies Christian religion, other religions, and government cannot offer a solution. However, Lianke implies Buddhism may be a solution. A Buddhist, in contrast to other religions or governments, seeks enlightenment in this world through an individual’s search for inner peace and wisdom. Lianke’s answer to individual self-interest is Buddhist belief in achievement of inner peace and wisdom.
The weakness in Lianke’s argument is that self-interest is an individual human characteristic. Self-interest is unlikely to be erased by Buddhism, Taoism, any religion, or government. Buddhist and Taoist beliefs do not ameliorate aberrant self-interests (most common in human beings) that deviate from those wishing and trying to seek peace and wisdom through Buddhism or Taoism.
It may be that there are two types of self-interest, one hostile and the other enlightened. Of course, the weakness of the second is the same as the first. Can human nature, any religion, or government elicit enlightenment?
Self-interest can generate great economic wealth but when unregulated it diminishes peace and often leads to unwise choices and ends. History shows neither government, deistic religion, or contemplation of the “Way” moderates nor contains individual self-interest. A governing system of checks and balances may be a step in moderating and containing self-interest, but it (at best) is a work in progress.
Lianke shows in a famine, self-interest offers two choices. Either one gives up or fights for survival. There is no middle ground.
Self-interest in a famine leads some to prostitute themselves, murder their equals, inferiors or superiors, and become cannibalistic or some combination thereof. No widely accepted religion or government seems to have found a solution to equitably treat individuals’ self-interest. Lianke believes Buddhism may be an answer, but one wonders how an individual’s search for peace and wisdom will feed the hungry.
Anil Seth (British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.)
Anil Seth’s “Being You” is a difficult book to understand, in part because of its subject, but also because it requires a better educated reviewer. Consciousness is defined as an awareness of yourself and the world, a state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings that emerges from one’s brain. Seth explains neuronal activity of the brain correlates with what “Being You” is you. Seth argues that without neuronal activity, there is no you.
Seth suggests the conscious self operates with a Bayesian view of the world.
Bayes’ theory is that decision making is based on rules used to predict one’s decisions. The example Seth gives is a person living in the desert who sees droplets of water on his lawn and presumes it either rained, or his sprinkler was left on when it should have been turned off. He looks outside and sees his neighbor’s lawn is wet and, with that added information, decides it must have rained. Then he notes his window is dirty and maybe he is not seeing water on his neighbor’s lawn. This reduces the possibility that it rained but not enough to change his mind about it having rained last night. The point is that one continually changes their state of understanding (their consciousness) based on added information.
The difficulty of a Bayesian view of consciousness is that human decisions are a function of human perception of data that is never 100 percent complete.
There are three fundamental weaknesses with a Bayesian view of the world as the prime mover of consciousness. One, humans do not always see clearly. Two, all that is seen is never all that there is to be seen. And three, human minds tend to pattern what they see to conform to their personal bias. The third is the most troubling weakness because, like in police line-ups used for eyewitnesses to identify perps when a crime is committed, mistakes are made. Eyewitnesses are no guarantee for identification of a criminal’s crime. None of this is to suggest Seth is wrong about what consciousness is but it shows consciousness is eminently fallible and only probabilistic.
Seth’s theory of consciousness reinforces the public danger of social websites that influence the public, particularly young adolescents trying to find their way in life. Their search for social acceptance leads them to internet sites that may lead or mislead their lives.
Another fascinating argument by Seth is that the mind is not the source of emotion. He suggests the mind is informed by the organs of the body. The heart begins to race, and adrenalin is released as somatic markers that send signals to an area of the brain that makes fight or flight decisions. Emotions do not originate in the brain. The brain responds to the cumulative effect of the body’s physical and chemical signals.
Seth notes various studies of human decision making that are based on external stimuli with a belief that the primary purpose of consciousness is to survive. Two methods of consciousness measurement are IIT (Integrated Information Theory) and PHI, a number meant to measure quality interconnections between bits of information of a given entity. The resulting number — the Phi score — corresponds directly to a measurement of an entities level of consciousness. A reader/listener should not be discouraged by this technical digression. Much remains in Seth’s book that is more comprehensible and interesting.
Seth explores some of the tests used for consciousness. The mirror test is one in which a living thing is shown itself in a mirror to see if it recognizes the image of itself.
Monkeys show some signs of recognition (dogs do not) which suggests a greater level of consciousness among primates. He notes the evolution of human perception of the world through the eyes of artists like Monet, Mach, and Picasso who see nature’s colors and planes of the face or body in the material world. One thinks of Monch’s insightful “Scream” that reminds some of life’s terror. He shows how a stationary drawing seems to have movement because of a trick of consciousness.
Seth shows how an inanimate rubber hand can be made to feel like a part of the human anatomy by stroking one’s real hand at the same time the experimenter strokes a rubber hand.
Seth expands that principle to show how consciousness can create a full body illusion like that of a Star Trek transporter that sends their body to another planet. A whole host of social problems can be created by image teleportation. Being able to create a perfect duplicate of one person that is televising false information might start a rebellion or start a war.
Seth argues humans have free will and that the brain’s pre-cognition for action is not because of pre-determination of life but a delay inherent in consciousness which is gathering information before acting, just like the sprinkler story alluded to earlier. As noted earlier, to Seth, consciousness is a Bayesian process, not a predetermination of action.
The end of “Being You” addresses Ray Kurzweil’s “singularity”, “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Seth expresses concern and an element of optimism. The evolution of the beast machine bodes a possible end, an adaptation, or an evolutionary change of humanity.
Seth touches on research being done on cerebral organoids, artificially grown miniature organs resembling the brain.
Presently they are being used to model the development of brain cancer to aid in its cure but how far is this from the next step in machine learning, supplemented by the implantation of cerebral organoids?
The beast machine is consciousness.
Genetics discoveries and research hold the potential for creation, manipulation, and destruction of human life. Artificial Intelligence is on the precipice of a marriage between all information in the world and sentient existence of beast machines. The beast machine will have greater potential for creation, manipulation, and destruction of life.
Human consciousness has created the agricultural age, the industrial revolution and now the information age. Humans have nuclear weapons of mass destruction that can end our world’s human habitation. The only note of optimism is that the history of human consciousness has generally led to positive changes for humanity, i.e., longer life spans, improved economic and social conditions, and new discoveries about life and living. The world is at its next great social and economic change.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 