What are your favorite books you've read? - book discussion thread

[mutigers5591]

Shield of Achilles (sort of a chore though), Stumbling upon happiness, and nudge are all excellent

[Huehuecoyotl]

A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin

[zikzak]

Originally Posted by ctyri

The best insights on what makes or does not make good government come from understanding more about the human condition through history. When you stop reading books written by politicians or dedicated to political themes, you can then start learning more about the complex challenges facing 7 billion people sharing a relatively small planet, interconnected by environment, technology, and economics. Political books offer simple solutions to abstract problems that don't exist in the real world. Hardcore libertarian philosophy, or even philosophy in general, has become mostly bankrupt on ideas for moving forward. And I was as staunch a libertarian as they come. I have no desire to read a "how to make the world better place" book written again. They are for suckers, imo.

You are far better off if you go read a novel or non-fiction history/psych/etc. and see the real world (or fictionalized account of it that illustrates its challenges).

I am finishing Stumbing on Happiness by Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert--fascinating insight on how we remember/forget selectively, and how this affects our judgments. These Malcolm Gladwell-esque type of books are as close as I'll ever get again to political sphere (history not included).

POTY. A+++.

[suzzer99]

+1

[Low Key]

Originally Posted by zikzak

POTY. A+++.

i love the first part of that post so much that i think they should just close the politics forum and have any links to it redirect to that post.

[suzzer99]

Like I've said I don't read that many books because when I do I constantly have to pee. But I watch pretty much every documentary I can get my hands on. I gain a lot more political insight from the history documentaries than any other source.

[DblBarrelJ]

LirvA, read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince.

[zikzak]

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

Favourite book ever is either 1984 (makes my cry every time) or catch 22 (makes me laugh every time) guess I just love number books.

Doesn't Catch 22 also make you cry?

[ILOVEPOKER929]

Originally Posted by All-In Flynn

Recently acquired Vols 2, 3 and 4 of Orwell's collected essays, journalism and letters (I'd finally worn out Vol 1). Obviously quite hit-and-miss in terms of quality (especially the letters) but some of it is absolutely fascinating. Thanks to 1984 (in fact in large part to misconceptions about it) Orwell is hugely overrated as a prophet and a lot of his forecasts in the period ~'38-'45 are pretty laughable to read now. He didn't have a particularly accurate political thermometer, but he did have an amazingly sharp bull**** detector. Not to mention an admirable turn of phrase. Recommend highly.

This reminds me of what Alex Carey (the author of one of my favorite books, "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty") once wrote on Orwell: "The Orwell Diversion" (aptly titled imo)

[zikzak]

Originally Posted by DblBarrelJ

LirvA, read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince.

Those are both on Gutenberg.org. No need to pay Amazon for them.

[DblBarrelJ]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...nline-1210472/

Learn zikzak.

[fatkid]

Anybody read Brautigan? He's my favorite.

[All-In Flynn]

Originally Posted by ILOVEPOKER929

This reminds me of what Alex Carey (the author of one of my favorite books, "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty") once wrote on Orwell: "The Orwell Diversion" (aptly titled imo)

Heh, weird. This sort of thing:

Originally Posted by The Orwell Diversion

]Orwell warned that a crude and brutal totalitarianism would come from the left of politics and subvert the liberal democratic freedoms we are all supposed to enjoy.

... is part of what I mean by misconceptions about 1984. The general, hazy idea that many people - some of them ardent fans of the book - have is that Orwell was concerned solely about a rise of totalitarianism from the left. Orwell goes into considerable detail about the similarities and differences, as he saw them, between Socialism and Fascism in 'The Lion and the Unicorn':

Socialism is usually defined as 'common ownershop of the means of production'. Crudely: the State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee... all productive goods, such as land, mines, ships and machinery, are the property of the State... [H]owever, it has become clear in the last few years that 'common ownership of the means of production' is not in itself a sufficient definition of Socialism... [C]entralized ownership has very little meaning unless the mass of the people are living roughly upon an equal level, and have some kind of control over the government. 'The State' may come to mean no more than a self-elected political party, and oligarchy and privilege can return, based on power rather than on money.
But what then is Fascism?
Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and - this is the impotant point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism - generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages... [B]ut the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality... [O]ne ought not to pay any attention to Hitler's recent line of talk about being the friend of the poor man, the enemy of plutocracy, etc. etc. Hitler's real self is in Mein Kampf, and in his actions. He has never persecuted the rich, except when they were Jews or when they actively tried to oppose him. He stands for a centralized economy which robs the capitalist of most of his power but leaves the structure of society much as before. The State controls industry, but there are still rich and poor, masters and men. Therefore, as against genuine Socialism, the moneyed class have always been on his side... Hitler's puppet [Vichy] government are not working men, but a gang of bankers, gaga generals and corrupt right-wing politicians.

But for all that, he's quite clear on the ultimate lack of much to choose between Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany in his review of Borkeneau's 'The Totalitarian Enemy':

The two regimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system - a form of oligarchical collectivism... [the Nazis'] aim was simply power and not any particular form of society. They would just as soon be Reds as Whites, provided that it left them on top. If the first step is to smash the Socialists to the tune of anti-Marxist slogans - well and good, smash the Socialists. If the next step is to smash the capitalists to the tune of Marxist slogans - well and good, smash the capitalists. It is all-in wrestling, and the only rule is to win. Russia since 1928 shows distinctly similar reversals of policy, always tending to keep the ruling clique in power. As for the hate-campaigns in which totalitarian regimes ceaselessly indulge, they are real enough while they last, but are simply dictated by the needs of the moment. Jews, Poles, Trotskyists, English, French, Czechs, Democrats, Fascists, Marxists - almost anyone can figure as Public Enemy No. 1. Hatred can be turned in any direction at a moment's notice, like a plumber's blow-flame.

Based on these (sorry for the length) it's plain enough both that Orwell is mainly concerned with totalitarianism and that he sees it as a threat from both the right and the left. I personally think it's really only the fact that WWII played out as it did - leaving the USSR still standing - that's led to the misconception that 1984 is solely concerned with some threat looming from the left. DJ Taylor's biography of Orwell tells, for instance, of a proposed American stage adaptation of 1984 by Sidney Sheldon, which Sheldon intended to slant as anti-Fascist rather than anti-Soviet, which 1984 was even then being touted as in the US.

Finally and most concisely (you'll like this), a letter from Orwell to Malcolm Muggeridge in December 1948, shortly after 1984 was completed.

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

I'm not sure it can be put more succinctly than that.

But yeah, that aside, Orwell was basically just flat-out wrong on a lot of stuff, especially in his apparent certainty that a totalitarian West was inevitable in the latter half of the twentieth century.

[ILOVEPOKER929]

First of all, very nice post AIF. I enjoyed reading it immensely.

I agree with you that Orwell "is mainly concerned with totalitarianism and that he sees it as a threat from both the right and the left". As far as his concerns on the right, I would say that this is most clearly evident--actually the better word would be demonstrated--in the Spanish Revolution where Orwell chose to fight on the side of the anarchists against the Fascists and capitalists. For your reading pleasure, some quotes (which can also be found in the aboved linked wikipage) from Orwell on his observations of revolutionary Spain which he wrote down in his book, "Homage to Catalonia", which imo is a better book than "1984", although I did like "1984" a lot:

Originally Posted by Orwell

I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life—snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.—had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master.

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags and with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Ústed'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos días'. Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in this that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for...so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine."

Moving on, you said, "Heh, weird. This sort of thing:

Originally Posted by The Orwell Diversion
]Orwell warned that a crude and brutal totalitarianism would come from the left of politics and subvert the liberal democratic freedoms we are all supposed to enjoy.

... is part of what I mean by misconceptions about 1984..."

And again, I think you're right. I think Alex Carey mistakenly confused the theme of Orwell's "1984"--a book about totalitarianism coming from the left--with Orwell's actual views. An annoying mistake that detracts from the real problem that Carey mentioned in that short piece, that Orwell's work (Mainly "Animal Farm" and "1984") has been used (misused is probably the better word) "to misdirect and confuse the public into looking in the wrong places for the 'brainwashing' instinctively felt by many". Instead of looking at propaganda organs like the chamber of commerce and many other capitalist unions who have spent untold sums indoctrinating the public with the "right" kind of beliefs--"an indoctrination which promotes business interests as everyone's interests and in the process fragments the community and closes off individual and critical thought."(Carey)--people have instead been trained to look or worry about some vague/abstract authoritarian left source, most often manifested in the "get the government off our backs" rhetoric, a phenomenon succinctly summed up by Chomsky in this interview:

DB: In Language and Responsibility, in a discussion about FBT COINTELPRO operations and Watergate, you say that "one of the keys to the whole thing (is that) everyone is led to think that what he knows represents a local exception. But the overall pattern remains hidden." Is there a subtext to the Oklahoma City bombing there?

Chomsky: I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind. In what sense?

DM: What's going on underneath?

Chomsky: The U.S wants to be able to carry out Oklahoma City bombings in other countries, as we do, but they don't want them to happen here. You're not supposed to blow up federal buildings here. That's something we do, not something that's done to us. Sure, they don't like that. But as for subtext, they don't like the fact that paramilitaries are out of control, that's for sure. There have been fifty years of propaganda stimulating anti-government feeling. Here's where I again don't care so much about Rush Limbaugh as I do about the mainstream. There have been fifty years of propaganda which suppresses the fact that the government reflects powerful, private interests, and they're the real source of power.

So take the angry white males who are maybe joining what they mistakenly call militias, paramilitary forces. These people are angry. Most of them are high school graduates. They're people whose incomes have dropped maybe 20% over the last fifteen years or so. They can no longer do what they think is the right thing for them to do, provide for their families. Maybe their wives have to go out and work. And maybe make more money than they do. Maybe the kids are running crazy because nobody's paying attention to them. Their lives are falling apart. They're angry. Who are they supposed to blame? You're not supposed to blame the Fortune 500, because they're invisible. They have been taught for fifty years now by intense propaganda, everything from the entertainment media to school books, that all there is around is the government. If there's anything going wrong, it's the government's fault. The government is somehow something that's independent of external powers. So if your life is falling apart, blame the government.

There are plenty of things wrong with the government. But what's harmful to people about the government is that it's a reflection of something else. And that other thing you don't see. Why don't you see that other thing? Because it's been made invisible. So when you read Clinton campaign propaganda you've got workers and their firms but not owners and investors. That's just the end result of fifty years of this stuff. Talking about your subtext, if people are angry and frightened, they will naturally turn to what they see. And what they've been taught to see is the government.

There's a reason why attention is focused on the government as the source of problems. It has a defect. It's potentially democratic. Private corporations are not potentially democratic. The propaganda system does not want to get people to think, the government is something we can take over and we can use as our instrument of public power. They don't want people to think that. And since you can't think that, you get what's called populism, but is not populism at all. It's not the kind of populism that says, Fine, let's take over the government and use it as an instrument to undermine and destroy private power, which has no right to exist. Nobody is saying that. All that you're hearing is that there's something bad about the government, so let's blow up the federal building.

Class Warfare by Noam Chomsky, pg. 83-4

And when Carey incorrectly said this...

..I believe that George Orwell's warnings about future threats to liberal democracies were largely, even dangerously misconceived. Influenced by Orwell's erroneous views, popular consciousness has been drilled in the expectation that the subversive Left, supported by influences from 'outside' the country, is about to control public and individual thinking. (This is the corporate sponsored narrative which provides the justification needed for managing democracy in the interests of business.)

...what he should've been talking about is how the "corporate sponsored narrative" has helped drill an erroneous conception of Orwell's views into the popular conscious. Incidentally, you may find this an interesting read.

And your right that I do like that formulation:

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

I do consider myself a libertarian, but when I use that word I mean it in the traditional sense where libertarian = anarchy (that's the way Orwell would use it too). It is interesting to note however that on this particular board, the word libertarian is actually an Orwellianism itself which actually means extreme advocate of private tyranny. Hence the ACists/"libertarians" on here who tirelessly promote the freedom of markets, but what they're actually advocating (whether they realize it or not) is the freedom of those who dominate the market to dominate others, or their religious advocacy of property rights which concretely translates to the rights of those own property to dictate and exploit those who do not own property. That's another topic that has been belabored by me too many times on here. But either way, because of the above issues I don't refer to myself as a libertarian around here. I refer to myself as an anarchist as I find the views of ACists/"libertarians" utterly inhuman and despicable.

[LirvA]