Good Books
Some books which I've particularly enjoyed, and heartily recommend.
- Wendell Berry, "Another Turn of the Crank: Essays"
Counterpoint, Washington, D.C., 1995. ISBN 1-887178-03-1
Berry's essays are so stimulating that I wish I could quote
the entire book here. He writes with clarity, compassion, and
common sense. Just to give the flavour, here's an excerpt from
"The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity":
"We must include ourselves [in our picture of the world]
because whether we choose to do so or not, we are included.
We who are now alive are living in this world; we are not
dead, nor do we have another world to live in. There are, then,
two laws that we had better take to be absolute.
The first is that as we cannot exempt ourselves from living
in this world, then if we wish to live, we cannot exempt
ourselves from using the world...
If we cannot exempt ourselves from use, then we must deal
with the issues raised by use. And so the second law is that
if we want to continue living, we cannot exempt use from care."
- William F. Hixson, "A Matter of Interest: Reexamining
Money, Debt, and Real Economic Growth"
Praeger, New York, 1991. ISBN 0-275-93895-6
Hixson's book is a very detailed and exact analysis of
the relationship between the money supply and debt, and
how they affect growth. The first book on money and
banking which I've seen which rang true. Hixson has a
genuine feel for the dynamics of the economic system,
in contrast to the traditional economic analyses which
might be considered as static models. Here's a quote:
"The transformation of the profits-from-enterprise system into
an interest-from-moneylending system has been paralleled by a
transformation from a system in which the average worker enjoys
a rising standard of living to one in which the standard of
living declines on average. The new system may truly be said
to be intolerable but the 'take' of the moneylenders will probably
have to go somewhat higher and the standard of living of the
average worker decline somewhat more before the truly intolerable
nature of the system comes to be realized fully."
- Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, "On Killing: The Psychological
Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society"
Little, Brown & Co, Boston, 1995. ISBN 0-316-33000-0
An important book. Most people (the vast majority) will not
kill, even if they are soldiers in battle and are ordered to
-- at the crucial moment, they will not fire or will aim away.
Grossman has an expert knowledge of the conditioning methods
used by modern armies to train soldiers to shoot to kill,
of the psychological costs for the individual soldier, and
of the necessary process of rationalization and acceptance.
Unpleasant enough in war, but conceivably socially necessary.
But -- and this is Grossman's key point -- we are now using
similar conditioning methods in our civil society's film
and television media. To avoid the pitfall, we must see it
and understand its nature. Grossman's book is a good start.
From his concluding chapter, "The Resensitization of America":
"The entertainment industry is not providing a socially acceptable
channeling of energy. Indeed, very little energy is generally
spent in the passive reception of television and movies...
If violence in television and movies were a form of sublimation,
and if it were at all effective, then per capita violence should
be going down. Instead it has multiplied nearly seven times in
the span of the same generation in which this supposed sublimation
has become available. It is not sublimation, or even neutral
entertainment. It is classical conditioning, operant conditioning,
and social learning, all focused toward the violence enabling of an
entire society... The new factor that is at work today is the
same factor that increased the firing rate from 15 to 20 percent
in World War II to 90 to 95 percent in Vietnam. The new factor is
desensitization and killing enabling in the media."
- Kurt Loeb, "White Man's Burden"
Lugus Publications, Toronto, 1992. ISBN 0-921633-98-X
A good story creates one's view of another people or place.
When England established colonies in Africa, the adventure
novels of G. A. Henty and H. Rider Haggard were as much a
part of the colonizing process as the actions of explorers.
The novels helped define the colonial world to the English
public and in part shaped the attitudes of the next generation
of civil servants. Kurt Loeb's book studies the society of
colonial Africa as seen through the novels of the early
adventure writers, through the novels of Joseph Conrad and
other novelists of conscience, and through the novels of
post-war writers such as Alan Paton and Chinua Achebe.
His emphasis is on the motivations, behaviour and inner lives
of individuals, not upon the skeleton of historical events.
A thoroughly enjoyable literary excursion. Here's Kurt Loeb
on Alan Paton:
"Paton is set apart from the other writers in this chapter.
Laurence came as a temporary visitor, filled with good will, some
innocence, and a certain lack of sophistication. Lessing speaks
from the opposite perspective, as a voluntary exile from the land
of her youth. Achebe and Nugui are spokesmen for a new generation
of liberated, educated Africans. Paton fits none of these categories.
He is not visitor, exile or black. He is a white South African
who loves his native land despite its many and obvious shortcomings.
Since he speaks of love and beauty in the very titles of his novels,
the analogy to courtly or romantic love is not out of place. He
loves his country as a lover worships a woman, aware of her faults
and inadequacies. At heart he still hopes that some day his nation
will see the errors of her ways and treat the black population --
and the 'coloured' people caught in between -- with maturity."
URL: http://www.mirror.org/ken.roberts/books.html
Last revised September 18, 1996
Email: Ken Roberts ken2@mirror.org
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