“And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.” Not exactly a subtle metaphor. King Rat, by James Clavell. This was Clavell’s first novel and if you have read Clavell’s other, more famous novels (e.g. Shogun), you will be surprised that it is absolutely nothing like them. All his other … [Read more...] about When Civilization Cracks
Modern Society
Avoiding the Fire Next Time
“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire … [Read more...] about Avoiding the Fire Next Time
Rebuilding the Moral-Cultural Order
Michael Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is a curiously neglected work these days. While it was published in 1982 and has much that is specific to the debates of that era, the underling argument is curiously relevant to a contemporary debate about the nature of a Good Society. How important was the book in its day? The Dean of Studies of the History of American Conservatism, George Nash, listed it as one of the 12 most influential books of the 1970s and 1980s. Once upon a time, it was … [Read more...] about Rebuilding the Moral-Cultural Order
Do We Need Shane?
“He was the man who rode into our little valley out of the heart of the great glowing West and when his work was done rode back when he had come and he was Shane.”In the category of final sentences which perfectly capture a book, that one is about as good as it gets. The book is (presumably rather obviously) Shane by Jack Schaefer. You know it is good because the Library of America included it in their volume The Western: Four Classic Novels of the 1940s and 1950s. Want another sign of … [Read more...] about Do We Need Shane?
Commerce and Culture
Consider the Introduction to Economics class. One of the intriguing challenges in teaching that class is that you can neatly divide the room into two camps. These two sets of students are not only taking the course for very different reasons, they are rather suspicions of the other group, wondering a bit why those others are even in college at all. The first group is heading for an MBA and a career in “business.” (One of my many amusements is pointing out to such students that all jobs, by … [Read more...] about Commerce and Culture
Vonnegut Hits Rock Bottom
As I have noted in this space before, one of the (many) great things about the Library of America is that owning their volumes enables one to easily read an author’s work in the order of publication. Read that way, Kurt Vonnegut has been an amazing surprise. Many authors have written books that are all part of a longer storyline. Vonnegut’s books seem like they are all on different topics, but they are surprisingly the parts of a longer argument. Every book reads like a reaction to the … [Read more...] about Vonnegut Hits Rock Bottom