Peter Sean Bradley

came to this from the Hulu series “Hellstrom.” I'm liking the series in that it is following a kind of supernatural/mystery arc with characters who seem to have an interesting back-story.

I am not a big comics/graphic novel fan, so I probably missed a lot of nuance in the story, but in general I was not impressed. It seemed like the Ghost Rider's role was to say things like “you shall feel the vengeance of Ghost Rider” and then unleash a lot of flames. The book teams up Damian Hellstrom and his sister, Satana, both of whom are the children of Lucifer, who goes by a different name in this book, Johnny Blaze aka the Ghost Rider, and Blade. The culprit in this book are demons and the McGuffin involves the 1,000 year old get-together between angels and demons. The team put together the clues and do the appropriate superhero things.

The graphics are a big part of graphic novels, but I found the graphics in this case to be a bit confusing. Sometimes I had to puzzle out what I was supposed to be seeing.

I imagine that this is the “B-team” of Marvel. I was not overly-impressed.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1SDOHG4A1XDAN?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Between 1800 and 1815, south-eastern Africa witnessed something akin to a genocide that killed approximately 2 million Africans. The episode - known as the Mfecane - is unknown in contemporary America. It certainly runs against the post-modern narrative which puts the blame for everything bad that has happened in the world on the shoulders of Western culture.

However, the Mfecane was purely an African phenomenon. In this book, the beginnings of the Mfecane predate Shaka Zulu with King Dingiswayo who set up the system of regiments (Impis) and introduced the short spear (assegai). Dingiswayo's conquests of neighbors started the process of out-migration that created a domino effect as one tribe wold displace another. What's interesting is how easy it seems for tribes to pick up and move 50 miles. Their wealth was largely movable - cattle - and their farms seem to have existed on a low level of development.

After Dingiswayo, Shaka took over. Author Robert Binckes places responsibility for Dingiswayo's death on a betrayal by Shaka. These kinds of betrayals were common in European feudalism, but this book demonstrates that the Zulus were no better and might have been worse in their cruelty and betrayals. Here is Bincke's description of the betrayal of Dingiswayo:

//Knowing Dingiswayo's habits, Shaka knew that he would run ahead of his warriors and thus unprotected would make himself vulnerable to an attack on his person. After the unsuspecting Dingiswayo had run ahead of his regiments, Shaka secretly sent a message to the enemy informing them of Dingiswayo's position. During the battle, the Mtetwa, being far too weak in numbers were surrounded by Zwide's army and took Dingiswayo prisoner. Initially Zwide was content to let Dingiswayo live but was persuaded by his mother to execute Dingiswayo: “If you don't kill him, he will kill you.” Dingiswayo was kept alive for three days before being spreadeagled face upward on the ground with stakes driven through his hands and feet, and killed by the trampling of cattle over him. Leaderless the Mtetwa were crushed by the Ndwandwe.//

Yikes.

The book makes for an interesting read. African history is not an area I know and I suspect most don't know African history. It is often difficult to follow the narrative because of the African language's consonant clusters and the foreign African tribal and personal names. But sled through that as best you can and learn something about a different part of the world.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2K81JOKUSCKTR?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This is a hard book to evaluate. The author, Kim Philby, was the most notorious traitor in the modern history of spycraft. During World War II, Philby joined MI5 - the British counter-espionage department working on British soil - then moved to the SIS (the former MI6) doing counter-espionage work on foreign soil. In that capacity, he became the head of the division responsible for all counter-espionage relating to the Soviet Union. After a stint in Turkey, Philby was assigned to Washington DC to work in the heart of American intelligence.

He did all this while serving as a secret Soviet intelligence officer, a mole, loyal to the Soviet Union, whose trafficking of information risked the safety of his family and friends in the interest of a country he had never visited.

The difficulty of this book is that Philby is still playing the “mole game”; he discloses nothing that is not already known and he misdirects attention simply to stay in practice. Philby offers virtually nothing about his inner life; his wife gets a single mention, and it is only about four pages from the end that he mentions his mother is still living in England. What they thought about his secret life or how he viewed their fates if he were uncovered or the Soviets prevailed, he offers not a clue.

The book starts around the start of World War II when Philby is brought in to MI5. Philby mentions that Guy Burgess was present in one of his recruitment meetings, but he fails to mention that he and Burgess were friends in Cambridge where Burgess was instrumental in Philby's recruitment to the Soviet cause. We get no information about how that took place. The only idea of Philby's motivations is that he believed that the Soviet revolution represented a way to a better world. He maintained that belief despite the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union because he believed that ultimately despite short-term failures, ultimately the Revolution would be vindicated. Besides Philby viewed himself as a soldier and soldiers did their duty even when they disagreed with national policies.

I had always been impressed with Philby's rise to power, thinking that it must have been the result of some singular mental power he had as a spy. That turned out not to be the case, although Philby had spent time acting as a spy in the field in Franco's Spain. In the book “Mine Were of Trouble” by Peter Kemp, Philby gets mentioned as one of four journalists in Spain hit by a bomb, killing the other three and seriously injuring Philby. Kemp and Philby were friends at Cambridge with obviously different political views since Kemp went to fight for the Nationalists in Spain. In this book, Philby mentions Kemp as a friend who described a run-in with Spaniards trained by Philby (working on behalf of SIS) in Kemp's book “No Colour nor Crest.” Small world, indeed.

Philby's true gift lay with office politics. Philby rarely worked in the field when he was in MI5 or SIS. This book is filled with Philby's concerns with the quotidian world of administration, setting up an office and getting it properly staffed. Philby's keen interest was in the personalities around him. His descriptions of those personalities rival the best of John LeCarre, which is good for a reader interested in the staffing of SIS circa 1940 to 1950, but there is not a lot of nourishment to be gotten from the text.

The other effect of the book is to take down one's professional respect for the spy profession. Philby is often slighting about the abilities and intelligence of those around him, although there are some that he respects. But there was a lot of deadwood. The fact that Philby got into MI5 without a background check is notable as is the ease with which he was to get access to SIS files.

In the midst of these quotidian details, the chapter on the “Volkov Affair” stands out. Shortly after the end of the War in Europe in 1945, a Soviet diplomat, Volkov, presented himself at the British station in Istanbul with an offer of information about Soviet spies in Britain's Foreign Office and one who was the head of Britain's counter-espionage department. This information was handed to said spy. Philby looked at, agreed that it needed to be investigated, and then proceeded with all deliberation to head to Istanbul to vet Volkov. However, by the time that Philby got to Istanbul, Volkov had mysteriously disappeared.

Philby hints that he tipped off his “Russian friends,” who put a bullet in Volkov's skull, but he doesn't admit it. It also becomes clear that Philby deliberately dragged out the process of getting to Istanbul so that the deed could be done before he got there, but Philby nowhere admits this.

In 1950, things came apart for Philby. He didn't know about the Venona Intercepts, but he was told that a Soviet spy in the Foreign Office under the code name of Homer was being investigated. The FBI had made a thorough hash of the investigation, but Philby knew it was a matter of time before Donald MacLean was identified as Homer. MacLean had been recruited at Cambridge by Burgess, but Philby had only met MacLean twice before. Since Guy Burgess was rooming with the Philby family, Philby had Burgess tip MacLean off, and the two ended up fleeing to the Soviet Union.

Attention then turned on to Philby - again, thanks to the unknown to Philby, Venona Intercepts. Philby was able to remain calm, knowing that MI5 did not have actionable legal evidence to use against him. He was terminated from SIS with a $4,000 pension but remained free and able to continue to work for the Soviets until 1963 when he finally came in from the Cold. Philby offers several scenarios for why he defected at that time, so his answer is unclear.

Ultimately, this book is frustrating for a variety of reasons. First, I developed a feeling like I have had with recent revelations of FBI corruption involving the abuse of FISA warrants during and after the 2016 election. It seems that the professionals consider themselves a class above the average person. In 1950, Philby received an indirect warning from a supervisor about his arrest, as if that was intended to cause him to defect. In 1955, the British government vouched for Philby's government career. Finally, in 1963, Philby was permitted to remain free while government agents were receiving his confession. It's almost as if “professional courtesy” extended to letting Philby go. All of this tends to show the incompetence of the Deep State long before our age. Either the Deep State wanted to give Philby every opportunity to escape, and thereby relieve them of their embarrassment, or its members are incompetent.

Second, there is Philby's attitude toward his service. In this book, Philby often says things that seem to token pride in the work he did for the British, work that he betrayed. He also expresses his respect for some of his superiors, people whom he was betraying. Philby allows that an undercover operative has to live his cover persona, but this is psychopathic.

Finally, there is the attitude of his friends, like Grahame Greene, who writes the foreword and finds in the memoirs the voice of his friend. Greene visited Philby several times after Philby fled to Moscow.

Friendship and loyalty are difficult things to give up, but Philby endangered the lives of every friend and family member that Greene had. Philby sent British agents into the Soviet Union knowing that they would be captured and shot. Philby worked for the victory of one of the most savage tyrannies in human history. Philby's life was a lie; he simply was not the person that Greene thought he was.

But what the heck, upper-class people have to stick together and what does a little genocide matter?

The ultimate mystery remains, why did Philby become a traitor? His explanation was that he expected the Revolution to bring in some utopia, despite the evidence to the contrary. Interestingly, we don't see any concern for the poor or hatred for the West or for capitalism anywhere in the book. In the end, as in the Hiss case, some mysteries remain.

Priests and Bishop: Biblical Reflections by Raymond E. Brown, S.S.

This is a slender book written by Brown in 1970. Brown explains that he did not intend to write a formal study, but only his reflections to guide discussions in the Catholic Church about the role of priests and bishops in light of concerns raised about the possibility of changing the role of priests after Vatican II, on the one hand, and the interest of ecumenism, on the other hand.

Brown's booklet is divided into two parts. The first priest addresses Brown's reflections on priests. Brown begins by looking at the priests of the Old Testament (“OT”). That the Hebrews were a “nation of priests” (Exod. 19:6) did not prevent the development of a special ministry of priests to serve God. “A God who is not holier than the world is otiose; and similarly a priesthood that does not stand apart in some way is a priesthood that is not needed.” (p. 9.) Brown then considers the functions that the OT priesthood plays, which he identifies as (a) consulting the will of God by casting lots consisting of the Urim and Thumim; (b) teaching; and (c) offering sacrifice and cultic offerings. (p. 10-12.) Brown opines that because the first two functions were shifted to prophets and scribes, respectively, the priesthood was left with the “ministry of the altar.” (p. 12.)

Brown begins the discussion of the New Testament (“NT”) by noting that no specific person in the NT is ever identified as a “priest.” (p. 13.) Brown dismisses the explanation that the “once for all” formula of Hebrews explains this absence. Brown observes that Hebrews should not be extrapolated to explain the earliest church since Hebrews was probably not written until after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. (p. 14.) In fact, when Hebrews was written, sub-apostolic literature was already beginning to refer to “priests.” (Id.) Interestingly, in this section, Brown rejects Kung's support for this argument; Brown repeatedly rejects Kung in this book. (p. 13, n.6.)

Brown also rejects Luther's “nation of priests” arguments on the reasonable ground that Israel was a nation of priests with its own special priesthood. (p. 14-15.)

Brown also questions the “traditional Catholic explanation” which is that the apostles played the role of priests in the NT. (p. 15.) Brown finds this to be an oversimplification” because, according to him, the Eucharist was not originally associated with sacrifice; rather the eucharist evolved in that direction over time guided by the Holy Spirit, which vouches for the legitimacy of this evolution, and in loyalty to the implications of the NT. (p. 15.)
Brown thinks that the term “priest” was not used in the earliest church because Christians continued to accept that the Temple priesthood remained the legitimate priesthood. (p. 17.) The Christian movement was a “renewal” movement, not a replacement movement. While Christians broke bread at home, they continued to attend the Temple until at least 58 AD. (p. 16; Acts 21:28.)

The priesthood developed institutionally as a result of the push by the Hellenists away from the temple, the recruitment of gentiles, and the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem as a center of power in favor of Rome. (P. 18.) It was at this time that the body of Christ as the mediating point between God and man replaced the Temple. (p. 18.) Likewise, Brown sees the understanding of the eucharist as a sacrifice to be another evolutionary development guided by the Holy Spirit over the course of the first century. (p. 19.)

Brown then looks at the NT role of the priest. He unthreads various strands, specifically: (a) disciple, (b) Pauline apostle, (c) presbyter-bishop, and (d) presider at the eucharist. He spends time on unthreading the Pauline apostle role into its various subsidiary ‘services,” including (a) ordinary work, (b) prayer, (c) correction, and (d) suffering. (p. 21-45.) Some of these roles and services are done better by some priests than others, sometimes to the exclusion of some roles and services entirely. Brown takes an evolutionary perspective on this issue as well and finds that these roles were found at some phases of church development earlier than others. However, Brown does not think that it is correct to say that Jesus initiated the priesthood on Good Friday. He seems to think that's anachronistic. Instead he would be fine with the notion that the priesthood was initiated by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and with an evolutionary unfolding of its understanding of the meaning of apostolic teachings. (p. 19-20.)

This section makes for an interesting approach to the priesthood. Brown comes across as remarkably conservative in his defense of clerical celibacy and opposition to “part-time priests.” He ties the “priestly identity crisis” to the diversity of roles that the Catholic priesthood has assumed, some of which are in conflict with each other, e.g., the Pauline apostle, who is missionary, and the presbyter-bishop, who manages a region.

We might find Brown's denial that Jesus directly founded the priesthood to be problematic, but there are two things to consider. First, Brown is committed to an evolutionary paradigm. Virtually nothing exists from scratch in his discussion, everything has to be built up, and there is truth to this – there was an evolution of the priesthood. But was it the way Brown describes it?

I am not convinced. It seems to me that Brown starts loves to breakdown something into hypothetical, heuristic devices– such a the four roles of the priesthood – and then treat his heuristic devices as existing facts that trump evidence.

We can see this in his discussion of 1 Clement which clearly says that the apostles appointed bishops – or leaders of the church – to prevent strife. He explains this inconvenient “coming into existence without evolution” as follows:

“...but for our present purposes it is sufficient to note that when sub-apostolic writing, like 1 Clement and the Ignatian letters, speak of “apostles,” often they have blended together the role of the Twelve disciples and the role of the Pauline apostles. 1 Clement 42-44 pictures the “apostles” appointing bishops wo were in turn commissioned to appoint successors, so that one basic ministry is transmitted in libeal descent. (As we shall see there is some evidence that Paul may have appointed presbyter-bishops, but no evidence that the Twelve did – thus Clement's testimony may be somewhat confused.)”

This illustrates a problem with Brown's approach. Brown is actually dismissing Clement as evidence because it doesn't fit Brown's theoretical model. Subsequently in the book, Brown will argue that the NT sources depict the Twelve – except Peter – as staying in Rome and that Paul appointed some presbyter-bishops, although the significance of the function of those presbyter-bishops is lost in silence in the NT. So, there is nothing in his model that contradicts the testimony of Clement, although it seems important for him to separate the generation of the apostles/Twelve from the presbyter-bishops, presumably because Brown prefers his evolutionary model. One would think that Brown would welcome additional data to fill in the silences found in the NT texts from sources written around the same time as the NT. Further, Brown acknowledges that Clement was a first-century source, but he patronizingly thinks that Clement is “confused” by something that happened in Clement's recent past? If 1 Clement was written circa 90 AD, then the foundation of the episcopate would have happened in the previous ten to twenty years, which is like someone alive today remembering New Year's Eve 2000.

Additionally, Brown admits that Corinth went from a community that had no bishops at one time to one that clearly had a bishop or group of bishops at the time of Clement. (p. 70-71.) He reasonably speculates that bishops were introduced because of the problems that Paul had with a leaderless church. Significantly, Brown asserts that the introduction of bishops created friction, which is what led to the rift that resulted in the writing of 1 Clement. Brown states:

“Since Clement gives the Corinthian presbyter-bishops support, especially as to their place in worship and their not being easily removed from office, one may surmise that the introduction of such officials into Corinth was not without friction. He mentions that the apostles appointed bishops in the cities where they preached – might suggest that after the Corinthian correspondence in 56-57 Paul introduced bishops into Corinth when he visited there in 58? If this hypothesis has any validity, we may doubt that Corinth was typical of Paul's procedure as regards church structure. And since Paul would scarcely have wanted to repeat his experience with Corinth, it is not impossible that the Corinthian experiment may have hastened the development of local leaders in the Pauline churches. Thus, the Lucan picture whereby Paul appointed presbyter-bishops during his lifetime, while simplified, may be true in its essentials.” (p. 71-72.)

The second part of the pamphlet is more problematic than the first. In this section, Brown argues against the traditional, if naïve, model that says that the Twelve apostles went from town to town laying hands on the first bishops in different cities, thereby establishing the episcopate. He disagrees with this model because he reads in the NT that the Twelve – except Peter – remained in Jerusalem. For Brown, the Twelve were not local church leaders, but, following Luke, their concern was with the Church at large. (p. 58.) Brown finds this model plausible based on a similar structure revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Qumran community. (Id.)

As noted previously, Brown thinks that bishops were installed by the Pauline apostles, although he is at pains to stress that “it is possible to trace only some (bishops' lineage) to apostles like Paul.” (p. 73.)

Presumably, this means that there is a breakage in the Christ to the Twelve to Bishops chain, unless, of course, the apostles laid hands upon the “Pauline apostles” and put them into the chain of ordination, which Brown acknowledges happened, except that the ordination of Timothy was not as a bishop. (p. 63, n. 42.) It also means that individual claims of the various Sees to being founded by this or that member of the Twelves “is simply without proof” (p. 73) unless the traditions themselves count as proof, which Brown doesn't discuss.

Ironically, the one See that can make a claim to the contrary is Rome with respect to Peter. Brown does not dispute that Peter was in Rome, and thinks that John went to Asia Minor. (p. 52.) Brown writes:

“The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelves are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Pauline type of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (p. 72, n.53.)

Brown argues that Peter was not a bishop on the grounds of the absence of any NT evidence showing that Peter had concern for the local church, as opposed to the general church, although he does acknowledge that Peter himself called himself a “bishop”:

“There is little in the NT to support the thesis that peter was a bishop, except for the fact that 1 Peter 5:1 has Peter speak as a presbyter – but does this mean presbyter-bishop or simply “elder”? The latter is possible even though other presbyters whom Peter addresses have episcopal functions.” (p. 53, no. 34.)

Brown's approach is fairly strange when you think about it. Brown is arguing that in the earliest church things were fairly formless and developing, but, then, Brown turns around and denies that apostles or Peter could have been bishops because they didn't operate in the precise form that Brown insists is typical of bishops. Perhaps the term or concept of “bishop” encompassed all these things? Maybe a “bishop” would spend some time taking care of a local community and then pull up stakes and go missionizing? That happens today with some bishops and we don't think they aren't bishops. So, again, this seems to be another example of how Brown makes a fetish of his heuristic model rather than paying attention to the evidence.

Brown, therefore, denies that Peter was the first “bishop” of Rome, although he acknowledges that Peter was in Rome, was concerned with the world church, and was certainly available to provide input, guidance, and teaching to the Christians in Rome, and even called himself a bishop, but he was not a bishop, and within 20 of Peter's death, Christians in Rome were saying that the apostles ordained their successors, and there are bishop lists in the second century affirming that the bishops of Rome began with Peter, but he wasn't a bishop of Rome, much less the first bishop.

Ok...whatever. A rose by any other name.

Brown also doesn't think that there was a monarchical bishop, i.e., a single bishop, who governed all of Rome, unlike every other instance we know about from Ignatius, until “well into the second century.” (p. 53.) “Leaders such as Linus, Cletus, and Clement, known to us from the early Roman church, were probably prominent presbyter-bishops but not necessarily “monarchical” bishops.” (p. 53.)

Alternatively, when in the history of humanity has there ever been a committee without a chairman? Even the Twelve were collegial, but they had a primus inter pares. Presumably, the chairmanship was institutionalized fairly early because any other way of doing things wouldn't have worked. (And interestingly, Brown thinks that the Council of Jerusalem slams together two councils, one with Peter present and one with him absent. (p. 58.)
Brown does not see this as problematic:

“Lest I cause unnecessary scandal, may I point out that in my judgment, the probability that Peter was not the first “monarchical” bishop of Rome does not weaken in any way the claim that the position of primacy held by Peter has been continued in the Church and is now enjoyed by the bishop of Rome. The two roles of primate and of bishop, separate at the beginning were subsequently joined. (Even the most conservative Catholic would have to admit this, since Peter was primate among the Twelve long before he went to Rome.)” (p. 54.)

Finally, in the end, Brown makes a plea that the magisterium includes theologians on the basis that bishops simply don't know theology all that well. He also notes that while the episcopacy is essential for the Christian church, the Catholic church should recognize that during the earliest church there were churches without bishops and churches with bishops and that this disparity did not impair Christian unity.

Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas by R.A. Lafferty

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1NMU2R5J5B9DO?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

R.A. Lafferty's reputation was as a writer of humorous and absurd science fiction.

This short story fits that reputation. The premise of the story is a census taker who takes his assignment of counting all persons in his region very seriously.

The story is amusing and light, but not particularly profound.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYE2S8IPBW3EE?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This was a surprising book. Bakunin was a 19th century Socialist Anarchist, which seems like an oxymoron. He was a radical atheist. He also thought that Marxism would lead to tyranny. He was, in short, an odd dude.

The north star of his philosophy was opposition to authority of all kinds. In Bakunin's mind, any authority would inevitably lead to a group or class obtaining privilege and power over other people. It's not surprising that he attacked religion on that ground because that has been fairly conventional for leftists for the last three hundred years. In his attacks on religion, Bakunin sounds like Christopher Hitchens, e.g., God clearly doesn't exist, God makes men into slaves, religion is a racket, etc. This is all pretty conventional and I found this only interesting because it made me suspect that Hitchens, who likened Heaven to a “cosmic North Korea,” had studied Bakunin at one time.

Bakunin gets interesting, though, in his discussion of science. Bakunin had great respect and hopes for science, but he emphasizes that science can only deal with abstractions and generalizations and that it must inherently ignore individuals and their fates and conditions. Science and scientists were as capable of being made into an authority as religion - with the difference being that science dealt with truth, which made it more of a danger. As such, science and scientists were capable of being made authorities, which could then be leveraged into making them a priesthood of society. Accordingly, Bakunin was opposed to allowing scientific societies to exist or exalting science as a priesthood of the privilege. His hope was to make science the property of all through education.

Bakunin explains:

“The second reason is this: a society which should obey legislation emanating from a scientific academy, not because it understood itself the rational character of this legislation (in which case the existence of the academy would become useless), but because this legislation, emanating from the academy, was imposed in the name of a science which it venerated without comprehending — such a society would be a society, not of men, but of brutes. It would be a second edition of those missions in Paraguay which submitted so long to the government of the Jesuits. It would surely and rapidly descend to the lowest stage of idiocy.”

But there is still a third reason which would render such a government impossible — namely that a scientific academy invested with a sovereignty, so to speak, absolute, even if it were composed of the most illustrious men, would infallibly and soon end in its own moral and intellectual corruption. Even today, with the few privileges allowed them, such is the history of all academies. The greatest scientific genius, from the moment that he becomes an academician, an officially licensed savant, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. He loses his spontaneity, his revolutionary hardihood, and that troublesome and savage energy characteristic of the grandest geniuses, ever called to destroy old tottering worlds and lay the foundations of new. He undoubtedly gains in politeness, in utilitarian and practical wisdom, what he loses in power of thought. In a word, he becomes corrupted.

It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether politically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart. That is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to entire nations as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It is the law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. The principal object of this treatise is precisely to demonstrate this truth in all the manifestations of human life.

A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction.

And:

“To sum up. We recognize, then, the absolute authority of science, because the sole object of science is the mental reproduction, as well-considered and systematic as possible, of the natural laws inherent in the material, intellectual, and moral life of both the physical and the social worlds, these two worlds constituting, in fact, but one and the same natural world. Outside of this only legitimate authority, legitimate because rational and in harmony with human liberty, we declare all other authorities false, arbitrary and fatal.”

Here we are in 2020, at the end of our experiment with lockdowns because of Covid, and I have to think that Bakunin was right. His cautions seem prudent. We turned the problem of Covid over to the virologists and they solved the problem, but at what cost? And how many individual traumas were ignored?

Bakunin was also anti-Marxist. He castigates the “doctrinaires” of all ideologies and equates them to the priests of religion:

“The government of science and of men of science, even be they positivists, disciples of Auguste Comte, or, again, disciples of the doctrinaire; school of German Communism, cannot fail to be impotent, ridiculous, inhuman, cruel, oppressive, exploiting, maleficent. We may say of men of science, as such, what I have said of theologians and metaphysicians: they have neither sense nor heart for individual and living beings. We cannot even blame them for this, for it is the natural consequence of their profession. In so far as they are men of science, they have to deal with and can take interest in nothing except generalities; that do the laws [...]”

For all that keen insight, Bakunin was a kook of his age. He assumed that education could change human nature and cause men to abandon authority. He assumed that his non-authoritarian utopia, no group would simply find pleasure in having power. He didn't account for the type of man George Orwell presented in 1984 who enjoyed degrading others for the joy of degrading others. Nonetheless, this book was worth the read for a moment of history and an enduring mindset.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3DZ5YN92IZWPO?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

I just finished the Iliad as assigned reading for the “Online Great Books.” I was amazed at how enjoyable and accessible the Iliad was; it was quite the page-turner.

Naturally, I was drawn to investigate the history and backstory of the Iliad. So, I turned to the ever-reliable “A Very Short Introduction” series and the equally reliable Eric Cline. Professor Cline is the author of “1177: The Year Civilization Collapsed,” which is another great book for scratching the curiosity itch with respect to the question of why Civilization 1.0 collapsed at the end of the Bronze Age.

Cline delivers the goods with a review of the background of Home, his epics, the Troy cycle of epics, the surrounding cultures, the archeology identifying the site of Troy, and the archeological investigations of Troy.

OGB wants its students to read the text of a great book before they read commentary or supporting information, which I did. Nonetheless, I confess to missing some of the name-doubling. I got “Argive/Achean/Danan” and
“Troy/Ilios” and “Trojan/Darden,” but I missed the fact that Paris was also named Alexander. I thought that the naming conventions were more for poetry, but it turns out that it may have represented Greek and Hittite cognates for the same words. Thus, the Hittites mention “Wilusa” in their records, while the Greeks and Latins dropped the initial “W” and mention “Ilios.” Paris's other name - Alexander - may - underscore may - be attested to in Hittite records as a ruler of Troy in the 13th century BC.

On which point, it is stunning to think that archeologists have managed to uncover Hittite records, lost for nearly three-thousand years, that attest maybe to characters and events that figure in Homer.

As to Homer, there are as many questions about him as there are about Troy. Cline suggests that Homer lived in the 8th century BC and was writing about an event that happened four-hundred to five-hundred years before him. Homer gets some details about the Late Bronze Age (“LBA”) right but mixes in things that happened either long before the LBA or during the early Iron age. For example, he mostly gets the cities correct in the “List of Ships” from Book 2 of the Iliad despite the fact that many of those cities had disappeared hundreds of years before his time. (Parenthetically, if you have read that book, you should be impressed with the detail and length of information that was conveyed orally for hundreds of years.)

Cline points out that there were other poets writing in the Trojan epic cycle around the time of Homer. Most of these epics have disappeared, to be remembered only in references in other texts. Some of those other epics provide some background information, such as how Achilles came into the possession of Briseis, who figures prominently in his rage at the beginning of the Iliad.

Cline's prose is very accessible. He provides a lot of background that results in an appreciated “gosh-wow!” effect. This is a short book that can be consumed in one or two reading sessions. I was inclined to knock off a star because I wanted more, but that would be unfair. The book accomplished what it set out to accomplish by being a “very short introduction,” and is valuable for that purpose.

Matchstick Men by Eric Garcia

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1UZZM94QCI9V4?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

I came to this book after re-watching the 2003 Nicholas Cage movie.

I liked the Cage movie a lot for the manic energy that Cage brought to “Roy” and for the eventual hopeful redemption arc that ended the movie.

I like the book somewhat less, which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the book.

In the book, Roy and Frankie are running short cons that net them an income - a pretty big, tax-free income if one is wise enough to bank it in the Caymans like Roy. The problem is that Roy has a pretty pronounced Obsessive-Compulsive disorder that is making his life miserable. Fortunately, his psychiatrist helps him formulate a father-daughter relationship with Angela, his long-forgotten daugher from his one, failed marriage.

Roy and Frankie are good at the con game. We see them effortlessly shake down marks throughout the book, which is part of the fun of the book. But through it all, we know that they are evil, miserable SOBs, particularly when they are coming up with games to fleece a widow or the victims of debilitating diseases.

The book is highly readable. I read it a few sessions. The prose style puts the reader at the level of the grifters who are always on the hunt for a score. I guess the reason that ultimately I related more to the movie rather than the book is precisely because the movie introduced a false to the story Hollywood redemption arc, whereas the book was truer to the reality of the characters and the story. Ultimately, I understood that Cage's character knew he was evil and regretted that fact, whereas book Roy is satisfied with his evil.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R26VYWUOLEAMYH?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This is a fairly short introduction to the genre of Russian Fairy Tales. Since most Americans or speakers of English, are absolutely unfamiliar with the subject, this book is fascinating as revealing a different set of traditions than the one we are familiar with. American culture is essentially Western European. Eastern Europe is just a bit too far out there for us to be entirely comfortable with.

This book gives a fairly shallow and cursory overview of the subject. It really doesn't take a deep dive into any of the stories, which often leaves the impression that Russian Fairy Tales are outre (as opposed to the talking animals of the stories we are familiar with.) Thus, we find out that Russians begin their fairy tales with Pre-stories” which are bits of nonsense that serve to disorient the listener into an attitude more accepting of the fantastic.

We get an introduction to Babi Yaga, who is not the Boogeyman described in the John Wick movies, but instead a kind of demigod who sits on the edge of the real and the fantastic and lives in a hut that walks on a pair of chicken legs. There are cycles of stories based on the Bogatyrs, the heroic Russian warriors, who engage in fantastic epic adventures. The author, Nicholas Kotar, gives a brief explanation of the tropes in Russian fairy tales and their symbolic significance.

The conceit that ties this book together is the notion that the reader is caught in a Russian fairy tale and what he or she might expect to come up against. This is actually a minor part of the presentation and doesn't particularly advance or retard the exposition.

All in all, this is a good introduction to a world that is exotic and generally unknown.

Monster of Their Own Making by Jack Buckby

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1MHVK89QGSMQZ?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This book draws heavily on author Jack Buckby's “lived experience” as a member of the far-right. Buckby is a working-class Englishman. He became attracted to nationalist politics in his teens because he saw such politics as the only political ideology addressing his working-class concerns with British culture and working-class unemployment. He became a member and activist of the British Nationalist Party, saw the racism and antisemitism that existed in a minority - but not all - of the members of the BNP, saw his working-class friends radicalize into a far-right terrorist, and, then, he backed away from the BNP and far-right politics into moderate populism, what we in America would call conservatism or Trumpism.

He brings a message to conservatives from his experience: there really are far-right terrorists and the number is growing.

Based on his own experience of being marginalized and attacked as far-right by institutions, including the media and universities, that will not distinguish between far-right racist radicalism and conventional populist national pride, he diagnosis the problem as largely growing out of the increasing radicalism of the left. He points out the sociological studies that show that while conservatives have essentially not changed their position on policies, the left has moved significantly leftward in its demand, closing the “Overton Window” against the reasonable demands of people like him.

Thus, in Britain and America, we have politicians who treat anyone who wants to limit immigration as equivalent to the Nazis. The media and institutions, including social media, treat such people as Nazis. Reasoned discussions between the political sides no longer occur. Accordingly, there is a minority of white young men, who grow up being villified because of their race, class and attitudes, who decide that if they have the name, they must really be far-right.

Interestingly, Buckby points out that while there are “principled” far-rightists, most people on the left and the right are simply looking for an identity in a culture that has uprooted, denied, and deracinated their British identity. These people could easily - and sometimes do - swing between Fascism and Communism. Buckby probably isn't aware but he has recapitulated the main thesis from Eric Hoffer's “The True Believer.”

Buckby didn't radicalize like his schoolyard “lads.” He believes that one reason is that he has Jewish ancestry, which marked him out among the kooks of the right-wing, and, thereby, exposed him to their nuttery. Also, in this book, at least, he comes across as a fairly moderate and decent person, but many of his friends are now serving time, and he realizes that it could as easily have been him.

Buckby offers several suggestions for fighting the far-right. First, conservatives should acknowledge that it exists and try to stop denying its existence out of fear of contamination; they should condemn far-right terrorism when it happens. Second, liberals need to speak up and take back their position from the far-left nutjobs. Buckby also argues that the suppression of the far-right on social media and in laws should end since that simply provides far-right groups and individuals with the proof they need that they really are being persecuted, if not by “the Jews” of their fantasies.

One of his suggestions is near to my heart in this crazy time of 2020: “Stop Destroying Everything We Love.” He writes:

“Stop Destroying Everything We Love

As if calling everyone a racist wasn't bad enough, radical progressives have embarked on a mission to destroy everything that most normal people love. Whether it's popular culture, education, or even our diets, we are being forced to live our lives differently and screamed at if we protest.”

He offers this example:

“In the UK, classical music concerts are held daily in central London in an event known as The Proms. People from all over the country gather in London to embrace this tradition that dates back to 1895. The Last Night of the Proms is perhaps the most prominent event of the whole summer season, bringing people together with patriotic songs that celebrate Britain's cultural and historical significance. It is a chance for the British people to gather at the Royal Albert Hall, at other screening events throughout London, and even in their own homes to wave the Union Flag, sing the national anthem, and feel an emotional connection to our beloved country and Queen. It is one of the few remaining events that allow the British people to feel truly proud of who they are, but in 2019, that changed.

Once an event that could bring people together despite their political views, the concert was hijacked by a self-described “queer girl with a nose ring,” Jamie Barton. As the American mezzo-soprano sang “Rule, Britannia!” she decided against the traditional waving of a Union Flag and instead held an LGBT flag high in the air. Singing one of the most recognizable patriotic British songs, this American far-left ideologue ruined the entire event for a significant section of the British public. This flag represents far more than just equality for gay people, but an ideology that continues to change the parameters in which we are allowed to speak. It represents a forceful left-wing movement that seeks to rewrite history and rob us of our pride.

These people are taking away our favorite TV shows and movies, rewriting our history, denying our children the chance to learn about their ancestors, and robbing us of the few opportunities we have left to celebrate who we are.”

[Buckby, Jack. Monster of Their Own Making: How the Far Left, the Media, and Politicians are Creating Far-Right Extremists . Bombardier Books. Kindle Edition. ]

I write this at a time when every professional sport is kneeling to Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter slogans are being painted on playing surfaces, professional football is permitting players to wear the name of a rapist who is (a) black and (b) was shot by police for resisting arrest.

And the audience for the NBA playoffs has declined by one-third.

This is an easily-read, personal book, rather than a scientific treatise. It offers a worm's eye view of the issue, but seems to be very anecdotal. Yet, “lived experience” is important. My take-away from the book is to pay more attention to the far-right threat than I have, albeit the reality is that the vast majority of violence comes from the left.

If the right ramps up to a similar degree, then we will truly be living in Weimar Days.

The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos and the Murder of Jose Robles by Stephen Koch

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2WRUTI7BJY48Z?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This is part of my “Red Decade” reading project, which is apparently growing out of my reading of Eugene Lyon's “The Red Decade” and “Assignment in Utopia,” Bella Dodd's “The School of Darkness,” Lionel Trilling's “The End of the Journey,” and other books from and about the period. Actually, I received this book as a gift back in 2010 but never got around to reading it until just now.

As an insider's look into the culture of the left during the Red Decade (the 1930s), this book is delightful. It is equally delightful in providing an overview of the lives of John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway and the literary world they inhabited. It is another book that startles me with the realization of how small the world is at some levels. In this book, for example, Dos Passos and Hemingway were friends in Paris in the 1920s when they were starting out as writers in the “Lost Generation.” Both had been ambulance drivers during World War I in different theaters. Eric Blair (George Orwell), who had been fighting for POUM in Catalonia, was staying at the same hotel in Barcelona, where Blair made a point of speaking to Dos Passos about Communist tactics and machinations in Spain.

This book follows Dos Passos and Hemingway from their early lives through the height of their fame in the Spanish Civil War to an epilogue that describes their eventual fates. Hemingway is the heavy in this book. Hemingway comes across as egotistical, shallow, cruel, and vicious, all of which may have been true. As I am writing this review, I am watching the Nicole Kidman/Clive Owens 2013 film “Hemingway and Gelhorn” with one eye. I am finding it difficult to watch this movie after having just finished “The Breaking Point” as every lie about Dos Passos is presented as true and Gelhorn's self-serving fantasies are presented in her favor. It is as able a piece of propaganda as anything done to Dos Passos in Spain.

Jose Robles is set up as the fulcrum of this book. Robles was a Spaniard and a friend of both Hemingway (“Hem”) and Dos Passos (“Dos”) in the 1920s. Like Dos, Robles was a committed Leftist. As Dos climbed to the heights of literary and Leftist acclaim with his USA trilogy; Robles worked in America as a professor of Spanish at Columbia. When Franco's rebellion was launched, Robles returned to Spain to take a role in the Republican (Leftist) government against the Nationalists (Rightist) forces. Robles was appointed to act as the liaison for the Soviet general leading Communist forces in Spain, where presumably he learned quite a bit about Soviet control over the Republican government.

This information seems to have made him a danger to the Communists. An extra-legal police force arrested and shot Robles with due process or acknowledgment of his murder.

Meanwhile, Dos Passos was being set up by Communist agents of influence to produce a propaganda film in Spain about the Republican cause. Hemingway was essentially apolitical but was brought along.

Author Stephen Koch is very good at explaining how the intricate relationship between Communist politics and the biographical development of his subjects. For example, at the same time that Dos Passos was being romanced to produce the film for the Spanish cause, Communism was rejecting modernism for “Socialist Realism.” Since Dos Passos was the model of modernistic literature, he fell out of favor with Communists and their fellow travelers, which explains his mistreatment in Spain.

In Spain, Dos Passos could not find his friend, Robles. His inquiries were met with inconsistent lies. His friends, including Hemingway and Josephine Herbst – who was a witness in HUAC hearings that tied Alger Hiss to Whittaker Chambers (Small world) – were told that Robles had been executed and they were told that the cover story was a lie that Robles had been executed as a fascist spy. Herbst lied and gaslit Dos Passos as a good Communist apparatchik and Hem took a malicious delight in presenting Dos as a coward who had a fascist friend.

Koch blames the ideology of the “Popular Front,” which was purely a Communist effort to subvert leftists to the service of Communism. Communists followed orders; fellow travelers followed the party line. Hemingway followed some kind malicious drive to power over his rivals, including his friend Dos, when egged on by Spanish officials appealing to his vanity.

The chief virtue of this book was to expose the deceit of the Red Decade. Koch illustrates how Spain was simply a tool for Russian interests. Stalin was hoping to start a war between Germany and the West in Spain while not ramping up a hostility between Germany and Russia that would stand in the way of a German-Russian Peace Treaty. In fact, Stalin never wanted the Republicans to win. All of the Spaniards who died on both sides of the war, all of the soldiers of the International Brigades who were killed, all of the leftists who donated time and money to the Republican cause were fools duped by Stalin. Stalin liquidated the Popular Front when he had his deal with Hitler, withdrew the International Brigades, and executed the Russian heroes of the Spanish Civil War. Kortsev, a Russian propagandist who was Stalin's contact in Spain, was called back to Moscow, given a medal for a job well done, and, then, shot the next day. The general who Robles worked for met a similar fate.

The Republican side of the Spanish Civil War is often the only side we hear about, and that side is told through the romantic lens of leftists for whom it was their defining fight against fascism. The modern trope of “Antifa” grows out of the Popular Front movement of the 1930s, but we should never forget that “Antifa” was only popular as long as the Communists wanted to use “Antifa” as a slogan to increase their power. Once they had milked it for all it was worth, they became very much pro-Fascist and the “Antifa” slogan was dropped like moldy bread.

This book is also very good as an introduction to the writings of Hem and Dos. It situates their novels – many of which contained autobiographical elements – within their time and lives. Koch explains the relationship between Hem's strategic infidelities and his need for a muse to nurture his gift.

The story is well-told and moves the reader along. Koch has an informal style at times, which can be jarring, and yet does help to provide an electrical jolt of energy. I found the book quite enjoyable.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2F04398UBU764?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

H.P. Lovecraft is a writer whose works have had a substantial impact on popular culture. His name itself has been turned into an adjective - “Lovecraftian” - meaning, basically, a kind of horror involving vast and undefeatable evil powers. Even people who have never read Lovecraft have a dim sense of Cthulhu and they are exposed to Lovecraftian elements in movies and television.

I'm one of those people. I didn't attempt to read Lovecraft until this summer - August 2020. One of the first stories I started with was one I had heard constantly referenced by other books and stories, namely “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”

The story involves a narrator making it a trip through the New England region. He decides to divert his tour through the town of Innsmouth because he had a distant ancestor who came from Innsmouth. Innsmouth had a poor reputation for backwardness and poverty. He goes to Innsmouth and finds it to be squalid and hostile. Many of the natives have an “Innsmouth look” which involves wideset eyes and a receding chin. As he wanders, the hostility against him increases. He comes to find that there is a conspiracy afoot and that his way out of town is barred by the natives.

Think about how many stories in television and movies involve an outsider stumbling into a community with a dark secret. I don't know if Lovecraft originated this trope but he did write this story in the late 1920s.

I liked this story. It is not particularly fast-moving. Lovecraft spends a lot of time on descriptions and information dumps. This story is probably unusual in the Lovecraft canon for the amount of dialogue involved and how Lovecraft advances the story through dialogue instead of a narration. I was surprised at how much Lovecraft put me in mind of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe.

I found the story to be intriguing and enjoyable. It definitely had a “creep” factor that has stuck with me. It's definitely a classic and I would recommend it on that basis. On the other thand, if you don't have the willingness to cut your way through what is fairly archaic, dense prose, then this may not be your cup of tea.

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

My reaction to H.P. Lovecraft's “At the Mountains of Madness” is surprising: I liked it.

There are reasons why I shouldn't have liked it. It violates the basic rule of modern writing: show, don't tell. The story is a long information dump as the narrator is able to decipher the prehistory of humanity and repeated invasion of the world by various alien races, including the Old Ones and their slave entities, the shogoths.

Nonetheless, I think I liked the story because it was a call back to the “Golden Age of Science Fiction,” i.e., the 1930s, which were also long on exposition and big ideas. In my youth, I had read a volume of such writing collected by Isaac Asimov, for whom this period was his Golden Age. So, this was something familiar.

The story involves a scientific expedition from Miskatonic University to Antarctica. The expedition intends to test a new kind of drilling rig in order to explore the geological history. A portion of the expedition leaves the narrator at one camp to discover the highest mountains in the world in the center of the continent, strange mummified corpses, and indications of ancient city on mountain tops. The narrator arrives at the camp to find strange happenings and then travels to the lost city to learn about the eldritch pre-history of the world.

There is a lot to criticize here. if you expect a fast-paced action-adventure story. This story is not fast-paced in the slightest. A lot of time is spent getting the expedition to the adventure. A lot of time is spent on dwelling on the scenery and the details of the drilling rig. Then, when the adventure begins, Lovecraft has his narrator spend pages narrating the history of the Old Ones in minute details from statues left behind by them. Frankly, the amount of detail that this character extracts from the statuary is unbelievable. For example, we learn that a fungi/crab creature from Pluto threatened the Old Ones' control of the Earth, which is learned from statuary without a helpful pamphlet or audio-commentary.

What sells the story, though, is the scope of the story, involving deep time and space invaders, which necessitates and excuses the info-dump.

Another departure from modern story-telling is that the narrator really doesn't matter. This story is novella length and we learn that he is a professor of geology who organized the expedition. We don't learn much else about him. Lovecraft doesn't spend a lot of time investing him with quirks or a backstory to make us care for him. But we kind of do care for him and his fellow explorer because they are humans in a strange - weird - situation and we somehow can imagine ourselves in that situation.

So, again, I liked it, although it is dated, but that's part of the charm.

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote -

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RTJKFMQMWP739?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

To apply the learned professors' heuristics: this is a practical book of exposition that I read for information. The unifying whole of this book was centered around the problem of answering the question of “what are the virtues that make for excellence in reading.” The unity is broken down by addressing four “levels” of reading, starting with the bare art of deciphering writing, to the cursory overview of reading, to analytical reading which asks the reader to apply the virtues of reading, and, finally, to “syntopical” reading where various “related” books are read to expand the reader's understanding on a particular subject. This book is also broken down in its second part to a demonstration of these virtues - or skills - to particular genres of writing, such as poetry, fiction, history, social sciences, science and other topics.

I understood the book, which Professor Adler and Van Doren, teach must be affirmed before anything else can be said. I thought this book properly covered its subject matter, was not illogical and was not misinformed or uninformed. Therefore, I have no choice but to agree with it.

That said, I first read this book back in 2008, some 30 years after graduating from college. I wished then, as I wish now, that I had been introduced to this book when I was 18, rather than 48. Certainly, I could read books at the time, but I think that my reading was only partly formed and moved more by instinct than reason. I definitely learned from my first round of reading the importance of being willing to mark up a book.

From that time, I would say that I have been applying a lot of the insights of the book, although I don't think I was doing so consciously. A lot of my reviews ask the question of what problem the book I'm reading is addressing and I've learned to tear down books to their elements in order to understand the text.

This time around, I think I obtained a more solid foundation of a model for being a book reviewer. I think that the tips and skills used for reading also make for excellence in reviewing.

Let's see what happens.

Later than you think by Fritz Leiber

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3TFFR6I0YFXIX?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

[Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote.]


This is a short, short story from the 1950s. It has all the tropes and charm of such stories. It is easily readable in ten minutes and is built around a reveal at the end that may or may not deliver a punch for any particular reader.

I enjoyed the story in a nostalgic way since it was core science fiction, lacked the pomo/critical race/gender sensibilities of the current style, and is a story by a great writer. Frankly, I also liked the gut punch of “deep time” being illustrated in the story and the reversal of our parochial human expectation that we are the latest and last thing.

Mine Were of Trouble by Peter Kemp

Please give my review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R302C4AF5LJ8LJ?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp


This is a most unusual book. It recounts the experiences of Peter Kemp, a young British man who like many went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight for civilization. While there are probably many similar books - George Orwell's “Homage to Catalonia” was one such book - Kemp's book is different in that he decides to fight on the side of the Nationalists, i.e., the “fascists.”

This perspective alone is worth the price of the book. The books I've read have all been written from the perspective of the Leftist Republicans where the bestiality and depravity of the Naitonalists has been an assumed fact. Aside from the partisan bias, these books shortchange the Nationalist side. In “The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction,” for example, the author doesn't bother to explain what the “Carlists” were and where they came from.

Kemp's book makes up for this almost immediately by describing the Carlists and the Requetes forces, the history of the Carlist Wars, and other details. More importantly, he humanizes the Nationalists by showing them as human beings with motivations other than hatred and evil.

Kemp was around 22 and had recently graduated from university. He had been involved with the Conservative Union at university. Kemp's explanation for joining the Nationalists was (a) he thought he could use the seasoning of military action and (b) there was no way that he would fight for the left. The book does not reveal any interest in fascism or fascist politics on the part of Kemp. Similarly, Kemp is clearly opposed to Communism, but we don't hear vituperative condemnations of Communism from him.

Kemp entered Spain under the guise of a journalist. Once there he joined the Carlist Requetes as a soldier and was subsequently commissioned. Then, after discerning that he would get more experience as a Spanish Legionary, he transferred to the Spanish Legion. He describes the military actions he was involved in, and these descriptions make for some tense and fascinating reading.

Kemp comes across as a likable and dependable person. His narrative recounts how he was assisted in his various movements by people he met. He gives thumbnail sketches of the various soldiers he met and towns he visited along the way and the positive way he describes those people and places creates a picture in our own mind of Kemp being a positive and enthusiastic person.

We also get an inside look at the realities of the Spanish Civil War. The sense we get is that the Nationalists had substantial popular support among peasants and villages. This undoubtedly reflects that Kemp was on the winning Nationalist side and the villages captured by the Nationalists would hardly have indicated support for the Republic. However, Kemp's description of the starving and cowed village people suggests that the Republicans were not winning the hearts and minds of the Catholic peasants.

Kemp honestly admits to war crimes among the Nationalists. Captured International Brigade soldiers were shot out of hand by the Nationalists. These forces were particularly hated on the grounds that their intervention extended the destructive war to the injury of Spain. Kemp was ordered to execute a captured British Intenational Brigade member, which he does. Kemp's narrative speaks to his own emotional turmoil. On the other hand, Kemp notes that Republican forces were far more likely to kill Nationalist prisoners:

//Certainly the execution of prisoners was one of the ugliest aspects of the Civil War, and both sides were guilty of it in the early months. There were two main reasons for this: first, the belief, firmly held by each side, that the others were traitors to their country and enemies of humanity who fully deserved death; secondly, the fear of each side that unless they exterminated their adversaries these would rise again and destroy them. But it is a fact, observed by me personally, that as the war developed the Nationalists tended more and more to spare their prisoners, except those of the International Brigades: so that when, in 1938, the Non-Intervention Commission began to arrange exchanges of prisoners of war, they found large numbers of Republicans held by the Nationalists, but scarcely any Nationalist soldiers in Republican prison camps.//

Kemp fought with Italian and German forces. While, apparently, there is a myth that Russia only provided “humanitarian aid,” Kemp notes:

//The Russians did for the Republicans roughly what the Germans did for the Nationalists—they supplied technicians and war material of all kinds. In return they exacted a far greater measure of control over Republican policy and strategy than the Germans were able to obtain from Franco; the price of Russian co-operation was Russian direction of the war and the complete domination by the Communist Party of all Republican political and military organizations.//

One interesting bit of social history is how small the world seemed in 1938. Amazingly, Kemp would run into people he knew from college or who knew his friends. One of the most tantalizing bits is found in this passage:

//The New Year opened sadly for me. On January 31st a Press car containing four friends of mine—Dick Sheepshanks, Kim Philby, and two American correspondents, Eddie Neil and Bradish Johnson—was passing through the village of Caude, eight miles north-west of Teruel, during an enemy artillery bombardment, when a 12.40 cm. shell burst beside it. Sheepshanks and Johnson were killed outright. Neil died a few days later; Philby escaped with a wound in the head.//

So, Peter Kemp knew Kim Philby and Kim Philby was almost killed in the Spanish Civil War?!??!?!

Small world.

Kemp finishes his service for Spain was a meeting with Francisco Franco.

One thing worth contemplating is how the Spanish Civil War was also something of an English Civil War. Kemp fought against British members of the International Brigades. In England after the war, he often appeared at meetings with Republicans foreign volunteers, whom he would have been trying to kill in Spain. Within a year or two, of course, Kemp and those same men were fighting fascists for England.

This is a fascinating story told from a different viewpoint.

How the Doctrine of the Incarnation Shaped Western Culture by Patricia Ranft


This is an expensive book that ought to be set to a lower price point so that it is more accessible to the general reader because it makes some important points about Western Civilization and how Christian doctrine, particularly the Doctrine of the Incarnation (the “DOI”), shaped that civilization. The main thesis of the book is that because of its paradoxical and open-ended configuration, the DOI “catalyzed” intellectual development in the West that moved from theology to other areas. The author, Patricia Ranft, explains:

“mature. The doctrine of the Incarnation is a doctrine of precise balance between two opposites. The balance is the paradox and heart of the doctrine. For centuries the church carefully guarded this balance and declared theologies heretical if that balance was not preserved. With too heavy an emphasis on the divine or on the human, the paradoxical balance is lost, as is the stimulation the paradox produces. It is the doctrine's paradox and its challenge to reason that has historical impact, because it prods the human mind and makes it search restlessly for answers. If the tension between humanity and divinity is relaxed, then the stimuli is dissipated; absence of challenge invites absence of movement and change.”

Ranft breaks the book into two main parts, the first involving a discussion of the DOI in the early Christian Church, and the second discussing the high point of Incarnational doctrine during the High Middle Ages. Concerning the first, Ranft notes that Incarnational/Christological debates were the last of the “great theological debates of early Christianity,” but actually Christology was tied to both Trinitarian other disputes. Thus, the Arian controversy was Trinitarian insofar as it defined the Son as a created being, but it also was Christological insofar as it posited Christ as a kind of unified demigod of a difference substance than the Father. Ranft also notes that the Incarnation was tied to the doctrine of Creation: Athenasius's work on the Incarnation gives its first three chapters to Creation because the purpose of the Incarnation was to save Creation.

A lot of the development of these doctrines was spurred by heresies. Ranft notes that the idea of “development of doctrine” was part of the early church: Vincent of Lerins in the fifth century described a doctrine of “progress” in religion. The first chapter therefore walks the reader through various heresies including Arianism, Marcionism, Monarchianism and other heresies. This opens the way to introduce Athanasius who made a contribution to an understanding of the Incarnation. For Athanasius:

“Once recreated in their original image and likeness of God, humans can be united with God, or, as Athanasius says in a much quoted passage, “For He made men that we might be made God.”39 Thus, the Word became flesh, “to bring the corruptible to incorruption.”40 When the ‘immaterial Word of God comes to our realm,” it fills “all things everywhere” and “no part of creation is left void of Him.”41 Given the inherent weakness of human nature that “was not sufficient of itself to know its Maker,” the Word's presence in creation provided a way for creatures to learn about their Creator.”

The doctrine of the Incarnation is central to Christianity and led to “two of the chief devotions of Christianity,” namely devotion to Mary and the Eucharist. Concerning Mary, Ranft notes that “Mariology and the doctrine of the Incarnation are theologically, historically, and logically intertwined” and “The doctrine of the Incarnation includes—even demands—reverence for Mary, and vice versa.”

Mariology and the doctrine of the Incarnation are theologically, historically, and logically intertwined. If the Word Incarnate was born of Mary, then Mary is Theotokos, the Mother of God. Cyril states the connection so: “Since the holy Virgin gave birth after the flesh to God who was united by hypostasis with flesh, therefore we say that she is theotokos.”96 The doctrine of the Incarnation includes—even demands—reverence for Mary, and vice versa.

Similarly, the Eucharist was tied to the Incarnation. “The Eucharist is proof that Christ is the Word Incarnate and the Word Incarnate is one with the Father; the “verity of communion” within the Godhead “were vouchsafed us through the sacrament of the Body and Blood.”

Ranft links the DOI to changes in the fine arts and rhetoric, where the goal became truth rather than opinion. In an aside, Ranft notes the following:

“Those more familiar with the negative stereotype of medieval culture being unforgivingly univocal may at first find it hard to accept how insistent Augustine (who, we must emphasize yet again, influenced medieval society more than any other thinker) is that diversity of opinion is welcomed. “What harm comes to me, if various meanings may be found in these words, all of which are true? What harm comes to me, I say, if I think differently than another thinks as to what he who wrote these words thought?” Such intellectual activity is healthy. Indeed, it is at the heart of Augustine's own intellectual strivings. We hear this in his ruminations about how differently he would have written Genesis. “Had I then been Moses,” he hypothesizes, “I should have wished, if I had then been what he was and had been enjoined by you to write the book of Genesis, that such power of eloquence be given to me, and such ways to fashion words that not even they who cannot yet understand how God creates things would reject my words as beyond their powers; while they who can already understand, no matter what true interpretation they have arrived at in their thought, would not find it passed over in your servant's few words.”42 Christianity does not stifle rational independence and diversity but encourages it. One can hear Augustine's frustration as he asks again: “Therefore, while every man tries to understand in Holy Scripture what the author understood therein, what wrong is there if anyone understand what you, O light of all truthful minds, reveal to him as true, even if the author he reads did not understand this, since he also understood a truth, though not this truth.””

In chapter Four, Ranft argues that the DOI “prodded the West to develop one of its key traits, its emphasis on human potential.” Ranft finds this connection in Western miracle stories which functioned as signs of humanity redeemed; “in short, they are signs of human potential actualized in the single moment of the Incarnation.” Further, the idea of the Incarnation was applied to human social institutions such as when Pope Gregory defined authority in terms of the Christ's humbling service to humanity in the Incarnation. Gregory's ideas about authority had an impact on Alfred the Great's approach to ruling, his promotion of education and other matters. The Incarnation also informed the Carolingian view of Kingship which emphasized the king as a type of Christ.

In Chapter Five, Ranft transitions to the Eucharistic debates of the High Middle Ages. Eucharistic debates were debates over the Incarnation for “only the Eucharist completes the Incarnation.” Ranft begins with the traditional understanding of the church, which was Incarnational. This was recognized in the early church:

“As the second century progressed these words [John 6] became the central focus of the early apologists' discussion of the Eucharist. They drew “a close parallel between the incarnation of the Logos and the presence of the Christ in the Eucharist.” 9 Ignatius of Antioch opened the century with the confession that “I am convinced and believe that even after the Resurrection he was in the flesh,” because “the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Those who do not so believe are considered unbelievers to be avoided.10 At mid-century Justin Martyr reports it being universally taught: “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”11”

“From the High Middle Ages until the Reformation, Eucharistic theology took center stage.” The debates were high stakes games:

“The battle for control over interpretation of the Eucharist was but another battle for control over interpretation of the Incarnation. Without agreement over the meaning of the Eucharist there is no unity among Christians. Proof of this is, unfortunately, too readily available in the splintered history of Christianity. Transubstantiation, impanation, consubstantiation, annihiliation, transignification, transmutation: these are doctrinal interpretations of the Eucharist that have torn Christianity apart throughout the centuries. Why people did not fight over the doctrine of the Incarnation directly, as they did in the Nicene era, is easy to understand within the proper historical context. Disputes over the wording of the doctrine of the Incarnation were waged by theologians intent upon institutionalizing belief. Disputes over the wording of the doctrine of the Eucharist were waged by were waged by clergy intent upon institutionalizing practice.”

The ninth century Eucharistic debates began with Radbertus argument that there is nothing after the consecration in the Eucharist other than the flesh and blood of Christ. Ratramnus responded with an argument that the Eucharist was the body of Christ spiritually but not physically. “Ninth-century contemporaries saw the debate more benignly as part of a continuing argument between followers of Augustine who emphasized Christ's spiritual presence, and of Ambrose who underlined the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist.” The dispute then erupted in the mid-eleventh century with the debate between Berengar and Lanfranc. Berengar used a rational analysis which challenged the Church's understanding and Ranft argues caused the West to take a “long step to the flowering of Scholasticism.”

Ranft explains the problem that Berengar's rejection of physical reality of Christ's body in the Eucharist was that this doctrine meant the Eucharist involved a miracle, which he felt was “insulting and contemptuous” toward God. Ranft explains:

“Yet, as we have seen, in the West miracles are incarnational. They are a theophany, the place where the divine and the human intersect. For Berengar to deny or even belittle the miraculous in the Eucharist was rightly seen by his contemporaries as an attack at Christianity's core: the paradox of the doctrine of the Incarnation. Lanfranc realized this and insisted that belief in “miracles that are congruous to this faith of ours”49 be restored to the heart of Eucharistic theology: “We therefore believe that the earthly substances which on the Lord's table are divinely consecrated through the ministry of priests are incomprehensibly, inexpressibly and wonderfully by the working of divine power converted into the essence of the Lord's body.”50 This is a logic of a more profound nature, the logic of faith in the Incarnation, “for divine power, working miraculously, is able to do anything.”51 Alger of Liège insisted similarly, that the Eucharistic miracle pales in comparison to the miracle of the Incarnation. “Yet to those dialecticians asking whether the substance of the bread is converted into the body of Christ, and is no longer just bread,” Alger answers yes, that this is so because God is omnipotent [in omnibus et mirabilis]: “In his sacrament [God] makes accidental qualities exist of themselves which in other cases is impossible. Yet of this is the one who brought fertility to the Virgin without a seed, how miraculous is it if he makes qualities exist without the foundation of substance?”52”

In place of the miraculous transformation, Berengar preferred a transformation that occurred spiritually in the individual believer. For Ranft, the importance of this debate was that Berengar was gesturing toward individualism.

Ranft then turns to Anselm who embraced Berengar's rational approach and personified medieval humanism. Ranft argues that:

“Study of Christ's human nature did much to foster a new type of humanism. Key concepts such as self-knowledge, intention, affection, and friendship were major focusses in twelfth-century theology; they are also topics in modern secular humanism.” Anselm pioneered the use of reason to human psychology with respect to an analysis of the affections. Affections fall into a both/and world suited for people used to thinking in Incarnational terms:

“Affections are not only of the spirit or only of the body. They are of both. One without the other is not affection. The doctrine of the Incarnation does not state that Christ is only divine or only human. He is both. One without the other is not Christ.”

Likewise, reason fits into the same category:

“ In a more formal analysis of the will in De Similitudinibus, Anselm describes it as that which resides in the soul along with reason and appetite (affectus). Reason allies humans with the angels, appetite with beasts, but “by will to both. Will holds a middle place between reason and appetite, inclining now to reason, now to appetite.”147 The will, in other words, is the synthesis of reason and appetite much as the Incarnation is the synthesis of the human and divine.”

Ranft then discusses the role of Incarnational thinking in reforms of culture during the High Middle Ages through the thinking of Peter Damien.

Along with the catalyst of paradox, Christ's humanity offered a useful impetus by way of imitation. In the Christian world, work was sanctified, and Christians developed a work ethic from imitation of Christ:

“We can see from these examples of Cistercians theology that interpretations which hold that the order haphazardly stumbled upon economic success are highly suspect. Cistercian success was a result of their work, and their work was mandated by their theology, especially by imitatio Christi. Constance Berman's research offers ample documentation that supports this interpretation; Cistercian contributions to the economic history of the West are significant, and they aggressively and consciously pursued these contributions because of their work ethic.104 That work ethic is expressed in a sophisticated work theology firmly rooted in imitatio Christi.105 In this latter matter the Cistercians are not unique. Numerous groups and people were likewise inspired to adopt a new work ethic after first adopting imitatio Christi. All this led to a significant change in attitude toward work and the worker. Without such a change neither the legislative advances in labor relations nor the economic developments of late medieval and early mo

Damnation Morning by Fritz Leiber



This is a short story set in the same story universe as Leiber's classic “The Big Time.” In that story, we discover that a Time War is being fought between two sides intent on changing history to their own unknown ends. The sides are the “Spiders” and the “Snakes.” The operatives of both sides are people of various ages and worlds “cut out” of their timelines, usually prior to their imminent deaths. Prior to being cut out of their timelines, people are just “zombies” that go through the motions of an apparently self-aware existence but are otherwise puppets of history.

We don't know who the ultimate string-pullers of the two factions are, nor do we know why they are re-arranging history or to what end. The characters don't know either but go along with their missions for their sides, almost like spies during the Cold War, for which this scenario might be Leiber's metaphor. Likewise, the “puppet” theme was explored in a different - more chilling way - in “You Are All Alone.”

That's the backstory that really isn't explored in this short story. The backstory is somewhat alluded to, and anyone with knowledge of Leiber would know the backstory. I think this story about the recruitment of someone for the Spiders - or was it the Snakes - might be enjoyable to a reader who lacked the backstory, but the story is far more enjoyable with knowledge of Leiber's Time War setting.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R37N3T3XXLOPF2?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This book is the basis of the Tom Cruise Movie “Edge of Tomorrow” aka “Live.Die.Repeat.” Both the movie and book are when all is said and considered a novelized video game.

In the book, the hero is Keiji Kiriya, who is a raw recruit in the Japanese element of the United Defense Force (“UDF”). The Japanese are holding the line on the mainland against the alien “Mimics,” which are an alien species sent to “terraform” Earth into a condition that will support their creator's life, but which, alas, is also deadly to human beings. The Mimics are so tough that it takes several humans in an exo-skeleton “Jacket” - perhaps modeled on the suits Robert Heinlein imagined in “Starship Troopers” - to kill a single Mimic.

Except Mad Wargarita - Rita Vrataski - who kills hundreds at a time.

Keiji gets trapped in a time loop when he dies in his first battle. He quickly comes to realize he's in a time loop and vows to get better with each pass through the loop. Eventually, he comes to partner with Rita when she realizes he is going through the same experience she went through previously. From there it is a matter of dealing with the battle.

This book is fast, fun read. It is all action with no let up, although there is a some conflict with respect to his relationship with Rita. However, there is little depth of character; both Keiji and Rita live to play the game - to fight, kill, die and get better with each pass through the loop, constantly racking up points.

How does it compare to the movie? Pretty close, actually. The setting of the movie is in Europe, not Japan; Cruise is an American named William Cage, while Keiji gets the nickname of “Cage” when he joins US Special Ops, but the movie, like the book, is really about the experience of a video game player, perfecting his skills and increasing his points after each reset.

This book is a fast, fun read, but there is nothing special about it.

Utopia at War

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1O2ZTIQXZ3S26?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp


This is the first installment of Iain Banks Culture series.

I was blown away by it as a diamond in the “Space Opera” exhibit.

First, we have alien civilizations. In this case, the main alien civilization is the “human” civilization of the Culture. I put “human” in quotes because I am not sure that they are human, at all. They act as humans, i.e., the good guys, but Banks never identifies them as human and the Culture appears to be an egalitarian melange so it isn't clear.

The Culture is clearly a hyper-advanced socialist system encompassing a large part of the galaxy. Society is largely run by artificial intelligences. Humans are not excluded from the system, but, clearly, society is too complex for mere human intelligence. In addition, artificial intelligences are incorporated into society as independent beings in their own right.

The Culture is wealthy enough to have solved most problems of existence for its inhabitants. This seems to leave the inhabitants with something of an ennui issue. We might call them “decadent” but Banks presents them as the lucky inhabitants of a culture that Marx dreamt of.

There is still ambition among some and they become explorers, pirates, mercenaries, etc. at the fringe among the non-Culture worlds (which it is understood that the Culture will eventually incorporate and enlighten.)

The plot of the story involves a war with an alien species. This alien species is not enlightened and not quite as technologically advanced. The Culture needs to time to repurpose its enlightened, peaceful systems to a war footing. In the meantime, the war will be handled by “Special Circumstance,” which acts in part as the Culture's intelligence and Special Operations Executive.

Second, there is the magnificence of concepts that is typical of Space Opera. The Culture mostly resides on specially created objects (“Orbitals.”) In this case, there is something that is not exactly a ringworld but is flat and constitutes a huge flat ocean on which ocean liners endlessly tour. It is the kind of off-hand extravagance that one would expect from a wealthy, somewhat decadent civilization.

Third, there is the action/adventure of the plot. In this case, the plot involves a race to get to a marooned AI which has important information. The reader watches as a crew of fringe pirates battle against the agents of the enemy to get to the AI. I was surprised at how much action there was in a book whose background was a decadent socialist utopia.

Banks' “The Culture” series has a good reputation. I was impressed with this opening book.

I chanced to be reading Professor Steven D. Smith's “Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac” during the height of the Black Lives Matter Riots (“BLM”) of 2020. As a Catholic, I had noticed the odd behavior of white BLM activists engaging in behaviors that I associated with my faith tradition. For example, there were confessional liturgies where what activists would recite in unison their apologies and guilt for their “white privilege.” We had discussions that accused whites of an “original sin” of racism. What finally clinched it for me was an SJW activist on Facebook discussing how she spent 15 minutes and 20 seconds - the time George Floyd had been knelt on by a Minneapolis police officer - recreating in her mind the second by second experience of Floyd. For any Catholic acquainted with the Stations of the Cross, what she was doing was an obvious analogy to contemplating the Sorrowful Passion of Our Savior.

So, as I'd never seen before, the leftwing BLM movement was shot through with familiar religious impulse and imagery, but, yet, somehow different than what I was familiar with.

Professor Smith's book seems to provide the key to understanding our present moment. His thesis is that human beings are inherently religious but two forms of religion war with each other. One religious impulse places the divine in this world and looks for ultimate fulfillment in this “immanent” world. The other places religious source and fulfillment “out there” beyond nature in the supernatural and “transcendent.”

Classical paganism was the model of “immanent” religiosity. Gods were those who could be bargained with and dealt with because their concerns involved the present world since there was no other world. Why was the pagan world so saturated with sex such that images and statues of phalluses and priapism were everywhere? Because sexual orgasm was the closest that an immanent religiosity could come to transcendent experience in this world.

Of course, immanent paganism was displaced by transcendent Christianity, which reoriented values to a transcendent God and a transcendent final goal. Goods came with this reorientation as Smith explains:

“On the positive side, however, a fair assessment would likely credit Christianity with helping to bring about many of the features of modern civilization that are most valued—including respect for the dignity of the individual,53 human rights,54 the commitment to equality,55 and concern for the poor.56 These ideas and ideals, foreign to ancient paganism, reflect the biblical claims that humans are made “in the image of God,” that God has infinite concern or love for these creatures or children (even “the least among them”),57 and that God gave himself for human beings.”

On the other hand, a sense of dislocation - of being not “at home” in this world - also came with the transcendent religion:

“The pagan orientation, in short, accepts this world as our home, and does so joyously, exuberantly, worshipfully. (Or at least that is one part of the pagan orientation; we may encounter other, darker aspects as we proceed.) The transcendent monotheism of Judaism and Christianity, by contrast, disrupts this comfortable sense of being at home. Though created and sustained by God, the world is now also separated from God—a separation aggravated, in Christian doctrine, by the Fall. Christians (and also Jews) effectively undid the pagan sacralization of the world, and instead effected a “desanctification of nature,” as Heschel explained.56 As a result, Assmann observes, the monotheist “does not feel entirely at home in the world any more.”57 Judaism and Christianity are religions “of distantiation, in contrast to religions of complete immersion in the world.”58”

Of course, neither form of religion is perfectly “transcendent” or “immanent” at all times and all places for all persons.

Immanent religion favored a unified, holistic ethos. Public, personal and civic mores and ethics were unified. All people shared the same mores and ethics because all were part of a single city and there could be nothing greater than the city and the gods who it worshipped. The gods, however, were not going to cause division because they were propitiated by the city.

Transcendent religion is not unified or holistic. Transcendent religion postulates that the city is a temporary and imperfect thing - and always will be - with one's perfect home to be found outside of this reality. Transcendent religion in the Christian version postulated a “Two Cities” political philosophy. One city was the city of this world to which one owed political allegiance but over and above that city was a greater City to which one owed total and ultimate loyalty. This “two city” political philosophy could and did engender conflict; it is not for nothing that the first time a Roman empire was forced to do penance for doing his job and slaughtering people was the Christian Emperor Theodosius who was required to perform a public penance by Bishop Ambrose.

After exploring the sociology and history of paganism and the rise of Christianity, Smith looks at the current situation and finds that secular thinkers are uncomfortable with mere immanence. They truly desire values that transcend this circumstance or that circumstance that they can ground their philosophical systems in. By and large, in my opinion based on Professor Smith's discussion, this project has been largely a failure and an obvious effort to smuggle the valuations most desired by thinkers such as Dworkin into their schemes on ad hoc basis.

However, despite the failure to transcend the immanent as an intellectual proposition, secular thinkers, who exalt the immanent and despise the transcendent that might limit their cathedral building have been very successful in capturing elite culture. Professor Smith turns his attention to two areas- sex and religious freedom - where he demonstrates that the values of the transcendent have been displaced in favor of the values of the here and now. Concerning sex, Professor Smith writes:

“In recent decades, however, activists and lawyers in the “progressive” camp have worked—with considerable success—to reconceive and reconstruct the Constitution as an instrument that can be used to resist and invalidate the earlier civil religion and its manifestations. In this context, therefore, the struggle has not been to transform a Christian element into a pagan one, but rather to capture what had previously been a more neutral framework or arrangement for governance and turn it to the cause of secularism or immanent religion. This development is especially portentous because, insofar as it has succeeded, it has transformed a revered and previously inclusive authoritative artifact—the Constitution—into a partisan weapon, and has thereby undermined the ability of that authority to hold together a community increasingly divided between “orthodox” and “progressive” constituencies.”

Concerning religion, Professor Smith notes that there has been a trend against the accommodation of religious practice as the State has come to take over more and more of the territory of society. Just as Christians in pagan Rome could not do business in the marketplace without offering a sacrifice to pagan gods, Christians today cannot do business unless they sacrifice to progressive gods of transgender and homosexual rights. The only space for Christians is “outside the walls” and that space is shrinking as the State grows:

“There is precedent for such a position. In ancient Rome, Christians often lived and practiced, and were largely left free to live and practice, outside the walls of the city. That is where the Christian catacombs were located, for example, where Christians often buried their dead. And in the confessional states of early modern Europe, dissenting religious communities were sometimes permitted to meet and worship outside the city walls.132 This was religious freedom—of a tenuous sort, to be sure. It was far from full inclusion. But the faithful could live out their faith, as long as they were willing to pay the price of staying out of the public sphere. It was a steep price; still, religion has often fared worse. As noted, the successful completion of phases one and two would leave the contemporary devotees of transcendent religion in a similar position. Considering the alternatives, many might be satisfied with—even thankful for—this sort of free space “outside the walls” in which to practice their faith.133 But then a third phase may set it. In this phase the city swells and the walls are moved outward, so that the space for the free practice of transcendent religion becomes ever more cramped.”

As in Rome, the war is being fought symbolically. Why are we seeing today (July 2020) such attacks statues of Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Catholic Saints and Jesus Christ? Why the most recent attacks on Catholic Churches? The answer is that today, as in Rome, the party that controls the symbols, particularly the transcendent and constitutive symbols, controls the culture.

And, thus, we return to “two cities” political philosophy. Are people who believe only in the here and now, who think that this place is our home, who think they can build a utopia, going to allow people to dissent from their utopia based on their allegiance to a transcendent God?

Not likely.

Smith observes:

“Indeed, as we have seen, the basic conception of the community as under or subject to a higher authority (from which the rest of the accommodation logic follows at least naturally, if not quite ineluctably) has been reiterated repeatedly through the course of American history. Conversely, as that conception of the community comes to be displaced by a secular conception—“secular” in the immanent and positivistic senses—the acknowledgment of such a higher authority will come to seem offensive, unacceptable, almost incomprehensible. Deference to a higher power will now seem an impermissible relinquishment of the community's complete sovereignty.92”

So, down come the statues of Lincoln, Douglass, Catholic Saints and Jesus.

Interestingly, I found an article in Communio - Augusto Del Noce on Marx's Abolition of Human Nature
Carlo Lancellotti - which argues that Western Bourgois culture in its long war with Communism incorporated Marxist elements, including an abandonment of the transcendent. So, similar diagnosis but different etiology.

What is to be done? I think Professor Smith's book is very useful for putting together the threads of the current situation. What appear to be momentary, episodic or insane discrete events are actually unified into a malignant whole. We have to be careful about how far we can take the “pagan” language. Smith points out the modern pagans are not the ancient pagans. They are not worshipping immanent gods and their form of paganism is not likely to revive a common civic life, except in the way that the Soviet Union with its mandatory parades, voting and propaganda simulated a civil life. We can see this in the way that our Work Leftists turn on and crush dissenters in its midst.

Perhaps the answer is to focus on the transcendent and the goods that the transcendent bring and evangelize those good.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3N0BXH7G2XS87?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

DCI Holly Craig has returned to her unpronounceable Welsh home town of Pontyrhudd after some unexplored disaster in London. After graduating high school or second form, whatever it's called in Pontyrhudd, Craig shook the dust of Pontyrhudd from her feet and left for London and a career in law enforcement where she did very well because she is blessed or cursed with the ability to read souls. This essential gift has vaulted her to DCI rank at 32 but also left her with a penchant for alcoholism and coffee.

The first day she is in Pontyrhudd, Craig is assigned to a death by vehicular accident, which she intuits is a murder. Then suspects begin to die in a pattern that seems to implicate her long-dead mother who has become a bit of local folklore known as “Ragged Alice.”

I enjoyed this story. I thought it moved along at a nice clip. The plotline was a bit busy and tangled up. There didn't seem to be much in the way of character development. If this is the first instalment of a longer DCI Craig, paranormal cop series, then that would make sense. I enjoyed the character enough that I would stick around for the next installment.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RNMJUR09013IL?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

This books is composed of two novellas.

The first is “The Sea Dreams It Is The Sky.” This story begins when two exiles from the fictitious South American country of Magera meet in Spain. He is the one-eyed rascally poet, Rafael Avedano, and she is Isabel, a lesbian poetry instructor. They strike up a friendship and then he decided to return to Magera. She follows him to help him and, then, gets sucked into a world of fascist torture and the numinous supernatural.

The story is well-written. Author John Jacob Horner establishes the character as exiles and Magera as a kind of latter day Pinochet's Chile. My problem with the story was the ending. I found its ending to be unedifying and inexplicable.

The second story was “My Heart Struck Sorrow.” This story follows two storyline. In one storyline, we follow Cromwell who is dealing with his guilt after the death of his wife and son. In the other, we follow music ethnologist Harlan Parker in 1937 as he records Southern folk songs. On the path of finding the Ur-source of Stackolee, he runs into the supernatural.

I really liked the second story. The folk song element was extremely enjoyable. I did some research on Stacker Lee and was fascinated by the history of the song and the backstory. The storylines hold together and the ending worked.

I would probably rank the first story as two stars, but the second story made the sale.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R361YBNTGKNM89?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Ebert's Essential Guide to 27 Movies from the Dark Side

I know something about Film Noir, but there is no way I will ever know as much as Roger Ebert did. He watched movies and knew the backstories of those movies. In this book, he offers his expertise in recommending twenty-seven movies he considers to be the class of the genre.

Ebert's recommendations run the gamut of stylistic French film noir to American pulp noir. A film afficianado could not do better than following his recommendations and watch these movies. Some of his recommendations are obvious: Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, and L.A. Confidential. Some are obscure or forgotten gems, such as Out of the Past, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, In a Lonely Place, that Ebert does a great service of reminding us existed. And, then, there are movies I would never have heard about, such as Bob Le Flambeur, Touchez Pas au Grisbi, Pale Flower, and Ace in the Hole (with Kirk Douglas.) I'm not sure I would agree with some of his recommendations; I thought Elliott Gould's The Long Goodbye was too saturated with '70s sensibilities to make a good film noir, but that was before I read Ebert's review and learned some of the backstory, including the fact that the film was written by science fiction legend, Leigh Brackett.

In sum, if you like films, want to know more about films, or are looking for some films to watch, this is a good resource.

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2J30W8ZUFZHKN?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp


In this sequel to “The Rook,” readers get to look under the hood of the weird world of the Checquy. As we learned from the first book, there is a very secret English secret service composed of paranormally gifted Brits with various odd talents, such as the ability to liquefy metal or fly or other oddments. Rather than let these people run around being public nuisances, they were organized into a chess-themed organization to protect England. In the 17th century, the Checquy came up against a Dutch organization of biological super-scientists called “the Grafters” for their proclivity to change the human form by grafting new organs onto their subjects.

In the last book, after a lot of court intrigue, we learned that the Checquy and the Grafters were going to combine forces.

This book takes up from that point. In it, Odette Lilliefeld, her brother Alesio, and her extended family of Grafters come to England to discuss the merger. Coincidentally with that visit, strange deaths begin to happen in England that attracts Checkquy attention

This is a long, convoluted and clever story. There are plots and counterplots in the Grafter world. Most of the Checquy view the Grafters as demonic horrors that they have been trained to fear and loathe. Grafters return this feeling. Both have awesome and horrific weapons at their disposal that the other views as akin to witchcraft.

The story moves along, although you have to pay attention to the characters who come and go. The main characters are the young Grafter, Odette, and the young pawn assigned to protect her, Felicity Clements. Odette starts off under a cloud as her awkwardness reinforces the Checquy's attitudes, but she is a resourceful, intelligent, and witty character. Over the course of the book, we see that a friendship between Clement and Odette develops.

What kept my interest, in particular, was the dry British humor that crackles throughout the book. Some of the exchanges and predicaments of the characters, including Odette's younger brother Alessio, had me chortling out loud. Along with the humor, of course, there is action and adventure abounding.

The main character for “The Rook,” Rook Myfanwy Thomas, is a continuously appearing character, but while she is important, the focus is mostly off of her, which is fine in my mind, since we saw enough of the court-level activities in the first book.

This is an entertaining and engaging book that allows the reader to escape from the mundane.