Bible

Mearsheimer and Walt ⁠— three words that do not appear once in this 1045-page book but are clearly its raison d’etre. John Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago; Stephen Walt is Professor of International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School; together they are the respectable face of American anti-Semitism, sufficiently reputable that Walter Russell Mead seems unwilling to criticize them by name, sufficiently retrograde however that their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy infuriated our southern-born dean of foreign relations to work on this book for a dozen years or so.

The Wikipedia article on the Lobby book illustrates Mead’s Southern Gentleman approach; whereas Israeli historian Benny Morris says “their work is riddled with shoddiness and defiled by mendacity,” Mead applauds the authors for “admirably and courageously” initiating a conversation on a difficult subject, but more in sorrow than in anger laments that while their intentions are surely strictly honorable, they commit “easily avoidable lapses in judgment and expression.”

Making multiple approaches from multiple angles, Mead demolishes their central notion, giving it the withering moniker of Vulcanist thinking. (Actually I take issue a little with this label, because since the book is so long I forgot the elegant historical anecdote that originates it ⁠— a theory of astronomy that attempted to explain celestial workings by means of an undetected planet that doesn’t actually exist. Instead I mentally defaulted to popular culture, where Star Trek’s Vulcan is a stand-in for excessive logic ⁠— a characterization quite antithetical to his notion of Vulcanist thinking. This is a shame because the term therefore probably won’t catch on, which it could have perhaps as a shorthand for tendentious yet respectable and therefore ultimately even more ridiculous thinking.)

Especially enriching are his fleshing out of the geopolitical maneouverings among the US, Britain and Russia at the time of Israel’s founding. Important here for Mead’s thesis is that the legend of Truman’s Jewish friend from back in Missouri inveighing on the flummoxed President to recognize Israel be relegated to Queen Esther-echoing myth. For it is WRM’s contention in his chapter “Cyrus Agonistes” that American support for Israel is endemic to the United States, rather than due to the influence of the American Jewish lobby qua Walt and Mearsheimer. Moreover this support comes despite American Jews, whose leaders have for most of Israel’s history been actively working against a Jewish state, their energies only turning once America as a whole pursued full-throated support for Israel after it became the Middle East’s unambiguous Six Day War strong horse.

It’s also a helpful historical insight that WRM groups 19th century American support for Jewish return to Israel with support for the birth of the Italian and Greek nationstates:

In the ancient world, as Americans saw it, the Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews had been much like Americans of the nineteenth century. They were mostly agrarian people, nations of family-owned farms. They had free institutions and their societies were grounded in virtue. But corruption, urbanization, and monarchy had wreaked their ugly work; in time, all three of the ancient peoples fell from their virtue and freedom into slavery, superstition, and oppression.
…
As the nineteenth century progressed, and the Greek and Italian independence movements advanced, the possibility of a restored Jewish commonwealth also began to gleam on the horizon.

In fact the discussion of nationalism’s birth pangs from the empires of eastern Europe, the chapter entitled “Maelstrom”, is perhaps the richest part of the book.

As a columnist I have been irritated by what I perceive as WRM’s intellectual mealy-mouthedness. But as a full-throated podcast guest I realize this is merely his print persona, a tic I suppose similar to what he probably views as his Straussian icy politeness regarding Mearsheimer and Walt. That said, I took umbrage when in the book he referred to the Second Intifada, a wave of despicable terror attacks against Israel in the wake of the Oslo Agreements, using the BBC-like passive even-handed term: “violence flared”. I instantly recalled eyewitnessing the shellshock in the hours after the Dolphinarium suicide bombing that killed and maimed dozens of partying teenagers. I was only somewhat mollified later in the book when he mentioned this particular bombing by name, without mentioning that the victims were teenagers.

This is a book about America not Israel, and as well as constituting a scathing retort to Mearsheimer and Walt, is a continuation by other means of his 2001 book Special Providence that classifies the various streams of America’s foreign policy; in portraying America’s relationship with Israel, Arc explicates the fullest expression of the Jacksonian stream, a Meadian classification that, unlike Vulcanism, does seem to be sticking.

I was brought to this most non-sci-fi of sci-fi novels by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group. Narrated in character by its autistic protagonist, Speed of Light initially reminded me of Mr Robot. Yes, I did like it, but wasn’t sure if the thinness of the other characters is due to our narrator’s limitations or those of the author; I don’t know her other work so can’t say. A mostly unsentimental decency permeates – actually it’s an exploration of decency – which gives it an appreciable pre-cyberpunk, almost square feel.

“Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon

This is the least sci-fi novel of any that we’ve read for the Sci-Fi Book Club or whatever it’s called, or any that has sci-fi written on the cover. Having a cure for autism isn’t really enough of a difference from our current world to justify the name. But whatever. I guess if it wasn’t classified as such it would seem very geeky?

I enjoyed and appreciated it, the device of the narrator being autistic. It reminded me near the beginning of Mr Robot, but is more old-fashioned in the sense that the protagonist/narrator ends up a completely good guy whereas Mr Robot is more cyperpunk in that he’s more of an anti-hero, and right now in the middle of season 2 I’m wondering if Ray is just as much a figment of Elliot’s imagination as his father and the ruthless owner of the illicit trading web site is none other than Elliot himself, and the one who gave him such a beating is, well, himself, again Fight Club style.

But that is not this novel. Here the combat is the much more civilized, stylized fencing. The choice seems so particular that once again I wonder/fear that the character fences because the author does. And we come away at the end with no sense who the other characters are, which is great in a way because our narrator has been autistic, but in the end, once he is no longer, then it wasn’t enough to suddenly break out into longer, less stacatto sentences; we should have had enough time to suddenly see Tom and Lucia, the fencing instructor couple and surrogate parents, and Marjory the love interest, in technicolor as it were.

Nonetheless, I like the unabashed Ayn Randian morality; this strong, anchored, decent impressive man has moved on up to the next step, almost a superhuman now in that he has access to the analystic obsessiveness of his pre-op life.

Perhaps these days it would be looked at from a transgender or whatever viewpoint; he has been given his true self by medical intervention.

The speed of dark idea is nice and cute and it makes me think of the Tao, and absence vs presence, the power of nothing, etc, but the speculations about it seem incomprehensible or nonsensical or meaningless to me. As someone who takes an interest in this, I didn’t get it. It is a nice conceit though. And it is a big question: is nothing actually something?

There are lovely touches, like his dream of riding light and being faster then waking up feeling happier than ever before.

The bad guys, Don and Mr Crenshaw, are kind of ridiculous, but the decency of everyone else keeps the worldview sane. Again, we don’t see them, as if the narrator is looking at his toes the whole time. So there should have been a more explosively colorful epilogue than the accomplished man sitting at his desk on a spaceship. We never see him interact with any of the old characters now that he’s normal, beyond the second visit to the rehab center by Tom. It’s like 2001 – no sentimentality, onward, upward, though this time it’s our character rather than humanity.

Mr Aldrin, the sympathetic supervisor, it’s good that the narrator doubts him but he does activate whatever network he has within the company and act subtly to make people aware of the enormity being committed. He is perhaps the most 3-dimensional character. Is that deliberate or just how it worked out for this reader?

So, did I like it? Yes? Does it shimmer as great literature, every nuance reflecting off every other to build this big metaphorific edifice? No, I don’t think so. Place is never mentioned but it does somehow feel very American, very somewhere between the northeast and the midwest or something. Not further west I don’t think. There’s something about it that just doesn’t feel British. Interesting that. Why could it not be in England?

Yes, there are hints that this is in a different world: it’s hotter, the maple trees have died, there’s an emphasis on public transport – that’s one thing American, that this is a sci-fi notion.

I really enjoy this man’s depictions of foreign countries, even if it does chafe a bit that Israel is lumped together as a subject with his North Korea and Burma. He gets many things right, and for some reason I just love seeing comic book depictions of Israel. There’s a lot of emphasis on the Wall, which I suppose is no surprise for someone visually and graphically oriented, and not enough sympathy for the reality that caused it.

I really enjoy this man’s depictions of foreign countries, even if it does chafe a bit that it’s North Korea, Burma and Israel. Ifshar Lachfof. But he gets many things right, and for some reason I just love seeing comic book depictions of Israel. Perhaps because I grew to love the environment after hating it, and now love it so much, and I can’t do this myself. There’s a lot of emphasis on the Wall, which I suppose is no surprise for someone visually and graphically oriented, and not much sympathy for the reasons that caused it. There is a lot of disdain for Israelis. After taking Arab buses for half the book, he ends the chapter with an Israeli driver saying, “What, the Arabs have buses?” But given what I know, it’s probably true. The pleasures of Tel Aviv, the beaches, the babes, are recorded, but this man does not give them huge significance in the broad scheme of things. Disgust really for the Orthodox and the settlers, the bad manners – one turns away from him without a word when he says he’s not a Jew, the tour given by settlers has canned laughter. True, true and true. And yet, and yet…

Ah, this should have been more exciting. It’s not quite turgid, but it is academic. The central thrust is simple: the Enlightenment political philosophy grew out of looking not just to secularization as a model but also to the Hebrews. A synthesis of Athens and Jerusalem, but the book ignores the Athens to focus on the apparently hitherto unacknowledged Jerusalem.

A rich mixture of travelogue, history and policy pamphlet that is ultimately more of the former than the latter, it casts itself as a critique of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, but isn’t really. Rather, it’s a diving in. A lively and exciting diving in. I did want it to be longer than it is.

The book of the Book. I am biased but there is just so much here, and the good doctor is such graciously juicy writerly company. I especially like the Babel treatment.