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Warrior Politics ::
At one point in this book, Kaplan pulls a quote from James Madison:
In framing a government, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the goverened; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary cautions.
A statement like that (granted without context), is quite striking when coming from Madison. History tends to describe him, as well as the other founding fathers, as an unbending idealist and optimist. His development of the American form of democracy was motivated by a faith humanity, by a belief in fundamental, inablienable rights. The consent of the people to being governed was supposed to be fundamental to the new system of government -- it was what defined it. Viewed in that context, Madison’s reference to "auxiliary cautions' is slightly inconsistent his mythic persona. It’s also slightly unnerving.
But then, the entirety of Warrior Politics is unnerving. In it, Kaplan assails all of the preconceptions, ideals, and desires that the Government, the media, and the American public have developed, then accepted about the nature of our current political world. He talks about the dangers we face, and he talks about the grim realities of war. In that regard, he addresses what should motivate us when we decide to go into war. His basic argument is that we need to be self interested when we make our diplomatic and military choices -- fighting battles over an ideology invariably leads to a loss of political power, and sometimes results in the destruction of a state.
That self-interested motivation also translates into a political philosophy. Because unlike a rigid adherence to a higher political or social ideology, having self-preservation or self-advancement be our primary motivation results in the freedom to compromise. It provides a certain level of flexibility. And compromise is necessary in order to preserve any level of social order.
Warrior Politics was hard to read. It made me angry many times, but its hard-nosed realism was also refreshing. By far the hardest thing to deal with was when I actually found that I agreed with what Kaplan was saying. But ultimately, the things he talks about are incredibly important for anyone who finds politics in this country of even slight importance. As he says himself: unless our elected officials make the choice to lead us as we are, and not as they would like us to be, it is an abdication of their responsibilities as leaders.
With Malice Toward None ::
People talk a lot of trash about Lincoln. Some people love to idolize the guy, and they speak of him in these grandiose, mythological terms. To them, he fought not only to end slavery, but to preserve the Union, and everything he did was guided some core principles about which he never waivered.
Then there are those people who see Lincoln as a bigot, as a Midwestern racist who differed very little from the most brutal slaveholder of the time. To them, he was a brutal leader who led a war that tore people’s lives apart and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. And on top of that, he didn’t actually care about freeing the slaves -- that whole thing was incidental to the period.
The version of history presented in this book does not split the difference between these two opposing viewpoints. Instead, it presents Lincoln as a highly intelligent, very ambitious Midwestern lawyer who was largely self-educated, who struggled with depression all of his life, and who seemed to never really wanted to be president. (He saw himself more as a senator, apparently, but could not get elected as one.) And while it is true that Lincoln was himself a bigot, he saw how his bigotry came into conflict with the principles of freedom and human rights that he was supposed to be upholding, and was able to create policies that transcended his weaknesses and end the brutal hypocracy of slavery.
Part military strategist, part human rights activist, Lincoln had the ability to figure out which card to play at the exact right moment. And he was able to make a decision not instantaneously, but through hours of hard contemplation. As a result he weathered through two of the most significant Constitutional crises in US history. All of which makes me wonder how useful a guy like him would be these days. But then, if he were around he’d probably just scoff at the relative luxury of our lives, then retire to his cabin in the perfectly flat Illinois countryside.
Signal to Noise ::
This book was just fine. Nylund tells a good story, and his style keeps me turning pages. Also, he knows how to tell a good story. However, the compelling nature of his story seems to be based not on any new ideas he presents, but rather on his command of a whole series of time-tested storytelling techniques and science fiction topics.
Here’s a high-level overview. In the future, things are bleak. The hero is a smart man, who has achieved his high-ranking academic position because he has figured out how to work the system, how to cheat when he needs to. The hero has a friend, a woman who brings to the story a challenge to the hero’s techniques (not to mention a sliver of sexual tension).
Then one day, the hero is drugged by a villain. When he awakes, the hero discovers that the villain has cracked his skull and put in a brain implant. Crippled by migrane headaches, the hero learns the nature of the implant, and finds that while he has been injured, he has also been endowed with a new power.
Meanwhile, the woman, the bringer of challenges and sexual tension, as well as an old Arab friend, have pooled their talents and resources and have developed a gene-editing enzyme. Anyone who takes this enzyme might die, but if they don’t they will have an essentially unflawed genetic structure. The story then progresses in very conceiveable ways.
Now. I realize that I’m sounding glib as I write out this story structure. And I only halfway mean to. Because while Signal to Noise is not in any way an original narrative, it was also thoughtful, and it just simply worked as a story. Which is not an easy thing to do -- you don’t have to look far to find a book in which that doesn’t happen.
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