Books of 2004 (II)

Here goes with Part II. It occurs to me I am being very positive on the whole, so sorry to anyone who wants a better mix. Bear in mind that a book is not like a film, which one tends to finish having started it. If you really think a book is bad, you tend just to stop reading. Those I review here are those I finished.

Why Government Is the Problem - Milton Friedman
An enjoyable little pamphlet highlighting the difficulties government intervention creates in so many areas of life.

Education Answers - John Clare
The book of the Telegraph Education chief's letters column, with inquiries and their answers on every tier of education. Pragmatic and utterly free from silly ideology, the decline and problems of our education system at every level shine through the book. Quite gripping, oddly enough, and memorable in the way that individual anecdotes can be in highlighting what Clare shows in his responses is a depressing bigger picture. A few years old now, but it still contains much on the innovations being introduced by New Labour. Certainly a book to pick up for a few quid if, as I did, you see it second-hand somewhere.

A Tory Seer - T. E. Utley
This collection of Utley's columns forms an extremely enlightening overview of British politics from about the mid 1960s up the end of the 1980s. Utley's philosophical conservatism is at once instantly recognisable and in my case somewhat dearly missed. This High Toryism really does hold answers some on the Right are in danger of forgetting, and gives a good historical perspective on the dilemmas of a conservative, thereby having much to contribute to the debate over the Conservative Party's current direction. One can see at once why the likes of Thatcher and Powell saw Utley as such a sage.

(My favourite T. E. Utley anecdote: Denis Thatcher was talking to Utley's wife, and asked him at what age he went blind. She then told him that her husband had been unable to see since the age of nine. At this point when others had asked her this, people would normally exclaim: "Then he can never have seen you!". But Denis Thatcher immediately exclaimed: "Then he can never have seen Margaret!".)

The Age of Consent - George Monbiot
Here's an edited version of what was basically a review that I wrote in Harry's comments:

In Age of Consent, George Monbiot advocates a new global government, and sets out the steps on the way to get us there. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense. The whole idea that the world is on an inevitable course towards global unity under one government is itself touchingly naive and typically rationalist (in the philosophical sense; I don't mean that as a compliment). He lists all the other steps, from city-state to nation and so on, as if the growth of bigger and bigger bodies is something people and governments desire for their own sake. But anyone who understands human nature will know that large groups of people only unite successfully when they conceive of their interests in opposition to another group. American college football teams are a picture of ethnic diversity, white and black working together so successfully as to put ordinary college relations to shame. But it's precisely because the other side will crush them that they do work so well together. Ordinary campus race relations don't run nearly so smoothly because there is no other to work against. Maybe alien invaders will solve that one for Monbiot, but their arrival would, I think, present bigger problems than it would solve.

I found Age of Consent just weird, to be honest. The long passages explaining why anarchism wouldn't mean a non-violent utopia, for example, suggest he wasn't really aiming at a very down to earth audience. There were whole pages on anarchism that would be too obvious to need saying to anyone who hadn't pot-smoked away their critical faculties.

The critique of international trade was central to the book, and at its basis was the idea that importing goods and services is about the worst thing that could possibly happen to a country, exports the route to riches. This rather popular notion is of course exactly the wrong way around - imports are the benefit; exports the cost.

Of course, the main suggestion of the book - that the third world threaten together to default on all its debt in return for a new world structure - would only futher impoverish their countries for at least a generation. Secure property rights are an absolute prerequisite for any economic progress. If governments are willing to jeopardise that for the sake of playing politics, no one in their right mind would dare risk leaving their capital lying around to be seized by these crooks in suits, nor loaning it to them at anything but the most punitive interest rates. Cutting off your nose to spite your face doesn't begin to describe the folly of such a move.

What it Means to be a Libertarian - Charles Murray
Strangely for anything by Charles Murray, I didn't on the whole find this a memorable book. Perhaps it's because I've read a lot of works quite like this, but I found it quite a standard case for libertarianism. That said, some sections really were excellent, though, most of all those which attempt to explain why the influence of government is either negligible or bad. As I recall, Murray's answers are that first government tends to displace voluntary institutions which were working on the problem, anyway. Second, government tends to be ineffectual where it does operate.

Perhaps the best innovation of the whole book is his simple test for a state intervention: the trendline test. Take a problem government is aiming to solve, and graph the trends, and see if there really is any noticable difference in those trends after government gets involved. What a great tool for examining policies, it being an utterly objective way to test various claims and counter-claims. Indeed, I recall David Willetts - who I'm sure has read Murray - using the trendline test to devastating effect at the 2003 Tory Conference in explaining why the New Deal has done nothing to reduce unemployment.

The Red Queen - Matt Ridley
Probably the best book I read in 2004, and one of the best books I have ever read, Matt Ridley's Red Queen is an breathtakingly good look at human nature from the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology. The subtitle 'Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature' makes clear its focus. It's worth asking why. Ridley explains at the beginning:

Why sex? Surely there are features of human nature other than this one overexposed and troublesome procreative pasttime. True enough, but reproduction is the sole goal for which human beings are designed ... Those of their predecessors that reproduced passed on their characteristics to their offspring; those that remained barren did not. Therefore, anything that increased the chances of a person reproducing was passed on at the expense of anything else. We can confidently assert that there is nothing in our natures that was not carefully "chosen" in this way for its ability to contribute to eventual reproductive success.

Or, to give a practical example:

Why has that man fallen in love with that woman? Because she's pretty. Why does pretty matter? Because human beings are a mainly monogamous species and so males are choosy about their mates (as male chimpanzees are not); prettiness is an indication of youth and health, which are indications of fertility. Why does that man care about fertility in his mate? Because if he did not, his genes would be eclipsed by those of men who did. Why does he care about that? He does not, but his genes act as if they do. Those who choose infertile mates leave no descendants. Therefore, everybody is descended from men who preferred fertile women, and every person inherits from his ancestors the same preference.

There hasn't been a day since I read this book I haven't found it useful in understanding real world motivations and actions. More than the practical side, it is huge in its political implications. Yes, science is (or should be) above politics, but if that's true then politics certainly isn't above science, so if the science tells you a political scheme or view is impracticable, you'd better listen. And what is obvious throughout the book is how imbedded in our natures are enormous sex differences, and a plethora of preferences when one looks for a partner or mate. There is no blank slate on which any social and sexual model can be built, but an entire superstructure of reactionary preferences and inclinations. I cannot imagine anyone of a remotely socially liberal outlook reading this book and not being both infuriated and profoundly depressed.

The Red Queen explains why, in the old phrase, men use love to get sex and women use to sex to get love. It shows that from these scientific realities flow so many implications: male homosexuality being extremely promiscuous and female homosexuality extremely monogamous; men consuming pornography and women romance novels and scarcely if ever is there a crossover; why men make the 'Madonna-Whore distinction' between loose women they will happily sleep with and chaste women they will trust as wives; and the answer to all manner of questions one might not have thought to look to evolution for the answer.

The book is also quite poignant in describing the darker side of human nature, and how sex and love can drive people to brutality. Ridley reveals just how often throughout history whole armies of men have been led to war by the opportunity to rape women and girls after victory as much as by fear or patriotism. Anyone inclined to believe that mating fights are restricted to animals and savage tribes will be shaken out of that by the amazing story of British sailers stranded on the Paitcairn in 1790. After they arrived, there was a slight sex imbalance: fifteen men to thirteen women. When the colony was discovered eighteen years later, ten of the women had survived, and one man. Of the other fourteen men, one had died, one had committed suicide and twelve had been murdered. "The survivor was simply the last man left standing in an orgy of violence motivated entirely by sexual competition." Obviously this latter story does not bode well for those who advocate the redefinition of marriage to allow polygamy and the like, and Ridley appears to view mass rape and social disorder as an entirely plausible consequence of so many men in any society unable to find partners as a result of a fortunate few marrying multiple women.

This is one of those books that gives the reader a new perspective with which to view the world. I can't imagine anyone not benefitting from absorbing its message.

If I have by now persuaded you to check out this book, let me only advise in addition two things. First, some of the opening chapters, entirely on animals, are not essential to appreciating the rest of the book, so if you find them very tedious skip them, but don't stop reading. Second, that if you haven't read Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, then you'll get more out of Ridley by doing so before starting on The Red Queen.

In the Name of the Family - Judith Stacey
One of my pet hates are books whose titles pose questions that the work itself never answers. It's very common to find a title like "Why x does x" for a book that is actually just a narrative history with little attempt at judgement. In The Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age is that sort of book. There is no real rethinking, little of any detail in attempts to defend the author's liberal views (and those few defences she does give are not convincing by any standards). There is no serious attempt to refute the overwhelming evidence that family breakdown and illegitimacy are not only causes but absolutely key causes of school failure, poverty, crime, depression etc. Indeed, the book is basically written as if these criticisms have never been made, even though most chapters begin with quotes from pro-family figures making just these points, to demonstrate the strength of feeling of the other side. All we get is a book-length account of how many people oppose family breakdown or 'the postmodern family' as Stacey calls it, and the rhetorical and political battles that have been fought in the United States because of this. Very poor.

The Turner Diaries - Andrew McDonald
As many readers will know, this book was a favourite of the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, who sold it obsessively at gun shows and had relevant pages from the book about a similar bombing on his car seat the day he was arrested. It was written by American neo-Nazi William Pierce. Basically, it's the diary of a rebel militant, Andrew McDonald, in a Jewish-controlled authoritarian America, and the tactics his genocidal terror group uses to try to overthrow this government so as to ethnically cleanse the United States of non-whites. In case anyone remains in any doubt, it's very, very racist and very, very violent. Even despite all this, such a storyline could at least have been gripping, which it isn't, or the writing good, which it isn't. I suppose if one had to find something nice to say about the book, it is that it has a lot in the way of describing the process by which each attack is carried out, in just the way boys seem to like. If you go in for the Bravo Two Zero style - "We left two grammes of explosives at his patrol point, then stretched the detonation wire under three rocks before ..." - then this book does cater for that, the attacks and tactics themselves are well-planned.

This is basically the sort of book you would expect a lonesome Marxist nerd who supports Sinn Fein or FARC to write, though such fantasists would use the bourgeoisie and the upper classes in place of black and Jewish people. Theoretically, it might be well worth reading for its own sake despite its politics, if it boasted brilliant writing, and a fantastic storyline. I can assure you it doesn't. Of academic interest only.

This book can be read for free online if you Google its title.

Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | Permanent Link |

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Sunday, January 02, 2005
 

Books of 2004 (I)

This last year, for uninteresting reasons, I decided to keep track of the date I finished each book I read. Anyway, it does allow me now to know just which they were, and to give short reviews, recommendations or warnings. I always take seriously the views of others on certain books, and rarely have been disappointed when someone has said that they personally found a certain book illuminating or enjoyable, so here's hoping I too can be of some help to anyone who likes the sort of books I do. This is the first post in a series of about half a dozen or more.

Media Control - Noam Chomsky
A compelling read, but seriously flawed, in ways I explain here.

Slouching Towards Gomorrah - Robert Bork
A brilliant account of the culture wars from the perspective of a rejected Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Bork's focus is less on family and crime, and instead on college campuses, activist judges on the bench and the many militant campaigns to which so many have caved in. Some parts of the book - like on the prevalence of euthanasia in the Netherlands and the amazing damage being done to military efficiency by political correctness - are astonishing. As ever with this sort of work, the solutions are laid out with far less detail and confidence than the problems.

Virtually Normal - Andrew Sullivan
Given the high praise I had heard for this book, I was distinctly underwhelmed when I actually read it. Sullivan mixes in some personal accounts of growing up and living as a homosexual with perspectives on the various political attitudes to his choice of lifestyle. The former are very interesting, but much shorter than the rather mixed chapters on attitudes to homosexuality - from militant Foucaltianism to liberal to conservative to prohibitionist. In these chapters, he does a good job of laying out the arguments in each case (indeed, far too good a job of presenting them as reasoned to make convincing his tendency as a blogger to scream 'bigot!' at anyone who disagrees with single-sex marriage). But I thought he didn't do a very good job getting his own ideas across in response to the cases he elucidated. I came away from the book with greater empathy for people who incline towards homosexuality, but also - oddly - more convinced than before that recognising the singular importance of the married 'nuclear' family is a necessity.

The book does, at times, also go on a bit. Perhaps Sullivan doesn't realise that for most people on both sides of the political divide, homosexuality is not so much interesting in itself than as part of a wider struggle relating to family norms. So few are likely to be terribly keen on reading an awful lot of pages about Michael Foucault's attitude to homosexuality.

Introducing Keynesian Economics - Peter Pugh
Does what it says on the tin, really. A fair introduction, explaining well some of the things I notice textbooks seem to consider - not always correctly - to be too obvious to state. Don't expect much depth, though. Samuelson's innovations in turning Keynesian literature into mathematics are scarcely included - and it's this that most students at least would be buying the book for.

The Accidental Theorist - Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman is the great advocate of moderate economics (his politics are a very different story), and this book is great as advocacy of the middle of the road. Good for getting across general principles on such issues as trade and labour standards, and also at explaining specific principles - one essay in particular convinced me that a little inflation is basically benign, while before I read it I would have described inflation generally as bad - the more of it you have, the worse.

You can read 24 of the book's 27 essays here.

Some Of Us - Julian Critchley
Passable, unmemorable account of important figures in the Thatcher years. Some like John Major, were at the centre of politics at the time, others, like Anita Roddick, rose to fame in other ways in those years. Not recommended.

The Bush Boom - Jerry Bowyer
If you read National Review's economics coverage, you'll know what to expect. A convinced supply-sider's readable account of George W. Bush's economic policy, it's subtitle 'How a Misunderestimated President Fixed Our Broken Economy' rather giving away its slant. In fact, it is quite generous to Clinton in places, and takes a very positive approach to most of the economic and tax reforms of the last decade, including - of course - Bush's own big tax cuts. One warning: the book is short - 133 pages, but from page 69 onwards it is all appendices of graphs and data tables.

Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | Permanent Link |

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