Amazon.com
In Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean, who served as White House counsel under Richard Nixon and then helped to break the Watergate scandal with his testimony before the Senate, takes a vivid and analytical look at a Republican Party that has changed drastically from the conservative movement that he joined in the mid-1960s as an admirer of Senator Barry Goldwater. Listen to our interview with Dean as part of our July 13 Amazon Wire podcast (along with interviews with Garrison Keillor and Henry Rollins) to hear how he originally conceived of the book with the late Senator Goldwater, and the social science research he drew on to put together his portrait of the "conservative authoritarian." (You can subscribe to regular Wire podcasts here.) And take a look at Dean's choices for the best books to read on the American presidency in our Grownup School feature.
Book Description
John Dean takes a sobering look at how radical elements are destroying the Republican Party along with the very foundations of American democracy
John Dean's last New York Times bestseller, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, offered the former White House insider's unique and telling perspective on George W. Bush's presidency. Once again, Dean employs his distinctive knowledge and understanding of Washington politics and process to examine the conservative movement's current inner circle of radical Republican leaders—from Capitol Hill to Pennsylvania Avenue to K Street and beyond. In Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean not only highlights specific right-wing-driven GOP policies but also probes the conservative mind-set, identifying recurring qualities such as the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them, as well as the big business favoritism that costs taxpayers billions. Dean identifies specific examples of how court packing is seeking to form a judiciary that is activist by its very nature, how religious piety is producing politics run amok, and how concealed indifference to the founding principles of liberty and equality is pushing America further and further from its constitutional foundations.
By the end, Dean paints a vivid picture of what's happening at the top levels of the Republican Party, a noble political party corrupted by its current leaders who cloak their actions in moral superiority while packaging their programs as blatant propaganda. Dean, certainly no alarmist, finds disturbing signs that current right-wing authoritarian thinking, when conflated with the dominating personalities of the conservative leadership could take the United States toward its own version of fascism.
Customer Reviews:
Conservatives without conscience.......2007-10-22
so well written,gives one a little insight into Washington and how far removed the people are from the rest of the country. It would appear that once someone goes to Washington they act like the people who voted them there are rather stupid. Don't know how we could get so far removed from the founding people.The corruption of power is so apparent...,like Rome or Greece...just hope we can be more aware to what is happening all around us.
Some good material, but at heart disappointing........2007-10-14
The thesis John Dean gives for this book is that the current conservative movement is dominated by two kinds of authoritarian personality: followers, who will obey any strong voice and who refuse to ask questions; and dominators, who will say and do anything to gain power.
Unfortunately, the bulk of Dean's psychological evidence comes from a single source, and his portrayal of that evidence is extremely poor. It ends up reading as a circular argument: "authoritarians are people who do these things, and these people do these things because they are authoritarians."
The most glaring flaw in the argument is the utter lack of left-wing or Democratic figures in the analysis. Well-known dominant figures such as the Clintons are completely ignored, with the blithe handwave that authoritarian personalities are almost completely restricted to conservative political views.
There is some value in the material he delivers about specific individuals- how Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff and others openly betrayed some, bullied others, lied, cheated and stole in order to gain and hold personal power. However, I greatly suspect this information is available in Dean's other books, Worse than Watergate and Broken Government, which do not have the handicap of a flawed and almost indefensible psychological argument.
For people like me who want to prevent the creation of an elective monarchy in the United States, who want government made both accountable and balanced again, this book does not provide the ammunition we need to counter the lies of those who still support the establishment. Dean is quite correct about there being conservatives without conscience, but rather than demonstrate that lack of conscience with deeds he tries to do it with psychology- and in so doing he fatally undermines this book.
Revealing.......2007-09-30
I'm nonpartisan, but not nonpolitical. Over the years, my votes have been split pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans. But in recent years, I've been very disappointed in the changes in the Republicans. They no longer embrace conservative values. They've become hard-right authoritarians, catering to a dwindling proportion of the American people. Dean's book gives the reader lucid insight into what has been going on, and his writing is backed up by extensive social research into the authoritarian personality.
This is an important work for anyone who wants to remain politically aware.
Honest, insightful, must read.......2007-09-20
After reading the trilogy of deans books, I, a very liberal democrat, can finally say that these people have no conscience and better understand why i am saying it. I'm in my 50's so i remember a lot of the nixon/reagan issues and even gave me a better grasp of those crooks. When a republican speaks out against republicans americans needs to listen. I have always felt that thse conservatives were the gravest threat to america thru their judicial appointments, which the rest of the country seems to be oblivious to. It was nice to see that dean felt the same way. Worst president/vp ever. Dems are toothless tigers, reps are liars,crooks and self serving idiots. John W. Dean for president, with Lou Dobbs for vp
A "MUST" read for thinking people.......2007-08-23
Raised a republican, a Marine, a biker, a banker, a business consultant: I was the perfect target for the Bush assault on America. NO MORE!! As Mr. Dean writes about the abuse Bush and crew have made on our freedoms, out liberties, on human decency, so to did I become a progressive, a liberal in all but the death penalty and immigration. Dean writes from the inside, from the perspective of a 'insider', a functioning republican establishment pro. We see how our rights and liberties are being assaulted and taken. It's useful, informative, wisened reading. Well worth your time.
Book Description
Barry Goldwater IS the conscience of a conservative. --Ronald Reagan New introduction by Patrick Buchanan.
Customer Reviews:
Why the barking moonbat RFK Jr??.......2007-08-29
I was going to add a newer addition to my library, as my earlier edition is pretty worn. I'll find an earlier edition in good condition rather than buy this one. Why the forward by RFK Jr, I'll never know...
Perfect book until the new Afterword by RFK Jr. CC Goldwater what were you thinking?.......2007-08-25
Mr. Conservative explains what the job of the Federal Government was originally intended to do. It was Not created to make Pyramid schemes like Social Security, not for health care, not for Education, not for creating jobs, not for creating bureaucracy after bureaucracy, not giving over our sovereignty to the United Nations etcetera etcetera. I was so satisfied reading this book up until the end. How can CC Goldwater let a Left Wing Hack Job like RFK Jr. write the Afterword? He is for all of the Government intrusion/handing over sovereignty to the U.N. that Barry Goldwater was completely against. And then he puts words in this great man's mouth! The audacity! RFK Jr. only gets a forum to speak because of his father, he is a LOSER!! Using the Afterword Forum to rail against modern day Republicans that he despises is pathetic. Hey RFK JR., I'm still waiting for you to agree to have windmills installed by your place in Nantucket...you private jet flying HYPOCRITE!!
The Essense Revisited.......2007-08-22
This is a great statement of true Conservatism. What was the point of an afterword by a Socialist Loser. That's the only reason I didn't rate this a 5 star. I would buy an earlier edition if I had it to do over again.
All Political Leaders Need to Read This Book.......2007-06-28
Given the horrible state of politics in our nation and federal infringement on state rights and the constitution, now more than ever all leaders especially conservatives need to read this book. And most importantly after reading it, they need to apply it in how they govern and formulate policy.
Excellent.......2007-03-16
A truly enlightened book. Written by a brilliant man. It is sad that it took 16 years for his votes to be counted when Reagan one the 1980 election. A must read for all Conservative and Patriotic intellectuals.
Customer Reviews:
A trustee's recommendation for "Shared Values".......2000-09-06
Kidder's book gives serious food for thought. Our world is very diverse. People come with different needs, different agendas, and different cultural backgrounds that color their understanding of others. We seem to disagree on so much and have minimal interest in working together. Kidder stresses that our world is getting smaller and to survive and grow, we, as a world need to find a common ground from which to work together. We need to find "universal truths". There is too much at stake if we don't: concerns that affect everyone, from damage to the environment to economic issues between the haves and the have nots. Without a common ground from which to talk, to trade, and to understand each other, we, as a species are bound to fail.
In his book, Kidder interviews 24 highly respected people from a variety of backgrounds for their perspective on universal values. From these interviews, Kidder identified several important ingredients. The eight values that most often appeared were love, truthfulness, fairness, freedom, unity, tolearance, responsibility, and respect for life.
Part of our job as community college trustees is to help our school, our administration, and our students meet the needs of a growing, changing, and ever more diverse society. How will we meet those needs? What do we need to consider? This book gives some key insights to ponder and gives me personally a much broader appreciation of "diversity". I recommend it.
Amazon.com
David Brock made his name (and big money) by trashing Anita Hill as "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." But it was Brock's reporting that was nutty and slutty, he confesses in the riveting memoir Blinded by the Right. He absolves Hill; claims he helped Clarence Thomas threaten another witness into backing down; portrays a ghastly right-wing Clinton-bashing conspiracy of hypocrites, zillionaires, and maniacs; and accuses himself of being "a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine." Now Brock is sliming his former fellows--everyone from the lawyer who argued the Bush v. Gore case to gonzo pundits Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham ("the only person I knew who didn't appear to own a book or regularly read a newspaper") to Matt Drudge and Tom Wolfe. Brock excoriates the gay hypocrites of the right wing, including himself, and tells how he cleverly spun his own outing. (He calls himself "the only openly gay conservative in the country," evidently forgetting about the far more open and famous Andrew Sullivan.)
If Brock says he was a liar for much of his life, how do we know he's not lying now? Blinded by the Right is less addicted to anonymous and third-hand sources than the madcap character assassinations that made him famous, and it is infinitely more plausible. But that doesn't make it necessarily true. (Anita Hill's lawyer has acidly observed that Brock confessed his Hill-related lies after seven years, when the statute of limitations prevents suing for slander.) Dumped by the right after he wrote a non-hatchet-job book on Hillary Clinton, Brock profits by running to the arms of the center and left. But that doesn't make this book untrue. All I can tell you is you'll have to read it and decide for yourself. And I'll bet you'll admit this mea-culpa memoir has the revolting, irresistible fascination of a bad car wreck. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
In a powerful and deeply personal memoir in the tradition of Arthur Koestler’s
The God That Failed, David Brock, the original right-wing scandal reporter, chronicles his rise to the pinnacle of the conservative movement and his painful break with it.
David Brock pilloried Anita Hill in a bestseller. His reporting in The American Spectator as part of the infamous “Arkansas Project” triggered the course of events that led to the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton. Brock was at the center of the right-wing dirty tricks operation of the Gingrich era–and a true believer–until he could no longer deny that the political force he was advancing was built on little more than lies, hate, and hypocrisy.
In
Blinded By the Right, Brock, who came out of the closet at the height of his conservative renown, tells his riveting story from the beginning, giving us the first insider’s view of what Hillary Rodham Clinton called “the vast right-wing conspiracy.” Whether dealing with the right-wing press, the richly endowed think tanks, Republican political operatives, or the Paula Jones case, Brock names names from Clarence Thomas on down, uncovers hidden links, and demonstrates how the Republican Right’s zeal for power created the poisonous political climate that culminated in George W. Bush’s election.
Now in paperback and with a new afterword by the author,
Blinded By the Right is a classic political memoir of our times.
Customer Reviews:
A jaw-dropper and a must read for the 2008 elections.......2007-04-02
There isn't much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said in other favorable reviews here. All I'll add is that even if you allow for the zeal of Brock's re-converson to liberal prinicples and some bitterness towards his former conservative and neocon mentors and paymasters, there is much in this book that rings frighteningly true. Most fascinating is Brock's inside look at the anti-Clinton smear machine of which he was part - and which, no doubt, is warming up for 2008. Arm yourself with knowledge that you'll need if Hillary runs for President. Read this book.
pseudo-conservatives.......2006-09-30
In his 1950 study of the authoritarian personality, Theodor Adorno constructed a political-psychological profile of people he called "pseudo-conservatives." These were people who called themselves conservatives but in truth adhered to political agendas that betrayed the ideals of individual freedom and free markets. Pseudo-conservatives were motivated by hate, fear, and power, not the desire to conserve or guarantee liberty. A few years later, the eminent historian Richard Hofstadter appropriated Adorno's term in describing what he called "the paranoid style in American politics." In Adorno and Hofstadter's day, this paranoid style of pseudo-conservativism was still in its embryonic state, personified by the rantings of Joseph McCarthy but still far from being the game plan for the Republican Party as a whole. David Brock's Blinded by the Right chronicles how this movement slithered its way into power long before anyone had heard of Karl Rove, whose name isn't even listed in the index.
Blinded by the Right amazingly combines the political history of a loathsome political movement with the personal story of a sympathetic individual who found himself at the center of that movement. Always an idealist among opportunists, Brock's entrée to conservatism was admirable enough, as he was a former Kennedy liberal who was turned off by Berkeley protest-ologists who simply shouted down their adversaries, thus betraying the cause of free speech that had galvanized the campus in the glory years of the 1960s. But those ideals quickly dissolved into an us-versus-them battle which was motivated by a hatred for liberal enemies more than anything else. Ironically, Brock and his colleagues had much more in common with late 60s revolutionaries like the Weathermen, with their constantly escalating rhetoric of destroying the establishment, and Stalinists in the Communist Party, who enforced the party line by threatening dissenters with the charge that they were helping "the other team."
Blinded by the Right is an essential chronicle of a political movement and a historical era, but somehow it is even more than that. Its personal narrative of a young person's rise to power and fame, followed by descent into disillusionment and depression, is gripping enough for Hollywood. Brock came out as a homosexual while he was in college but then shoved himself back into the closet as he ascended to celebrity status on the Right, whose agenda became increasingly homophobic after the collapse of communism left them without the enemy they had depended on for so long. Brock now sees his willingness to parrot right-wing ideology as part of his attempt to fit in with the movement when he secretly knew didn't, and he sees the vitriol that he spewed in his writing as a subconscious expression of his own self-hatred. In fact, Brock offers many penetrating insights into the psychology of his right-wing former colleagues, and for the most part they appear to be a miserable bunch prone to textbook cases of projection.
Brock's break from the right corresponded with his personal move toward self-acceptance. It is heroic act of liberation that sometimes made me want to stand up and cheer for him, but it was clearly a journey full of pain. His liberation proceeds in stages, with Brock initially portraying himself as a victim, and then only later coming to grips with his own complicity and eagerness to serve the movement. Changed but not bitter, Brock comes out the other side as a very wise man who can see clearly now only because he is able to accept himself, his past, and his imperfections. I hope we'll see more books like this in the future coming from the current throng of right-wingers, but I'm not holding my breath, because this required a ton of courage and compassion, and that's precisely what this movement lacks most.
Interesting mea culpa.......2006-08-03
After hearing about this book a great deal from many people, I finally had to give it a read. What I got was a mostly well written account about how Brock gave the neo-con movement exactly what they wanted in terms of what can only be called propaganda. Brock does a good job in exposing the oft-ridiculed "vast right-wing conspiracy".
But it makes a boring read at times, what with long lists of people and publications. And it seems just a bit self-serving at times, like he is trying to say, "Oh, how bad I was to do all this, but I was very good at it." And, after all, he does say exactly what I, as a liberal person, want to hear about those on the right who keep insisting that people who believe like me are traitors.
I respect Mr. Brocks conversion to the left, and I like his work with mediamatters.org, but I am not sure I plan to read any more of his books.
There is a constitutional right to hate.......2006-07-27
This book is a terrible exposure of the powers behind the (extreme) right in the US, of their methods, of their foot-folk and their `morals'.
The powers are the fundamentalist Christian Right, extreme wealthy families and corporate interest. Those powers are firmly anchored in the Republican Party.
Their means are disgusting smear campaigns, vulgar attacks on political opponents, totally biased reporting, in one word `whournalism'.
Their working method are `see what you are supposed to see', `turn a blind eye to facts that do not suit your political aims' and `paper over monstrous moral wrongs in the service of the perceived morality of your cause'.
Their foot-folk are members of think-tanks, media men, investigators, journalists, intelligence personnel. The author considered himself as a right-wing hit-man, profiting hugely from his totally biased or completely fabricated scribbles.
This book unveils the raw selfishness, the protection of sinister (Bertrand Russell) interests (`cutting taxes to defund the left') and the blatant hypocrisy and hidden opportunism of many of the members of these groups (`a decadent and hypocritical conservative elite, leading public and private lives that bore little resemblance to each other').
This book exposes relentlessly huge monuments of vulgarity and ghastly political horror stories.
It gives a terrible picture of extremely powerful political groups within the US society.
Not for the faint-hearted.
REDEMPTION FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE TRUTH?.......2006-07-16
David Brock's memoir, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, made the New York Times Best Seller list, landing the author on Good Morning America and other prime time television shows. In sixteen chapters with names like "Leninists of the Right," "A Counter-Intelligentsia," and "Strange Lie," the 378-page mea culpa names many familiar right-wing names, enumerating the wicked behavior of Brock's erstwhile politically "conservative" accomplices. His public soul searching caused me to free associate Brock's with a similar fascinating memoir published in Poland by Otto von Hoess in 1947. von Hoess similarly asked his readers for understanding and sought redemption for his wrongdoing -- after the fact. Because of its striking similarity, I'll later get back to the nearly 60 year old mea culpa.
In Blinded by the Right, Brock traces his trajectory from boyhood through a high school youth working for liberal Democrats into the inner sanctum of the most rabid right-wingers of the Republican jihad. He self psychoanalyzes his brief love fest with Kennedy liberals by juxtaposing this with his disapproving and conservative Catholic father and moderate yet secretive mother. His family's big secret is that Brock and his younger sister Regina (who the author loves very much) had been adopted. This secret, plus several others, haunts Brock through adulthood. His other secret which is much more inconvenient to hide from the world is that ever since he was eleven years old, Brock knew that he was a homosexual.
Brock's homosexuality was no problem in college because he attended the University of California at Berkeley where in the 1970s being gay was no big deal. But it was in Berkeley that Brock metamorphosed from a diehard liberal Democrat into an extreme right wing Republican. While Brock was writing for the Berkeley student newspaper, the then new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Jeanne Kirkpatrick had been scheduled to speak. But rowdy anti-Kirkpatrick students kept disrupting her speech and hounded the speaker off the podium (finally, by splashing it and the speaker with fake blood).
Struck by the hypocrisy of liberal Free-Speech-movement promoters denying a platform to a conservative speaker who they didn't like, Brock was prompted to write a scathing denunciation in the student newspaper of the students' hostile intervention. Student backlash for Brock's piece was prompt and violent. He enjoyed the fracas and decided to join the ranks of right-wing writers, repelled by what he had perceived as the phoniness of "politically correct liberalism." Notwithstanding his evolving closet homosexuality, Brock was drawn to the seemingly straightforward simplicity and clearly articulated positions of the political conservatives.
Brock traces the ascendancy of his investigative "journalistic' career through writing for the Rev. Sun Moon-owned Washington Times. While ascending through his writings for the ultra right-wing American Spectator, Brock broke bread with ideologically hardened, prominent right-wing luminaries such as Marvin Liebman, Terry Dolan, Paul Weyrich, Bill Kristol, Grover Norquist, and even gay basher David Horowitz. Because the religious right-wingers condemned all gays, Brock's shadowy lifestyle was a constant source of anxiety for fear of his discovery.
Brock really struck gold at the Spectator right after the now, ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had gone through a very difficult confirmation hearing because of Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment. It was Brock's assignment to write a believable smear book about Anita Hill so that Thomas could appear to have been a victim of a liberal conspiracy. Brock wrote the best selling The Real Anita Hill, which demolished Hill's testimony, credibility, and character. Later, and now in Blinded by the Right, Brock freely admitted making it all up and then neatly packaging this smear literature in an investigative journalistic package.
A similar attack on president Bill Clinton based on rumors and made-up stories of his Arkansas sex scandals started the ball rolling towards the president's eventual impeachment hearings. But at each turn of Brock's right-wing literary fusillades he got deeper into the inner sanctums of radical conservative, rich and powerful movers and shakers. But Brock's Clinton sex scandal writings are what would finally do Brock in.
Clearly, Brock didn't have a sudden epiphany of the harm his writings had done to America or that he had been serving wicked people who call themselves conservatives. Rather on page 180, Brock tells us that the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz phoned him to ask about his sexuality. Presumably, a writer exposing the president's sexual waywardness can similarly be scrutinized. That petty much did it. The rest of this story is about most conservatives, especially the religious right-wingers, turning on Brock after his public outing. That's when he decided to "come clean" and admit that his written trail of smears against Anita Hill and the Clintons were lies.
When a writer like Brock loses his right-wing career, what's left for him to do?: What's left to do -- that can still earn good money -- is writing a best selling revelatory memoir, a mea culpa that names names. But what kind of harm had Brock done to America? His lies had influenced what happened in the Thomas-Hill debate and undermined a constitutional process His lies helped to stage the political assassination of a sitting American president and further divide an already badly divided and, thereby, weakened United States. His lies were extremely useful to the misanthropic ultra conservative crowd that would love to preside -- and are beginning to succeed at it with George W. Bush -- over a tyranny of the Right. After admitting all of this lying, Brock wishes us to believe that Blinded by the Right is the truth. So then concerning Brock's implicit appeal for our understanding and seeking redemption for his wrongdoing, I return to Otto von Hoess.
In 1947, von Hoess penned his bizarrely fascinating memoir "Commandant of Auschwitz" in which he freely acknowledges being responsible for the murder of two and one half million Jews. His memoir is an account of his ascension in the Nazi party first as a competent prison warden for ordinary criminals in Germany to his final post a commandant of Auschwitz. He explains how his background and historical events propelled him into that position. von Hoess pleads with the reader to understand that he is no monster but just an ordinary man placed in extraordinary circumstances.
Now clearly, Brock and von Hoess had committed very different kinds of crimes. The Nazi was hanged for crimes against humanity in Poland, right after completing his, indeed, fascinating self-searching memoir in 1947. After getting outed for being gay, Brock lost all of his right wing connections and then tried to atone for his crimes against journalism by setting the various records straight. But since both von Hoess and Brock had their revelations and admitted their guilt after having been exposed, are they entitled to our understanding and have they earned redemption for their wrongdoing?
Amazon.com
Between 1993 and 1997, Michael Ignatieff traveled through the battlefields of modern ethnic war, visiting Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan to consider the mixture of moral solidarity and hubris that led Western nations to embark on the campaign of "putting the world to rights." Why do some people and nations, he wonders, feel morally responsible for strangers thousands of miles away? In The Warrior's Honor, Ignatieff explores this question by skillfully combining eyewitness accounts of modern war with a historian's insight into the constancy of human conflict.
Ignatieff's concisely written essays examine four primary themes: the moral connection created by modern culture with distant victims of war, the architects of postmodern war, the impact of ethnic war abroad on our thinking about ethnic accommodations at home (the "seductive temptation of misanthropy"), and the function of memory and social healing. He firmly believes that "the world is not becoming more chaotic or violent, although our failure to understand and act makes it seem so." The Warrior's Honor takes an important step toward educating the reader about the historical context of modern ethnic conflict. Perhaps most importantly, Ignatieff fosters discussion of the means by which deeper, more permanent commitments can be made in the future to minimize such atrocities. --Bertina Loeffler
Book Description
Since the early 1990s, Michael Ignatieff has traveled the world's war zones, from Bosnia to the West Bank, from Afghanistan to central Africa. The Warrior's Honor is a report and a reflection on what he has seen in the places where ethnic war has become a way of life. Ignatieff charts the rise of the new moral interventionists--the relief workers, reporters, delegates, and diplomats who believe that other people's misery is of concern to us all. And he brings us face-to-face with the new ethnic warriors--the warlords, gunmen, and paramilitaries--who have escalated postmodern war to an unprecedented level of savagery. Hard-hitting and passionate, The Warrior's Honor is a profound and searching exploration of the perils and obligations of moral citizenship in a world scarred by war and genocide.
Customer Reviews:
When Warriors Lose It.......2004-03-14
This is an eloquent book, veering to poetry at times. For a book about the modern wars of militias and warlords within failed states, its eloquence actually gets in the way of the message at times. Occasionally one can even see that sometimes Ignatieff says something just because he has thought of an eloquent way of saying it. Not that I am accusing him of insincerity, for he is not. Nor that the book is without an honest message, for it has several.
The book is a sort of meditation on the nature of these "modern wars" that is colored much by his own personal experiences in several of them. The observation that is central to the book is that diverse people (who are really much alike too) can fall into a state of viewing the "other" as the enemy when a state begins to fail to protect them, and anarchy looms. In successful modern states, the protection is present, and the fiction that diverse people are underneath it all, the same, is maintained.
The book has a very intelligent treatment of the dilemma of the various aid agencies such as the Red Cross and the UN Peacekeepers in trying to ameliorate the effects of war, and maintain their credibility, while not prolonging it or even intensifying it.
On the other hand, the author is a little too reverent of Freudian and even Marxist ideas on the nature of man, both of whom have about zero credibility to the discerning reader. His account of the "Narcissism of Minor Differences" is just so much hooey to me. Ignatieff seems to be entirely uninformed of modern thinking on this problem, which goes by the name of evolutionary psychology, and to me, seems so much more insightful and informative.
The general problem of war is not treated here, only a particular form of it. The wars that inform his thinking in this book are those in Angola, Lebanon, Ireland and, especially, Yugoslavia, with a few "lessons" from the holocaust thrown in. There is not much in the way of systematic study, but rather a grab bag of ideas and anecdotal observations. Eloquently written, though...
Have a pencil close by!.......2001-09-08
The streets in downtown Montreal were filled with people - hundreds of them, shouting, waving banners and wearing the ubiquitous "target" emblem on their shirts. They had gathered to demonstrate against the NATO intervention in Kosovo, which had been launched by the Western alliance to end the ongoing cleansing of ethnic Albanians in the region. That particular day had a strange feel to it, not unlike the first day the US-led Coalition began bombing downtown Baghdad in 1991. In a way it felt as if war had somehow found its way, through a crack in space, maybe, into the otherwise peaceful metropolis. On that day, on the recommendation of a friend (thanks Robert), I purchased Ignatieff's The Warrior's Honor. However, I did not read it until very recently, as it had gotten lost (or drowned, rather) among the tons of other "must read" books (their reproductive rate is admittedly very high) that inhabit my bookshelves.
Now that I have read it, however, I understand why it so often gets quoted by other authors; despite its relatively short length, it is literally one of the very best books on the issue of ethnic-based conflict. Ignatieff's writing is extremely quotable, and on numerous occasions I found myself highlighting passages which so aptly drove to the heart of what other authors require whole chapters to evoke. Rich in sources - both literary and philosophical - it is, unquestionably, a master's exercise in conciseness and analysis.
The chapters "The Narcissism of Minor Difference" and "The Seductiveness of Moral Disgust" are especially enlightening, and I know I will be revisiting them frequently.
This book, along with Jonathan Glover's Humanity, should be read by anyone who hopes to cast a ray of light, however feeble, into the shadowy realms of man's inhumanity to man.
A lucid analysis of the things that most ail us.......2000-03-10
At the moment there are many books being published examining the successes and failures of the humanitarian interventions that have followed the end of the Cold War - more failures than successes, truth be told. As part of my job, I read as many of them as I can. It is this book, however, that I constantly return to. My copy is dog-eared, and deeply scored with underlinings. In every paragraph, Ignatieff has something worthwhile - and frequently confronting - to say.
He addresses the role of the media and the triangle of relationships between audience/media/political leaders; he looks at the rise in humanitarian organisations and the peculiarities of the ethics under which they work; he brings insights from the field on the way the UN is so often programmed to fail.
The power of Ignatieff's writing stems from his unique capacity to bring together the perspectives of news correspondent, novelist and philosopher. He is direct and extremely readable, while also knifing into the subtle heart of the "New World Order."
In the chapter entitled "The Narcissism of Minor Difference" he comes as close anything I have read to explaining why ordinary people are moved sometimes to conduct atrocities on their neighbours. It is vivid and convincing.
If you feel exasperated by the hideous mysteries of ethnic and sectarian conflict, I urge you to read this book, if for that chapter alone.
Honor in Ethnic War.......1999-04-02
I read this book through a class I took and I was impressed by the deep analysis on the issues of ethnic war including a focus of television and media, charitable empathy, the need for conflict, and a warrior's honor. Ignatieff differentiates ethnic wars happening now (civil wars, ethnic wars, brother vs. brother) than that of wars the US has waged in the past (vs. country/nation). These new types of war show a new dynamic of intervention and war atrocities relating to it. The common thread Ignatieff points out is relating to a warrior's honor. Much like chivalry, a soldier in battle should follow certain rules of conduct like not committing atrocities against the indigenous population or letting interventionists take care of the wounded. Ignatieff also focuses on many ethnic conflicts of today in Rwanda, Somalia, and Serbia as examples of the dimension of ethnic war. Ignatieff uses loaded terminology and might be too much to comprehend, but his examples help the reader understand the context he is pushing for. Further examples from Freud's "Narcissism of Minor Diffence" and James Joyce gives this book a well-rounded academic feel. This book gives great insight to human need during ethnic war especially with the current conflict in Kosovo.
Average customer rating:
- Perhaps one of our few chances left...
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The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America
Norman Mailer , and
John Buffalo Mailer
Manufacturer: Nation Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
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ASIN: 1560258241 |
Book Description
“Questions are posed,” writes Norman Mailer, “in the hope they will open into richer insights, which in turn will bring forth sharper questions.” In this series of conversations, John Buffalo Mailer, 27, poses a series of questions to his father, challenging the reflections and insights of the man who has dominated and defined much of American letters for the past sixty years.
Their wide-ranging discussions take place over the course of a year, beginning in July 2004. Set against the backdrop of George W. Bush’s re-election campaign and the war in Iraq, each considers what it means to live in America today. John asks his father to look back to World War II, and explore the parallels that can—and cannot—be drawn between that time and our current post-9/11 consciousness.
As their conversations develop, the topics shift from the political to the personal to the political again, as they duck and weave around one another. They explore their shared admiration of boxing and poker, the nature of marriage and love, television, movies, writing, and what it means to be a part of this extraordinary family.
Customer Reviews:
Perhaps one of our few chances left... .......2006-04-02
Growing up in the sixties, I guess I took Norman Mailer for granted.
Boy, I'll never do that, again.
After all, there was a time when people like Mailer, Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, actually had a regular column, each month, in places like Esquire magazine. And, people such as myself could count on brilliant, independent minds, capable of executing a great novel, providing periodic commentary on the times we were living in (through?). And, the books they wrote were still events: much read, much discussed, and looking back, they were actually what kept us, sane- at least those of us for whom sanity was a virtue.
But, tragically, those days are officially gone.
We now have any number of empty, babbling, pundits; essentially employees of General Electric, Westinghouse, Disney, News Corp and/or TimeWarner, whom we allow to define the day's agenda. What's left of the "culture", is divided up among television, movies, the Internet, and radio... probably in that order.
We actually have nothing left that can be referred to, with any seriousness, as a "culture". We just have different corporate entities using different means of entertainment with which they focus our attention on anything other than what it mean to be "alive" or truly "human". It's a very extraordinary, and extraordinarly dangerous period of history to be living in.
I remember someone on some talk show way back in the early 70's saying that "we're the last ones [that generation, not this] who will remember what it was "like".
Well, here is someone who not only remembers what it was like, but can still, at the age of 83, compare "it" to how it is now, and leave one grateful, shell-shocked, aching for a change of guard, and thanking one's lucky stars for the privilege.
Plus, apart from the conversation bewteen Mailer and his son, there is also an essay inserted right in the middle of the book which alone is worth the price. It is called "Myth Versus Hypothesis", and despite the pretentious title, it is one of the best pieces of political writing I've ever seen in my life. It was apparently delivered as the Keynote Address during Harvard's Commencement Ceremony in 2004. I have not been able to find it anywhere on the Internet, so I do not believe it was ever published elsewhere. I challenge anyone to produce anything comparable, which has appeared in recent years in any magazine, newspaper, etc.
Mailer has lived and learned quite a bit in his time. And I can not exaggerate the value of this gem for those of us who can still appreciate the "Real McCoy", or for those who who would genuinely like to briefly step out of their "Orgasmatron" and actually visit what was once the late, great planet Earth.
I once read that the great French novelist and mystic Romain Rolland carried a copy of Goethe's "Faust" with him at all times ("my constant companion") for his entire adult life. I'm not comparing this book to "Faust", or Mailer to Goethe, or suggesting to anyone that they do the same with it. But, I did recall that statement of Rolland's while reading "The Big Empty". Because it reminded me of how there a just a few rare indivifuals in any epoch that can really help make their age TRULY intelligible to their fellow travellors.
Norman Mailer proves that here... in spades.
Book Description
An inspiring collection featuring the milestone speeches of one of the greatest orators of the 20th century.Throughout the 1950s and 60s, the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., led the Civil Rights movement, inspiring generations of Americans and transforming the future of the United States. This collection includes the text of Dr. Kings best-known oration, I Have A Dream, his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, and Beyond Vietnam, a compelling argument for ending the ongoing conflict.
Download Description
His speeches stirred a generation to change--and outlined a practical way to economic freedom and true democracy. His words would help bring about the end of a brutally unequal system and would show a timeless method for achieving fairness and justice for all. A CALL TO CONSCIENCE is a milestone collection of Dr. King's most influential and best-known speeches. Compiled by Stanford historian Dr. Clayborne Carson, director of the King Papers Project, and by contributing editor Kris Shepard, this volume takes you behind the scenes on an astonishing historical journey--from the small, crowded church in Montgomery, Alabama, where "The Birth of a New Nation" ignited the modern civil rights movement, to the center of the nation's capital, where "I Have a Dream" echoed through a nation's conscience, to the Mason Temple in Memphis, where over ten thousand people heard Dr. King give his last, transcendent speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," the night before his assassination. In twelve important introductions, some of the world's most renowned leaders and theologians--Andrew Young, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and Mrs. Rosa Parks, among others--share with you their reflections on these speeches and give priceless firsthand testimony on the events that inspired their delivery. Expressing a deeply felt faith in democracy, the power of loving change, and a self-deprecating humor, A CALL TO CONSCIENCE is Dr. King speaking today. It is a unique, unforgettable record of the words that rallied millions, forever changed the face of America, and even today shape our deepest personal hopes and dreams for the future.
Customer Reviews:
Gotta own.........2007-05-13
I listen to these over and over, can't stop listening to Dr. King. Very moving and the things he said and did were all so real. Our generation of now needs to hear his speeches. You really want this collection!!! I'm buying a couple more as gifts.
A Call to Conscience........2007-03-26
As one who may be called a baby-boomer, I was born at a privileged time; I more or less 'came of age' in the late 1960's, in a restless and changing world that was asking old questions anew, and breaking down old paradigms. Looking back from our present perspective, nothing of those times has cast a longer shadow than the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The King Estate has long been very protective of copyrights for Dr. King's speeches and this small volume is very welcome. Selecting Dorothy I. Height to introduce the 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech makes good sense, but does selecting Senator Edward Kennedy to present an introduction bring ethical legitimization to 'A Call to Conscience'? If the answer is no, there might have been a less distracting choice.
"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." - MLK, 1963
Nice to have.......2007-03-19
I think it is very much worth the purchase. From a historical prespective its very informative. The way MLK speaks is amazing and moving. The way he presents himself makes me want to better myself. I have to admit there is a problem with this product. The sound is not very clear on some parts of the cds. With that said, would I buy this product knowing what I know now, Indubitable Yes!
Important Work.......2007-02-18
Excellent introductions and speeches for those of us who weren't there to live it. Challenges one to seek to do important things, not ordinary things.
Martin Luther King Jr. is still teaching.......2007-01-10
This historical collection of the public speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. is a treasure for Americans and people all over the world. He is still teaching his message of truth, peace, and justice. The dramatic emotional connection you get when hearing his voice deliver these messages is an important way to learn about recent history.
I was born in 1947. I once heard Dr. King speak at UCLA when I was a student there in the 1960's. He, like his mentor Mohandas Gandhi, were remarkably wonderful men. Such peaceful men were murdered by assassins bullets but could not silence them. People can still learn from this fallen leader. Like Gandhi he was never elected to public office yet his words have great impact today while the actions of politicians have failed to achieve their intended goals. Hearing taped recordings of his live speeches is a treat.
Book Description
The Egalitarian Conscience pays tribute to the highly influential work of Professor G. A. Cohen. Professor Cohen is a philosopher of international stature and tremendous achievement, who has been vital to the flourishing of egalitarian political philosophy. He has a significant body of work spanning issues of Marxism and distributive justice, consistently characterized by original ideas and ingenious arguments. The high standard of rigour he sets for progressive thinkers, particularly himself, has been a source of inspiration for colleagues and students alike. The volume honours Professor Cohen with first-rate essays on a number of significant and fascinating topics, reflecting the wide-ranging themes of Professor Cohen's work, but united in their concern for questions of social justice, pluralism, equality, and moral duty. The contributors are scholars of international stature: Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, Susan Hurley, Will Kymlicka, Derek Parfit, John Roemer, T. M. Scanlon, Samuel Scheffler, Hillel Steiner, and Jeremy Waldron. There is an afterword by G. A. Cohen.
Book Description
Dr. Budziszewski begins by turning his criticism on himself, examining the foundations of the nihilism of his early career. Describing the political effects of Original Sin, he shows how man's suppression of his knowledge of right and wrong corrupts his conscience and accelerates social collapse. The depraved conscience grasps at the illusion of "moral neutrality," the absurd notion that men can live together without a shared understanding of how things are. After evaluating the political devices, including the American Constitution, by which men have tried in the past to work around the effects of Original Sin, Dr. Budziszewski elucidates the pitfalls of contemporary communitarianism, liberalism, and conservatism.
The revenge of conscience is horrifically manifest today in abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, evils brought about by the pollution of good impulses such as pity, prudence, honor, and love. The way out of this confusion, he concludes, is Christianity, a once-prevalent faith whose troubling memory men now suppress along with their knowledge of the natural law. The political responsibility of Christians is somehow to stir up that memory and that knowledge, a daunting task in a world of sound bites and shouting matches.
Customer Reviews:
Reading this book makes you think.......2006-12-10
I'm just a normal adult woman in my 50's, and I'd like to commend this book to you. It's challenging to read and stimulates thinking and reflection about the topics. I think it will change your life. You may not agree with any of his lessons, but it will sure make you think and reevaluate your stances. People from all the political, ethical and religious spectrum would benefit from meditating over the proofs and conclusions the author puts forth. Please take the time to read it.
A concise guide to the failures of modernity.......2004-03-11
Budziszewski has managed to effectively distill the confusion and dislocation of modernity into a convenient, readable, and short text that should grace the home of any thinking Catholic (or Christian in general). His understanding of the Natural Law and its implications for our lives is easily accessible and deeply persuasive. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking an introduction to the intellectual underpinnings of Christian morality.
Brilliant Work that Analyzes Conscience in a Fallen World.......2003-06-02
"The Revenge of Conscience" is a well written, thoroughly reasoned approach to conscience (and its relation to politics) from a somewhat unique (but conservative) theological position (a position that is neither quite typically evangelical nor quite typically catholic).
Budziszewski is obviously brilliant and his reasoning solid. He defines conscience based upon Paul's description in the book of Romans about gentiles evidencing the "law of God written upon their hearts." He argues that evil is merely the spoiling of the good, and that our God-given conscience, when distorted, may actually reinforce evil instead of restraining it. He exposes the inconsistencies of today's pop value systems and devastates them with pure logic. Ouch!
The reader begins to understand the way those who reject Judeo-Christian values reason. At the heart of this distortion is our fallen condition which suppresses the "law of God written upon our hearts." He refutes the typical Roman Catholic distortion that seems to ignore the suppression of conscience and minimizes the effects of the fall upon human nature; he then contests the opposite imbalance typically held by the reformed position, namely a de-emphasis upon "the law is written upon the hearts" of even the unregenerate.
He addresses the distinction between the church's expectations of fellow believers and the church's expectation of society at large. This then leads Budziszewski to expose the erroneous paradigms proposed by political liberalism and political conservatism. This guy knows how to think, and it is tough to fault his logic.
This is a thought-provoking, deep book that requires readers to think. But it is a stimulating book, well worth the reading. Brilliant.
A Masterpiece of Christian Psychology.......2003-04-11
A number of other reviewers have summarized the general theme of "The Revenge of Conscience," as well as commenting on Prof. Budziszewski's considerable gifts as a writer. In short, his basic thesis is that the underlying cause of many of the battlegrounds in our modern "culture wars" can be traced back to mankind's Fall (i.e. sin) and continuing unwillingness to face the reality and consequences of that Fall.
However, while this book is a classic on its own political/sociological terms, what really struck this writer is how Prof. Budziszewski has - perhaps unwittingly - set forth perhaps the most convincing Christian answer to modern psychology. Most branches of secular psychology, assuming that Man is essentially a complex animal, identify primal needs and urges as the underlying foundation of the personality or soul. A la Freud, the repression of those primal urges, which is necessary for civil society, is also the source of psychological quirks and emotional suffering. By contrast, Budziszewski, viewing Man from the Christian perspective as created in God's image, asserts that one's inner nature is dominated by an innate knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil (i.e. natural law or "conscience"). However, because man is fallen/sinful, that natural knowledge reveals guilt, which man then tries to repress. According to Budziszewski, it is that repression (or denial) of the reality of guilt and sin which results in psychological suffering - and irrational beliefs and actions in response to that suffering.
In a strange way, Budziszewski's Christian perspective turns Freudian psychology on its head. Instead of the animalistic id, we have a divine conscience. Instead of repressing primal urges, we repress the knowledge of our own sin. Instead of ridding ourselves of false guilt, we need to acknowledge and confess our true guilt. These diametrically opposed views of reality clearly illustrate the fact that ideas do matter - that one's knowledge (or ignorance) of reality will have profound effects on individual, societal, and even geo-political levels.
"The Revenge of Conscience," quite simply, has the potential to change the debate in a variety of contexts. It is a masterpiece of "Christian worldview" theory, a powerful treatise in defense of traditional conservatism, a thought-provoking commentary on American politics and culture - a perhaps a foundational work in developing a truly Christian alternative to atheistic psychology.
Brilliant Assessment of Contemporary Culture.......2002-04-29
Score one for the Right in the culture war of ideas. J. Budziezewski was the Texas Professor whose journey took him from humanism to nihilism to Christianity. He offers a witty, frank, tongue-in-cheek assessment of liberalism, the culture war and contemporary society... He devastates liberalism and its doctrines of moral neutrality in the secular realm. His critique of humanistic liberalism and its search for secular salvation in history is brilliant. He recognizes the limits of contemporary conservatism and communitarism. Christian or not, you should consider reading his blistering critique of pluralistic society.
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