Book Review: Advice and Dissent

I finished reading the book Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena, by Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, a little over a month ago^*. It is probably the driest book I have ever found absolutely enthralling. Primack and Hippel are both respected physicists, and they shared the American Physical Society's Forum Award in 1977 for their work on Advice and Dissent (the book was published in 1974). What Primack and Hippel do is essentially analyze the role of scientific and technical advisors in the American government through a series of case studies. Although all the case studies surround issues from well before my time (for example: supersonic transport, antiballistic missile systems, and the banning of cyclamates), I found the analysis and power structures involved were still very much relevant today. Primack and Hippel, while they were clearly not neutral on the issues involved, presented their arguments lucidly and concisely with exhaustive lists of references.

As I said, the specific case studies are all fairly dated (although the details are nonetheless quite interesting. I think I would go so far as to say that Nixon was, in fact, something of a crook), but the issues that are discussed in their context translates well into our present age. While I highly recommend that anyone interested in technical and scientific expertise in the realm of public policy (and, considering that my friend Paul is starting a graduate program in public policy at MIT this September (congratulations, again!), I know of at least one person reading this who is) should pick up a copy of Advice and Dissent to get the authors' full discussion and contextual development, I thought I would at least reflect with my own thoughts on two of the most salient issues that were highlighted.

The first major issue is the unequal power structure between a science advisor and politician. The politician is in no way bound to listen to the advice of the advisor, while the advisor is bound by confidentiality in both implicit and explicit forms. Explicitly this takes the form of directly classifying all reports and experimental findings of the advisor as confidential. The politicians are then free to claim scientific support for their position, regardless of what the findings actually are. Implicit confidentiality arises from the fact that if the advisor endeavours to make their own opinion known publicly (in colloquial terms: kick up a stink) they often find themselves dismissed (see here for a modern example) or, in the case of consultants without official appointments to begin with, ignored in future calls for advisory panels^**. Although these points seem obvious in retrospect, I found the discussion nevertheless quite illuminating. I always assumed that much of the problems of modern policy decisions lay in a lack of scientific advisors or inadequately qualified appointees. Although I think an advisory lack remains an issue, the institutional power disparity is a much deeper problem and intrinsic to the current implementation of scientific advisory boards.

The second major issue was actually one which shook my preconceptions much harder. Whereas the institutional gagging of technical advisors did little to disrupt any preconceived notions of mine, the authors also presented numerous instances of regulatory failure by the institutions whose very existence is designed to protect citizens. Long-time readers (and those privy to personal political discussions with me) are aware of my general trust in bureaucratic institutions and regulatory boards (like the FDA). The FDA (and the HPFB in Canada) are mandated to protect the consumer from unsafe food and medical products. While I have previously noted major risks in consumer protection through restrictions of agency powers over certain classes of products (like the natural products debacle), I generally felt that agencies like the FDA, if adequately funded and left to their own devices, were generally competent and interested primarily in consumer protection. In the case of the construction of nuclear power generators, they even document how the task of ensuring generator safety was given over to the same entity in charge of building the plants in the first place (does that not sound familiar to the off-shore drilling situation we have now?).

Thus, while Primack and Hippel thankfully don't launch into any sort of nonsensical libertarian screeds about how regulatory agencies should be abolished and we should let the free market take control, they carefully outline and document numerous examples of institutional apathy, obstruction, and manipulative changes to regulations that confounded the mandates of protective agencies. Their analysis is nuanced and realistic, calling not for the abolishment of governmental regulatory agencies (after all, the resources of those institutions are usually necessary to carry out the appropriate safety tests and enforce regulations - something that we could easily invest even more money in), but for an increased openness to information and the necessity of what they call 'citizen scientists' to become involved and active in policy decisions. It is unrealistic to expect a cadre of citizen scientists looking out for the common good to spontaneously arise, however. One suggestion introduced in the book is the institutional backing of universities through local project courses. I think that is a fantastic idea, but one which would need greater systematic support, particularly when it comes to disseminating any findings.

In the end, Advice and Dissent helped me revise some of my own naive political views, and strongly argues in a manner largely free of ideological overtones (a refreshing attribute for political discourse) for the importance of open discourse between politicians and experts, and for independence on the part of advisors. Unfortunately, I cannot help but notice that this book is 36 years old and our society, in many ways, has actually regressed (the dependence of biochemical drug testers on the pharmaceutical companies themselves for funding is one such glaring example of systemic hamstringing of any sort of unbiased testing and regulation). In a complex world in which it is virtually impossible for anyone to have appropriate expertise (or even competence) in all areas of life, how we manage expert input in the realm of public policy is an extremely important aspect of political life that is rarely even acknowledged. Advice and Dissent thus stands out as a unique form of political analysis, and one I would highly recommend.


^* I usually prefer to get reviews written in a more timely fashion, as the book is therefore fresher in my mind. This book lent itself to more careful analysis, however, which meant I have gradually developed this review over the last month instead of just sitting down and writing it in one go.

^** As a side note, I thought I would also point out that the authors do also occasionally slip into somewhat dated narration, most notably on page 106 when it is noted in reference to this implicit gagging of advisors:

“This gives rise to the apparently common situation where an advisor conserves his effectiveness like a beautiful girl her virginity - until no one is interested anymore."

Although I imagine such a simile might elicit a wink and chuckle back in the days of the book's first publication, such a mysoginistic comparison is only humorous in the present day through the context of “I cannot believe they wrote and published that”.

Book Review: The Sea Wolf by Jack London

Over the weekend I finished my latest 'on the bus to work and back' book, which was the classic novel The Sea Wolf written by Jack London. Although probably not as famous or well-known as London's novels that actually involved wolves (The Call of the Wild and White Fang), The Sea Wolf was certainly an interesting piece of literature. If you are interested in late 19th century/early 20th century philosophy, literature, and psychology, then I would recommend reading this book. It is an exciting adventure novel and period piece with all the elegant prose that is so sorely lacking in most modern novels. Although I will try to keep from overly spoiling the novel, my discussion hereafter will contain details that those planning to read the book might not want to hear.

As one might have noticed, I hedged my praise in the introductory paragraph with the catch-all (and therefore not very descriptive or flattering) descriptor 'interesting'. The reason for this is that the book has a somewhat lopsided construction - the first half of the book is excellent and builds up a complex relationship between the narrator, Humphrey van Weyden, and Wolf Larson, the captain of the sealing schooner Ghost. Humphrey is a gentleman scholar and literary critic who was lost at sea following the collision of a ferry boat and steamer in the San Francisco harbour, only to be saved at the last moment by the passing Ghost. Instead of turning around and depositing him back on shore, however, Wolf Larson decides to teach Humphrey to "stand on his own two legs" and forces him to be part of the crew. As an intellectual and an idealist, Humphrey has great difficulty dealing with the world of harshness and brutality that he now finds himself a part of. While much of the opening chapters is taken up by tales of cruelty and violence, Larsen begins to emerge as an enigma to both distract and frighten Humphrey. Although never properly schooled, Larsen is an accomplished autodidact with a personal library pulling from literary analysis and grammar to astronomy, mathematics, and biology. That the captain possesses such a keen intellect but still acts in a monstrous and brutish manner both fascinates and appalls Humphrey, while Humphrey's years of education provide the captain with an intellectual peer for perhaps the first time in his life. The two develop a bizarre camaraderie, verbally sparring about philosophy and the meaning of life while the brutally physical nature of the ship continues around them in excessive violence.

Just as things seem to have reached some sort of uneasy equilibrium, London introduces a few new characters out of the blue in the form of a rescued lifeboat containing a trio of men (all pressed against their will into service by Larson) and a lone woman, Maud Brewster. The inexplicable introduction of Maud is generally greeted as a great failing in the construction of the story, but I disagree that this is the point where the novel goes entirely astray. Being the first and only woman the entire crew is likely to see for months at a time, the fact that Larson refuses to sail out of his way to drop the rescued foursome on shore clearly spells trouble. Maud is a dangerous element being interjected into the relationship of Humphrey and Larson (the only two men aboard the ship who have any clear chance of her affection, in the case of Humphrey, or possession in the case of Larson). She forces their relationship, oppositional though it has ever been, out of the safe realms of mental sparring and verbal debate and back into the savage physical world of the isolated life at sea. The tension seems wound to bursting, and a climactic showdown appears inevitable... except it never happens. The moment it appears that it is actually going to happen, when Larson begins a lustful and physical advance on Maud that looks like it can only end in her rape, and Humphrey abandons all caution and attacks his much more powerful adversary, the tension simply disappears as Larson instead collapses under a sudden and vicious headache.

Although it would seem that perhaps this has only delayed the climax of the novel, instead Maud and Humphrey escape on a lifeboat that night and the story from that point on becomes one of survival in the northern sea and on an isolated northern island. It is this inexplicable twist that, for me, is the great failing of the novel. London spent the first two thirds of his book expounding flowery prose and conducting his words into what ought to be a resounding and terrible crescendo of struggle, action, cunning, and fight, only to transform his book into an oddly restrained love story of almost sickening chastity and propriety. Even when mutiny, rebellion, and foul weather lead the Ghost, carrying Wolf Larson himself, to shipwreck on the same god-forsaken rock that Humphrey and Maud end up having been washed upon by a storm, the philosophical and physical show-down has become spoiled and lop-sided through Larson's new-found infirmity (it would seem he is suffering successive strokes or suffers from some other degenerative neurological disorder). Thus, although it was very nice that Humphrey and Maud managed to repair the masts, sail off, find a steamship to rescue them, and finally get around to pecking each other on the lips, the last third of the novel was so anticlimactic that one hardly cared at that point. I might be, of course, overly harsh in hindsight, but it was rather disappointing.

Now that I have described the plot, however, I would like to give some incidental thoughts. London sets up the philosophical showdown as one of the moral, genteel man of faith (Humphrey) versus the materialistic, amoral, and atheistic brute (Larson). While I recognize the time period in which this was written, it does still somewhat bother me that no distinction was made between Larson's materialism and his sociopathy (for he really was a sociopath of the highest degree). During London's lifetime biological altruism was a seeming enigma, for kin selection, the iterated prisoners' dilemma, and all the other models and explanations explaining why cooperative behaviour really can be better for every individual had yet to be discovered. Despite my understanding, though, of why this particular dichotomy of outlooks was chosen, I really wished I could have interjected at a few points.

The other observation that struck me as a little funny was how comparatively uneasy modern society is with the idea of masculine beauty (at least masculine beauty being recognized by other men). There are several passages in which Humphrey describes the finely crafted lines of Larson's face and body, with one particularly awkward scene (to be fair, I would have found this scene awkward with any gender combination of characters since it strikes me that Humphrey was simply being a creep) involving Humphrey being summoned to the captain's quarters to help tend to his wounds after a fight. Rather than help out, however, Humphrey forgets himself when he is partway through wetting the towel and just stands and stares after Larson strips off his shirt. This is certainly not the first piece of literature I have read in which male characters dwelt at length on the beauty of other male characters (although the titles of those texts now escape me), but it is something that I think is very rare in modern novels (presumably, of course, there is some really smutty fan fiction out there involving Kirk giving moon-eyes at Spock's ears or Ron lovingly following the line of Harry's scar down to gaze soulfully into his soft green eyes, but I am here referring to mainstream writing). I am curious when and how that changed, and more-so why it only seemed to change for men. Women, after all, still seem perfectly comfortable remarking on the beauty of other women.

Now that I have inexplicably brought out a bizarre and only tangentially related observation at the very end of my review, I think I shall follow the form of The Sea Wolf and end here.

Book Review: Your Inner Fish

This past week I finished Neil Shubin's book Your Inner Fish. It was a book that I was highly looking forward to reading, as I had heard a lot about it and thought it was a really good idea. The basic premise of the book is to look at our present day physiology and trace aspects of it back through the fossil record using all the tools of modern evolutionary science (from the fossils themselves to comparative DNA studies and developmental biology).

I think my expectations may have originally been overly high, considering that the book combined many things that I am a big fan of: comparative anatomy and physiology, paleontology, and evolution. What I failed to realise was that this was a fairly short, well-written popular science book, and therefore did not go nearly into the detail that I wanted. Despite Shubin's general skirting of complex details in lieu of making general points, the latter half of the book I found to be highly engaging, as there were a number of fascinating factual gems and I felt he started to feel more comfortable expanding the detail of his discourse, given the basic knowledge set he had introduced in the first half.

Thus, my biggest criticism of the book is that it could easily have been longer and more detailed. As it stands, it is a well-written and easily accessible overview of how our bodies are shaped by our evolutionary history. It is interesting, being about a subject that we are all aware of (the human body), with an interesting perspective that not a lot of people acknowledge or think about. I hope every school library gets at least a copy or two, and I think biology teachers would do well to point them out to their students.

Edit: I just wanted to point out that the first half of the book was good too! I simply found the second half engaged me more, but I realise that my initial wording of this post made it seem like that was the only good part of the book.

Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything

I just finished Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything yesterday, and I have to say that it was an excellent book. It is a pretty substantial text, but Bryson does a good job of keeping it engaging, informative, and understandable even without background knowledge in the areas he addresses. I highly recommend it (as does Sarah, who recommended it to me in the first place).

The book, as the title suggests, covers quite a sweep of subjects. What Bryson is essentially attempting to do is explain the history of the Earth and life on it, but to do so he attempts to relate how and why we believe it. In doing so, he humanizes science through a series of fascinating historical anecdotes about scientists both famous and obscure. The devotion that Bryson lends to tracing the development of ideas is, I think, the greatest strength of the book. By examining how we know what we know, he successfully elucidates the nature of the scientific manner in an engaging and colourful manner. I wish this sort of book were presented more often in a middle school science class, as I think it helps bring to life the scientific mindset much more effectively than memorizing the (usually misrepresented) structure of hypothesis, data collection, conclusion.

Of course, with such a sweeping book there are bound to be a few errors. The only one I can remember was he accidentally listed Parkinson's Disease as being caused by a single genetic defect, which is not actually true (the origins of Parkinson's Disease are not currently known). That is a very minor quibble, though, and does not at all detract from the overall message of the book.

Book Review: Darkness at Noon

I actually finished the book Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler, about a week ago on my flight back to Toronto, but I put off writing this review until after I had written the first part on computability (and that clearly took me too long...). The author seems to have been quite influential and prestigious, but I will admit I had never actually heard of either him or this book before having it recommended (and handed) to me.

I think a little bit of context for the author's life is useful in understanding this book, so I will start with that. Koestler was born in Hungary in 1905, but was primarily educated in Austria. He joined the Communist Party of Germany, but grew disillusioned and left after a few years. He led a fairly tumultuous life, at various times serving as a war correspondent and communist agent in France and Spain, being imprisoned and sentenced to death in Spain (although he was exchanged for another prisoner before his sentence was carried out), and ultimately fleeing to Britain to avoid the Nazis. Interestingly, Darkness at Noon was originally published in German, but the original German text has been lost and all modern German versions have been back-translated from English.

The story itself tells the tale of a Bolshevik named Rubashov. Formerly a prominent member of the Russian revolution and communist party, the book details Rubashov's arrest and imprisonment awaiting execution by the Soviet state under Stalin's rule. The story primarily unfolds as a combination of dialogue between Rubashov and his interrogators, and as internal monologues, memories, and diary snippets from Rubashov. I found that the style was at first rather confusing, particularly because I was not sure if the story was meant to be based in an actual contemporary (to the time of writing) political setting, or if it was conjecture along the lines of 1984 (my confusion stemmed from the description of the aggressive German crosses worn by the officers who arrested Rubashov the first time in a flashback. I later realised that the German arrest was while he was serving as a communist agent in Germany, and the book was set in an actual historical setting rather than some fictitious communist state in Germany). Once I got used to the style, though, I found the novel to be quite engaging. It had quite a bit of the depressive charm of Eastern European literature, and it was interesting on both a psychological level as well as a political thought level.

While the book has been described as anti-communist, I do not think that is necessarily an accurate description. The story is quite anti-Soviet, but that is not the same thing. There were a few times when I wished I could leap into the story to correct what I saw as failures in the characters' arguments, but even when the arguments were bad it was a fascinating historical account of the thought processes followed by the Bolshevik movement (and I thus do not rule out the possibility that the flawed arguments were purposeful). I do not wish to go into any details, however, as I do not want to give anything away.

In summary, the book was quite fascinating. While I found the style awkward at first, those feelings quickly faded to the background. I think that if a reader did not have at least a cursory background in Russian (and general European) history from the early 1900s the novel might be slightly difficult to follow, but that shouldn't scare anyone off as I was able to follow along with just my high school knowledge. If you are interested in political thought and recent history, I recommend picking up a copy of Darkness at Noon.

Book Review: Catcher in the Rye

Since I seem to have extended my blog vacation to include my physical vacation to British Columbia, I thought I would continue the trend of light posts and discuss my most recent reading of fiction. One of the outcomes of my university education is that I hardly ever read books for pleasure anymore. Reading is still a great enjoyment of mine, however, and I therefore do manage to occasionally find the time to read a book, particularly when I travel. Thus, my recent trip to visit my family has given me the opportunity to finally read one of those books that it seems like virtually everyone else has already read: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Until I started reading the book on my flight out here I did not actually have any idea what the story was about other than knowing that the main character's name is Holden. The reason I knew the main character's name is Holden is because my grade eleven and twelve history teacher kept calling me that for about a month while she was reading the book (apparently Calden and Holden are similar enough to be confusing for her). Now that I have read the book, I find the comparison a little disconcerting. While I certainly did have my share of teenage angst in high school, I was never a pathological liar nor do I think I was overly concerned with people acting 'phony' all the time.

I also have to admit that, now that I have read it, I am a little puzzled about why The Catcher in the Rye is considered such a classic piece of literature (or at least classic enough to be on many high school reading lists). I recognize that it was a highly influential book stylistically (it reads, after all, like a book that is much more modern than it actually is simply because it helped define the modern style), but I am not even sure why it ever gained such influence in the first place. The reason the style of the novel strikes me as so modern is because it contains a high concentration of precisely those stylistic elements common to modern novels but rare in literature from several decades ago (or earlier) that irk me to no end. It is perhaps unfair to judge the structure of Salinger's prose too harshly (since the book was basically written as an oral narration by the teenage protagonist, and the choppy sentences, awkward segues, and frequent descriptive profanity are therefore reasonable elements to include), but it does bother me that Salinger's text helped to make those narrative structures popular stylistic choices even outside of a first person narration by an angsty teenage boy (basically, Salinger helped poor sentence structure become regarded as legitimate individual choices in style).

I don't actually have much more to say on the matter without turning this post into a rant against modern literature as a whole. I think it is a good thing that I finally got around to reading the novel, as it has had such an apparently profound effect on modern narrative style and remains a prominent element of popular culture, but I remain dubious about the actual merits of the text itself. I would call the text neither enjoyable nor interesting to read.

Horrendous Defacement

As a member of my generation, I hardly ever take books out of the library. Coddled by the internet, I tend to conduct research using online journals and other such resources conveniently accessed from my bed or desk. However, I was still raised under the influence of my grandfather, and thus I hold books in their physical manifestation with an odd sort of reverence. Books are great and wonderful things, and should be treated as such. I remember being a little horrified at the concept of marking one's page by folding it over when it was first shown to me, but that was nothing compared to the abject revulsion of seeing hordes of university students take pens, pencils, and highlighters to the pages of their textbooks. While I recognize some people have their own study system in which highlighter and pencil play an integral role, I have never learned to appreciate such a system and find the presence of externally imposed markings on the pages of a book to be extremely distracting to the point of detracting from the actual content of the text. Thus, I have taken a live and let live approach. When I see students highlighting the pages of their books, I do not run over and tear the markers out of their hand and scold them. It is their book. However, all of that changes when it is a library book. Damn it, if it is a library book, that means many more people expect to read this book when you are done with it! If you absolutely must mark up the pages, make a photocopy and highlight that.

As those reading this might have guessed, I picked up a book from the library the other day. After a mind numbing couple of hours solving linear algebra problems, I decided on a whim to grab a book on the Crimean War. So I found the section, spotted three copies of a book that looked interesting, and every single one of them was full of highlighter and scribbled notes in the margins. It was horrible. I took the one that looked the least abused, but I still haven't brought myself to read it. So my message is this: if you are one of those people who insists on marking the pages you read when studying or writing a paper, find some way around doing it to a library book. That library book is not yours, and someday some student who is obsessive-compulsive about books is going to come along and be driven insane by your handiwork. It's neither nice nor pleasant.

Book Review: The Black Swan

Over the Christmas break I started reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It is a fairly interesting book, which I unfortunately had to return to its owner before I had a chance to finish it. The basic premise of the book is to discuss "black swan" events, which are essentially a completely unexpected occurrence (Taleb outlines three characteristics of the events, but without the text available for consultation I don't want to attempt to reiterate them for fear of fouling it up). He gets the name from the formerly widespread belief that a black swan was an impossible thing (owing to the fact that they had not been observed outside of their native Australia) until someone actually went to Australia and spotted one. While the existence of black swans might not have been an earth-shattering event, Taleb uses it as a metaphor for many things that do profoundly effect the lives of large portions of the world population. For example, there are many historical events (like the stock market crash of 1929) which no one saw coming until they had happened. One very interesting aspect of the book was its discussion of the narrative fallacy that is so common in the study of history. For example, in the case of the outbreak of World War I students learn that is was a fragile system of alliances built upon unstable relationships which inevitably led to war. While this sounds fine and dandy in retrospect, prior to 1914 and the horrible subsequent years people would be hard pressed to make those "obvious" predictions (if it had been possible, wouldn't there have been a more concerted effort to prevent such a catostrophic outcome?).

I quite enjoyed Taleb's demonstration of the psychology of confirmation bias and false narrative. However, I did find his style occasionally irksome. He writes in a fairly erratic fashion (which in and of itself is not so bad) with very little reference to where some of his claims are coming from. When he makes counter-intuitve or seemingly false claims, this can sometimes be frustrating. One that jumped out at me rather blatantly was his claim that "national character" is a complete myth. Unfortunately, he never quite defined what national character means (beyond it not being a physical thing), but he makes the claim that a man from Sweden will be more similar to man from another country (I forget which country he specified) than he will be to a woman from Sweden. I thought that seemed to be a fairly arbitrary claim, since there are many aspects of one's character which are widely influenced by the environment in which one is raised. This includes such national things as public education and predominant national or regional culture. That does not mean that one cannot find the full gamut of personalities within a single nation, but rather it seems that there is a predisposition for a person to have certain personality features that are more common to a given nation or geographical region. Perhaps, though, this is just my own predisposed idea that there exists such things as a national character selectively filtering ideas to confirm my belief that it exists.

Anyway, I plan to try and track down a copy of the book from the library to finish it off, but judging from the first third of it, I would recommend reading it. The book has widespread appeal, touching on subjects from economics to psychology and sociology to science and knowledge. Though I would recommend maintaining a skeptical eye during the reading, it is a good book for kick starting one's own mind into mental introspection (and that is something that is rarely a bad thing).

Political Science Review: Machiavelli

Out of all of the works we read over the summer, Machiavelli's were my favourite. Not necessarily because I agreed with him, but because he recognized that politics is a dirty business that doesn't necessarily have an absolute answer. While everyone else (aside from Thucydides) seemed to think that he had developed the definitive treatise on the proper manner of government, Machiavelli recognized that perhaps there might be better minds than his who would come to different conclusions, but he nevertheless strove to write texts that would be useful to people living in the real world rather than in some ideal world where men acted as they ought to, and not as they actually do.

We read most of both The Prince and The Discourses. While The Prince seems to be his most famous work (I think that is simply due to the fact that it is the most shocking of the two in its blatant sociopathy), I found The Discourses to be far more insightful and penetrating. It was also where I think Machiavelli found some redemption, as he displayed himself to care about the lives and security of the citizenry and not just the welfare of a ruler. He was one of the first political theorists to recognize that there is a certain degree of wisdom amongst the entire populace of a country, and not just in an aristocratic elite (of course, the suffrage of the masses was something that I have always been raised to see as the correct and best form of governance, and it was an apriori assumption that I believe this course challenged the most for me). The need for a balanced institution was argued for by Machiavelli both eloquently and rationally. He took great pains to back up his claims by using historical precedence as well as a degree of psychological pessimism that was both enlightening and depressing.

I am getting ahead of myself, however. Perhaps I was simply initially set in favour of Machiavelli because of his rejection of the political theories of all those thinkers who we had previously read who I found to be so logically lacking (Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero). As promised, do you remember Cicero's statement: "fraud seems to belong to the cunning fox, force to the lion; both are wholly unworthy of man..."? Machiavelli has a direct allusion to that when he states in regards to the qualities a prince must have, "One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves." I do not think that is my entire reason for enjoying Machiavelli's works, though.

I think I will end this review, therefore, in saying that I greatly recommend reading Machiavelli's works. While they are in many ways depressing and cynical, they are realistic and rationally laid out. I think in many ways it is unfair that Machiavelli's name has become associated almost exclusively with negative connotations of underhanded power grabbing and backstabbing, for there is a lot more to his texts than an advocacy for brutality and deceit. Of course, that said, I think I will end with a choice quotation from The Prince that displays the clear sociopathic psychology that so characterizes this particular work.

"Whenever you have to kill someone, make sure you have a suitable excuse and an obvious reason; but, above all else, keep your hands off other people's property; for men are quicker to forget the death of thier father than the loss of their inheritance."

Political Science Review: Aristotle and Cicero

I realised I ought to keep going with the political science reviews before I get too involved in my stuff this year and forget. I decided to cover both Aristotle and Cicero in one post since, to be honest, I didn't actually read most of Cicero. His text happened to come up during a particularly busy part of the summer, and I just never got around to getting back to it. However, one interesting thing my TA told me about with Cicero's On Obligation (which is the text we were reading) is that it used to be one of the most widely read pieces of historical political theory up until about a hundred years ago. Then, for whatever reason, it began to decline in popularity. It isn't even usually included in the list of texts for the course I took, but my professor used to be a classics professor and he liked it. Also, there is a line which will take on some significance in the next installment of Political Science Review, and that is: "wrong may be done, then, in either of two ways, that is, by force or by fraud, both are bestial: fraud seems to belong to the cunning fox, force to the lion; both are wholly unworthy of man..."

Anyway, after my confession of not actually reading Cicero, I will hop back to Aristotle's Politics, which was the next text after Plato's Republic. Do you remember how I said that I did not really like Plato? Well, after starting Aristotle, I missed Plato. A lot of my dislike for Aristotle is from my modern perspective of being sensitive to subjects like slavery and misogyny, but there were other issues I found unresolved. The most important one was that Aristotle defined politics as the defining characteristic of man, and citizens as the most important members of a city as they practiced politics together as equals. However, when he defined the three 'good' governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional government), he stated a clear preference for absolute monarchy provided the ruler was a wise and good one well above all his peers. Leaving out the missing information of who should be the judge of the ruler's wisdom and goodness, such a stance begs the question of who is doing the political deliberations that makes life in a city good? I'm not sure I expressed that clearly, but if it doesn't make sense, someone can call me on it in the comments. Basically, I don't think Aristotle has much to offer other than an interesting historical perspective.

Before I disparage the ancient thinkers too much, however, I should note that one thing I found interesting was virtually all of them thought that it was most appropriate that only the educated citizenry ought to have political power. While I know any sort of check on political power (in other words, the right to vote) is wildly open to abuse in terms of marginalizing a portion of a population, at the same time I think it is an important thing that should not be dismissed out of hand simply due to fear of oppression. There are many things that could be used in the wrong hands for oppressive power (such as a police force or an army), but at the same time not having them is worse. I should probably devote a post solely to this topic if I decide to pursue the thought process further, but I would be interested to see if anyone has strong feelings on the matter as it stands.

Political Science Review: Plato

The second political text we read was the famous text The Republic by Plato. One interesting fact about the book is that it was not titled The Republic in original Greek but rather was simply Politeia (though with Cyrillic letters), which means 'the political system'. Calling it a republic is a bit of a misnomer with our modern sense of the word, as the system of government that Plato ultimately arrives at is not very republican at all but is much more a hierarchical meritocracy. Also, for the record, I would like to point out that when I say republican I do not mean the modern travesty of a political party that exists in the United States today, but rather the notion of a government loosely defined to be run by and for the people.

While part of me recognizes that it is unfair to judge Plato's writing and arguments from my privileged perspective of modernity, I still didn't like this text very much. A large part of my dislike was that I found it frustratingly tedious to read, as it is written as a dialogue and Socrates' interlocutors simply spent most of their time making comments like "well, how could it not be?" and "of course that is how it must be so" no matter the quality of his argument. While that is simply a stylistic critique, I do have more substantive criticisms as well.

The Republic is a long book, so I won't go through all the arguments that I found weak or otherwise lacking, but will rather attempt to outline what is, in my opinion, the most significant error in the text. In 533c - 534a, Socrates argues that geometry and other sciences are only "thought", which is a lesser form of knowing than "knowledge". Knowledge apparently encompasses dialectic, which is what Plato claims his political analysis falls under, and therefore, since it is the highest and truest form of knowing, Plato is clearly correct. I found this completely hypocritical, since the reason geometry was a lesser form of knowledge was that it made use of hypotheses untouched that no account could be given of (in mathematics, these are called axioms). In other words, it is a set of facts that are taken as given. However, Plato himself (through the character of Socrates) spends the first several sections of the book making all sorts of unqualified statements which are simply accepted as fact, such as gods exist and are completely good, there is a normative morality and goodness, and there are four virtues (justice, wisdom, courage, and moderation), among other such claims. Even if the entire text was internally consistent (which I do not believe it always is), the arguments it purports are still dependent upon the claims which he simply accepts as true and given. Therefore, according to his own definitions, Plato's analysis is not knowledge but is mere thought.

While I think there are positive aspects of the text, as a whole I found the arguments unsatisfying. I have had more than one person tell me that is an exceedingly arrogant stance to take, given that Plato is considered one of the greatest thinkers to have existed, but I have a hard time with that attitude. Famous men are very often famously wrong (some of Aristotle's claims are patently ludicrous, but I will get to Aristotle next). I think The Republic is worth reading if one has the time due to its wide-ranging impact on our society, but it should be read without credulity and deference undeservedly given.

Political Science Review: Thucydides

Monday night marked the end of my required social science credit. I had my final exam for POL200Y1 - Political Theory. I actually quite enjoyed the course, though I discovered that I hold some of the most famous thinkers in history in contempt. Perhaps that is a mark of extreme arrogance on my part, but I suppose I'll have to live with it. I have been meaning to write some thoughts about the course for a while, and so I decided that over the next little while I will try to give a brief review of the works that I read from each of the authors we looked at: Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke (in chronological order).

Thucydides was a slightly odd first choice of author, as he is the only author whose text we looked at was not specifically a political text, but was rather historical. However, his text had many political overtones, as he directly states early on that the point of his history is to look at the nature of man, for men cannot know their nature without understanding their history. The specific history explored by Thucydides is the Peloponnesian War. A more complete history of the details of the war can be found on Wikipedia. Though containing political points, Thucydides is primarily a critic. He offers no concept of how things should be fixed, he simply points out some of the failures of political systems at the time.

The war itself was mainly between Sparta and Athens, though it involved virtually all of Greece as the other city-states became drawn in on one side or the other. I think one of the most interesting parts of Thucydides is also at the very beginning just after he outlines his motivations for writing the history based on the unchanging nature of man. He states that, though it was largely unspoken, he thinks the main cause of the war was fear of Athenian power. Sparta at the time had the most powerful land army, with their infantry being legendary for their martial prowess (this was is only a few decades after the war against Xerxes and his Persians). Athens, however, is the primary naval power as well as one of the richest Greek cities. It also has the largest population and one of the first true democracies.

The text mostly consists of speeches and dialogues. This at first seems fairly strange in a historical text, but once you get used to the style it is pretty interesting. One of the most striking characteristics of the text was the strong parallel I saw between the Athenians and the United States of America. Athens, like the United States now, was a powerful imperial state with a distinct economic advantage over its rivals. Like the United States in the second world war, Athens served as an instrumental force in a war that was largely seen as noble and necessary for defeating a decidedly evil foe (the Persian invasion of Greece). Their success in stopping the Persians earned them a great deal of good will and respect, but also forced them into the political affairs of the whole region. The memory of the great war was now fading away, leaving those who now found themselves wronged by the imperial aspirations of Athens feeling embittered and resentful. Athens justified themselves by claiming that they had the right to elevate their standards of living through unequal treatment of subordinate city states because they were better. Theirs was a blessed way of life, more free and noble than that of their neighbours. They also made the argument that someone had to be on top, and they were better than any of the alternatives.

Anyway, I don't really have a lot to say about Thucydides other than he was interesting. If you find ancient history engaging, I would say he might be worth reading. Also, if you enjoy historical parallels to contemporary politics, he can be read in that manner quite easily. Perhaps my lack of things to say, though, might also rest in that I read him at the beginning of the summer, so many of the details are starting to fade. My discussion of the next six writers should be a little more engaging.

Books from the Library

It's been an exciting day at work today. A few things conspired yesterday to galvanize me into activity, which is refreshing considering my more languid approach to life that has characterized me for the past few months. Anyway, personal ruminations aside, it boils down to the following: this morning I made my lunch instead of just buying lunch (granted, I got sidetracked partway through the sandwich making process and ended up getting to work about a half hour late, but oh well), I then found a few promising titles of books about electroencephalography, went to the library, started reading them, and took a short little narcoleptic nap after lunch. I am back awake now and armed with some tea, so we'll see how the afternoon's reading goes.

Anyway, the books are:

Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG by Paul L. Nunez and Ramesh Srinivasan

EEG Signal Processing by Saeid Sanei and J. A. Chambers

The first one appears to give a good theoretical overview to the basis of EEG and its uses, which I am looking forward to. The second contains a more cursory look at the EEG itself, but I think it might have some useful tips for mathematical analysis that I might not have thought of applying. The reason I wanted to post about these books, though, is because I highly enjoyed a couple lines from the preface of the first:

"Some scientists do not like equations; for example, presenting equations at medical conferences has been compared to showing X-rated movies in church."

"We could have omitted all equations, providing a more democratic presentation in the sense that fewer readers would understand the most subtle points."