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.

"All non-believers stand aside in fear"

Alternative title: Truthiness and Political Power

Reading this post over at Deus Ex Malcontent a while ago reminded me of some thoughts I had bouncing around my head since I started listening to the How to Think About Science broadcasts that I mentioned even longer ago. In his post, Chez states that society requires a common basis for facts and methods for ascertaining them. I agree with that statement in principle, but it does not preclude religion. The thing is, a state-wide accepted pool of knowledge can come in many forms, and until relatively recently it was usually in the form of a state religion. In many ways, a non-science based approach is more attractive for a ruling party as there is more control. When the belief system in question is a religious or philosophical system (I include the philosophical system to cover things like Confucianism) the ruling party is completely unconstrained in what the knowledge they impart upon their subjects entails. If they are careful enough (and, to be entirely honest, "careful enough" doesn't really have to be all that careful) they can even entirely change their stance on an issue and convert the people under their care from pacifists to bloodthirsty crusaders like magic (or some other such dramatic change). To a certain extent, this might even be a desireable situation if the ruling party itself is able to see through their own nonsense and rule in an enlightened manner (like Plato's dream of benevolent philosopher kings). However, since true enlightenment and benevolence are awfully hard to come by, I think this can be safely ruled out and non-reality based systems of knowledge can be assumed to inevitably be used to serve the interests of those making the knowledge up.

Which leads me to science. Science is designed as well as we currently know how to default knowledge to what is real. While evidence can be spun and twisted and even sometimes outright manufactured, eventually the truth should come out. It is for this reason that it is so often at odds with the powerful and the elite, who would much rather have people believe whatever they are told regardless of the actual truth. To give perhaps a simplistic example, if a powerful ruler wants a rainforest destroyed so he can put in a golf course and a resort, it is much more convenient to have people believe that the Earth is created by a benevolent deity who will provide for mankind's prosperity than have to deal with facts of the disastrous ecological fallout that is likely to result. However, I fell into the same trap that skeptics and rationalist so often fall into and defaulted to a religious example. It isn't just religion that does this. Stalin did the same thing by trying to exercise complete control over the beliefs of his subjects. Jackasses like Dinesh D'Souza perpetuate the talking point that atheism is clearly morally bankrupt due to the abhorrent "atheist regimes" of the 20th century (he then goes on to list Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Sometimes Mao is in there too). Leaving out the fact that I have seen pointed out to Dinesh D'Souza in multiple debates (but which seems to fail to penetrate his mind) that Hitler and the Nazis were decidedly not an "atheist regime", this historical tit for tat of "look at the crusades", "Stalin killed more people" and so on is a complete mischaracterization of the rational secularism (as I understand it) being argued for by those I find intellectually inspiring on this account (namely, Richard Dawkins).

The debate, which so often is framed as religion vs. atheism, isn't and shouldn't be about that. Rather, it should be about a rational, confirmable world view as the paradigm one accepts for truth vs. a socially constructed dogma. While it is unreasonable to expect to completely get rid of dogma (as there will always be the temptation to at least try to warp or spin evidence to fit a previously expected result or to come up with a policy in favour of those performing the spin), requiring a knowledge base to be as evidentially based as is humanly possible provides the most protection for those not in decision making power. This, in essense, is what secularists are striving for. The cultural relativism of freedom of religion is a wonderful thing as long as it is restricted to the philosophical domain of non-practical matters. If people find comfort in the deistic notion that the Big Bang was caused by a powerful entity one would like to call God, that is perfectly fine. Likewise, if people find comfort in the spiritual community of weekly church attendance, that is also fine. What is not fine is when the freedoms of other people become infringed upon under the protection of one's right to the freedom of religion or when a religion is used as a position of authority to propagate a non-evidential base for knowledge and moral judgement used to inhibit the actions of those who do not adhere to the same belief structure (such as the limits on same-sex marriages or birth control). As I believe I have mentioned before, whenever the freedom of religion and other freedoms and rights conflict, I have yet to hear a rational argument for why the freedom of religion should not be overruled by the right with which it has come into conflict.

Somehow, I am back on religion again, and I apologize. I hope what I have written here makes sense, although I am not entirely sure I have said what I wanted to say either coherently or completely. Anyone else want to chime in?

Note: Not to distract from the possibility of a good debate this post might inspire, but one should note that I have used a quotation for the title, so it is part of my new figure-out-where-the-title-came-from contest. This one is somewhat obscure, so I'll give the hint that it is the opening line to a song.

Political Science Review: Hobbes

This will probably be my last post in the Political Science Review series. While we also read Locke, I ended up not getting past his early stuff. While it was interesting, particularly in relation to Aristotle's opening as they both discussed the role and organization of the family, I am not sure I remember enough of it to really do it justice. So, if you are interested in Locke you'll just have to read his stuff yourself, and I will end my sojourn into political science with a review of Hobbes' Leviathan.

Hobbes was an interesting thinker. While Leviathan is a rather difficult text to slog through (mostly owing to it being written in English used several centuries ago), his ideas and thinking quite impressed me all the way to chapter 19, at which point it seemed to all fall apart. Not to get ahead of myself, though, let me start at the beginning. Hobbes begins by discussing the nature of man, going so far as to look briefly at sensory perceptions and how a person knows what he knows. While his neuroscience is stifled a little by 17th century science, some of his basic ideas are interesting and, taken together, form a coherent, logical context for his later political analysis. He paints a rather dismal picture of mankind, though, in many ways accepting a similar view to Machiavelli on the nature of man as violently selfish and greedy. The main difference between Hobbes and Machiavelli, though, is Machiavelli stressed greed and desire for glory as the primary drives of men, while Hobbes emphasized fear (specifically of a violent death).

Given that Hobbes was a much more careful, academic, and theoretical thinker than Machiavelli, where Machiavelli dove straight into political discourse on realistic situations, Hobbes carefully defines his terms and thoughts about human nature. Probably the most important one Hobbes outlines is his definition of the state of nature, or state of war (they are the same thing for Hobbes) in which there is no government. This is essentially anarchy and, according to Hobbes, is an absolutely horrible, terrible state where people butcher each other and steal without qualms. He says, for example, than in the absence of a political authority, "every man is enemy to every man..." (13.9). Though Hobbes admits that there are other driving forces in the quarrels of men and the reasons they agree to live in peace, he emphasizes fear as the greatest of them all.

What is rather interesting about Hobbes' analysis, though, is he abandons the common normative views on morality and instead defines them in a rigid and clear manner. This has huge ramifications for his later thought, particularly justice, which he defines as, "injustice is no other than the not performance of covenant. And whatsoever is not unjust, is just" (15.2). Importantly, though, Hobbes makes the caveat that if either party has legitimate fear that the other party will not follow through with their part of the covenant, that nullifies said agreement. Thus, "before the names of just and unjust can have place, there must be some coercive power to compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment greater than the benefit they expect by the breach of their covenant... such power there is none before the erection of a commonwealth" (15.3). Hobbes therefore places fear as the root of the political power of a state, as it must enforce the political agreement undertaken by its citizens through fear of what it means to breach that agreement. Since he also points out that without some form of state there can be no outside coercive force, he subtly hints at what he later makes more explicit: there is no legitimacy for personal morality, but rather what the state dictates takes precedence. The explicit statement of such totalitarian thought comes much later, however, so at this point (chapter 15) I didn't notice the dictatorial undertones and was still rather impressed.

Taking the idea that the agreements which allow for civilized life cannot exist without a central government to enforce them, Hobbes begins to discuss how such a government should appear. It is at this point, in my opinion, that his analysis veers off the course or rationality and into the realm of 'where the hell did this come from?', if you will excuse my break in style. For, while Machiavelli made the, in my opinion true, statement "there is no doubt the public interest is never a guiding principle except in republics", Hobbes states (seemingly completely out of nowhere and not at all supported by reality), "in monarchy the private interest is the same with public" (Discourses pg. 166, 19.4). Hobbes even seems to contradict himself at several points very shortly after, first when he explains that any successful state institution must be essentially immortal or it would fall and need to be rebuilt with each generation, thereby returning its citizens to the horrors of anarchy in each interim. This requirement, as Hobbes aptly points out, means that such an institution must be designed without taking into account the natures of the men occupying it, something which a monarchy clearly fails to do. Likewise, as Hobbes even admits, a monarchy has an extremely high risk of failure at the death of each monarch.

Despite the drawbacks of a monarchy, however, Hobbes continues to argue in favour of one, with his specific description growing increasingly despotic. His main reason seems to be that, within the monarch's lifetime, a state run by a single powerful individual is the least open to civil strife and internal division, thereby minimizing the chance of a catastrophic meltdown into anarchy and civil war. Hobbes spends several chapters addressing (in my mind, inadequately) some of the drawbacks of a monarchy, particularly in the dangers of the monarch blatantly trampling on what we in our modern political outlook would recognize as the civil rights of the state's citizens, particularly in the case of their property rights. Recognizing that not all subjects can be expected to understand that revolt against the government will lead to anarchy which, no matter how terrible the government is, will be much worse, Hobbes states "the grounds of [the monarch's] rights... need to be diligently and truly taught..." (30.4). This struck me as an exceedingly weak argument in which Hobbes ensnared himself in his own rhetorical trap. If anarchy is such a terrible state that any government, no matter how bad, is better and proper education of that fact can make such a government stable through the citizens' fear of anarchy, then this could be used for any government and all the hoops Hobbes jumped through earlier to explain why a monarchy was the best form of government for its stability comes to naught. Education can make any government stable by playing upon the fears of its populace, which leaves the only reason for a monarchy being Hobbes' empty statement that a monarch has his interests aligned with those of the people.

Thus, I found myself unfortunately dissatisfied with Hobbes' political analysis towards the end of his text. I still think the first eighteen chapters were well developed, however, and it was especially interesting to read his thoughts on the fundamental nature of why a government needed to exist. Though I disagree with the initial theological underpinnings of the beginning of Locke's work, I think once he finishes quoting scripture to beat back the arguments of some contemporary of his, he gives a more approachable and, in the end, less flawed portrayal of the nature of government than Hobbes. Locke is also easier to read, being a little more contemporary, but if you have a lot of time to kill, reading Hobbes first will help give some grounding for Locke's work.

Also, this post was a little condensed to make it into an approachable blog post for easy perusal rather than into a daunting block of text which no one would want to read. If you find Hobbesian thought interesting, however, I am somewhat proud of my final essay in the political science course in which I compared Machiavelli and Hobbes on their analysis of the nature of man and how it leads to their formations of what a civil authority should be like. The essay focuses on Hobbes but uses Machiavelli as a backdrop with which to compare (and, since I agree more with Machiavelli's analysis, poke holes). If you want, you can contact me or leave a comment and I can send you my essay (though I will be wildly shocked if anyone takes me up on this offer).

One final note - the references. Except where noted that I was taking quotations from Machiavelli's Discourses, all quotations are given from my version of Leviathan in the format [chapter].[paragraph number].

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.