On The Lonely Crowd

Learned people knew that the earth was round long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The ancient Greeks were able to make a good approximation of the earth's circumference. What everyone in the west thought for a long time was that the earth was at the center of the universe. In the Ptolemaic, geocentric model, the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon revolved around the earth. Broadly, this view was reinforced by the dogma of the church. You did not question it.

However, many intelligent men and women could look in the sky and notice that there was something wrong. Most of the stars did rotate as if they were attached to the inside of a giant globe, but others behaved strangely. They would slow down relative to the other stars and even go in reverse. To work with this, the astronomers had to change the model. Instead of sliding along a rail, these stars acted and rotated on a second orbit inside of the larger orbit, known as `epicycles'. The models built on these central tenants were highly powerful. They could use the models to predict the future position of stars, they could navigate with the stars, and they could please the church with the models.

The models, however, were wrong. We are not at the center of the universe, and we have had to refigure our astronomy based off a heliocentric solar system. At this point, I ask: What do we make of the old model? Do we mock it, or can we study it for the elegance it was able to show under the constraints given?

I ask these questions because they come in while studying _The Lonely Crowd_. We have less perspective on the changes tracked by Riesman and his collaborators. In many places they were right. A fundamental change in how people see the world and act and react it was going on. In many ways, the book is prescient, as it foreshadows the whole of the text of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. We are (have) shifting from a work-based definition of the self to a leisure-based definition. Power has in many ways moved from a strict hierarchy to nodes of influence, called by Riesman `veto groups.'

But they were wrong. I am sure much has been written about this, as the text is well known in the field, but they got the `why' wrong. The whole explanatory basis of the book is predicated on the idea that capitalism, especially the upper-middle class American version of the culture created by capitalism, was peaking the population. Impending improvements in the mode of production would make population less necessary. Thus, the framework is based on the idea of `incipient population decline.'

The problem here is that while they were prescient on the cultural changes going about, and that we are heirs of, they missed the reason it was happening. They saw much, but not the baby boom that was happening as they were writing. At this point, I ask: What do we make of their model? Do we mock it, or can we study it for the elegance it was able to show under the constraints given?

I still enjoyed reading the book, but with the causation so easily missed, I did not always follow through on the thread of the argument. Instead, I found myself at length reflecting on ideas presented without the context of the greater argument. Even if they were wrong, I can say at least, `This book makes you think.'

Belgians in the Congo!: On King Leopold's Soliloquy

In Billy Joel's song _We Didn't Start the Fire_, there are a lot of lyrics that seem nonsensical unless you can get a hold of a written copy of the lyrics. One of the lines that you don't an interpreter to understand is the words: "Belgians in the Congo". When I was younger I just thought that that was a key word for a generalized dislike of all imperialism.

Naturally, as a product of the American school system, I did not have my earlier ideas refuted. I have learned only tangentially of the horrors that stands behind the idea of what "Belgians in the Congo" really means. It means more than imperialism. What it means is one of the first stabs at genocide in the world, decimating the people of central Africa to take advantage of the natural resources.

King Leopold of Belgium's reign in the Congo was lamentable for many, and a point of inspitation for too many. The actions taken prefigured a bloody twentieth century where the powerful make the powerless submit or be disfigured or killed. As one of the main human rights issues of the time (as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth), not just King Leopold was at fault, but the entire industrialized was complicit in allowing its continuance.

Twain saw the hypocrisy in allowing this to continue, and penned this fine text against the atrocities of the Congo. He takes the persona of King Leopold himself, embattled by the reformers who wish him to change. By taking this voice, or master satirist shows why he in many ways is still the conscious of our country. The argument is made with such force I wanted to go out and do what I could to stop them, even if they are too far away to reverse.

The Soliloquy itself is short, and padded out with extra explanatory detail and historical context the book is still under a hundred pages. I read through it quickly and enjoyed the contextual material. I might search out more of this untold history, but nothing can have the voice Twain gives Leopold.

We deserve good fairy tales: On Stardust

Adults deserve good fairy tales, too ~Neil Gaiman.

I have trouble being honest and critical with a well written book. Someone like Gaiman, in all his work so far, is able to create a world and characters that just pull you in and don't let you go. He is able to create the myths that make me suspend disbelief and the critical and writerly mind and just let go.

He does it here in _Stardust_. I have nothing to add in terms of the conflict or the characters because I lived and interacted with them. Books like this remind me why I loved reading so much when I was younger, before I sucked all the fun out by going to graduate school. Perhaps the resolution was telepgraphed to the reader, but that only comes out on reflection. Go get everything he's ever written, and remind yourself why you liked reading too.

We deserve good fairy tales, and we get them from Neil Gaiman. Thank you Neil.