Category: Books

The Citadel

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The polemic of Obamacare and the nature of the NHS continues. There is a really important contribution to be made by Dr A. J. Cronin, a doctor of some note. Dr Cronin died in 1981, and the contribution is not scientific, but moral. It is not a paper, but a novel, called The Citadel.

I am not going to try to summarise the book; the plot is simple enough, but it is the experience of the author and the emotion he expresses that make the book worthwhile. It is the anger expressed at a system where the rich buy doctors’ time that they do not need while the poor die. It is a book that helped Labour win the ’45 election and helped the founding of the NHS.

It is available from Amazon in paperback and there are four English-language and two Italian film adaptations. The 1938 version is listed in The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.

xD.

The nine nations of North America by Joel Garreau

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The thesis of Garreau’s 1981 book, The nine nations of North America, is deceptively simple. Not only, he argues, are the borders between the states of the USA and between that country and Mexico & Canada are artificial constructions – they clearly are – but that they are irrelevant. There are commonly recognised regions with the USA, but they don’t work either. Consider, within the Mid-west, the differences between Missouri and Michigan! This all became increasingly obvious to Garreau, a journalist, and colleagues of his as they travelled around North America. If they wanted to work out what actions in what localities would effect which people in which places, they needed a different set of tools to explain how the USA works.

This gives rise to the titular nine nations. They are the Foundry, New England, Quebec, Dixie, MexAmerica, Ecotopia, the Empty Quarter, the Islands and the Breadbasket. They each have a capital (Detroit, Boston, Denver, Quebec, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Kansas City respectively). Some are historic regions – New England, Quebec, Dixie – others are characterised by their ethnic makeup – the Islands and MexAmerica – but, in Garreau’s book, they are all cogently described by looking at where different social, economic and geographic factors cause dividing lines with greater relevance to the quotidiarian than the accidental lines of history. The book goes through each ‘nation’ and looks at its extent, its borders and so on.

There is a problem with the term ‘nation’ as, if we accept Benedict Anderson’s definition of nations as imagined communities then these entities so not qualify as, not being widely recognised, people cannot, for the most part, imagine themselves to be members. There are exceptions. Quebec is a clear, full exception; MexAmerica and the Islands might be partial exceptions.

I don’t think Garreau had it quite right in ’81. There was still considerable variation within his nine nations; consider, for instance, Appalachia, which crosses two and possibly three of the nine. I would argue that its cultural and economic histories and situation make a good argument for it to ‘exist’ in some way; the existence of the Appalachian Regional Commission would suggest that I have at least some weight to my argument.

However, that very example shows the strength of Garreau’s argument. If Appalachia exists in any meaningful sense, it crosses state lines. From there, it is not far to crossing country borders. As anyone who has travelled across Texas will know, the Lone Star State is a varied place; that is not to say that people there do not identify both as Texans and Americans, but that, in terms of reality, someone from Texarkana might have more in common with a Sooner than someone from El Paso.

This idea has all sorts of implications.

First, identity, interest and reality are really, really complicated. Secondly, effective public policy needs to look at crossing international boundaries. Thirdly, given that in some cases, particularly MexAmerica and the Islands, the Anglo (Garreau’s term, not mine) policy establishment will need to be, ahem, a little more reasonable towards non-Anglo, and particularly those who don’t speak ‘Anglo’ as a first language, people.

The book was published in 81 and refers back over Garreau’s experiences in the previous decade. Things have changed greatly since then; the mentions of the possibilities of computers seem quaint now, the worsening economics of the Foundry have continued and the Hispanic population of the US has grown significantly. Nevertheless, the general thrust of the book holds true; polity, nation and economy do not necessarily overlap.

An interesting question would be how much this applies to Europe (is Saar-Lor-Lux more relevant than Benelux? Does Jutland make more sense tied to Northern Germany than Scandinavia? How well does Northern Italy sit with the rest of the Republic?) and the UK; England exists, in some sense, as a nation. Does it exist as a polity or an oiconome?

I do recommend the book.

xD.

Memento mori

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I went to the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition of London skeletons, mostly found during rebuilding and renovation works, on Euston Road. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a rather sobering experience. Nearly two thousand years of life and death in the capital are displayed, from the probably overweight, bon-vivant William Wood (84) to an unborn child, its bones still lying within its mother even after death.

The bones tell us a remarkable amount about the lives of past Londoners. The scars left on the bones show lives of excess, through gout and arthritis, to lives of want and disease, through syphilis and rickets. Even the place of burial indicates social status, with the rich buried in Chelsea while the residents of the workhouse and the prison might have had their eternal repose in St Bride’s Lower Churchard. I wonder what tales are being told, not to be read perhaps for centuries until our bodies are dug up for some future building works, in our bones. Will future visitors wonder at the inequities and injustices of our time and decry the situation that allowed such differences between rich and poor as we now look back?

On the subject of the transience of human life, I’ve recently read a remarkable book called Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon that deals with the future evolution of homo sapiens, through eighteen distinct, future species. It is remarkable both for the timespan it covers – two billion years – and for illustrating, despite all the advances we may make, that homo sapiens is a product of its evolution and that its end, although it may be delayed through skill and cunning, is inevitable. The ultimate message, in all this futility, is that ‘the good life’, if I may mix my metaphors, is in the searching for, but not the finding of, the Grail.

Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento!
– Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man!
Warning traditionally read by a slave to a victorious Roman general at his Triumphal march.

xD.

A Blogger’s Manifesto by Erik Ringmar

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Erik Ringmar, a good friend of mine from the LSE, has written what, to my knowledge is a double first with his book, A Blogger’s Manifesto. It is the first academic study of blogs and it is the first book about blogging that isn’t about how public relations people should take advantage of blogging, how you can make money from your blog or presents a collection of articles from blogs.

For me, A Blogger’s Manifesto has three themes; one, that saying that ‘blogging is good for free speech’ only fits in with one of the three interpretations of freedom of speech; secondly, that the implications of blogging range far beyond the (somewhat self-important) political blog; and that blogging can make our world better, but that it requires people to be less sensitive and a bit more in touch with reality.

Erik has, unfortunately, experience of being ‘dooced’. The story is recounted on Wikipedia and The Guardian, but I would like to say again that I think George Phillip and Howard Davies massively over-reacted, damaged the LSE’s reputation and cost its students a good lecturer and a good teacher. It colours his interpretations, but not unjustifiably so. As I have said in the past, freedom of speech, if it means anything, means having to hear things you don’t want to hear. It also means that other people have to hear what you don’t want them to hear.

1. Three promises
Erik very succinctly describes three variations on free speech justification; the republican rights of man, the liberal against restriction of freedom and the radical that emphasises access to information as much as freedom of speech. The great improvement that blogging brings is not that anybody come say what they want, but that anyone has access to unmediated information if they want it; unmediated by politicians, companies, editors or anyone else. It requires an educated citizenry, but it offers the chance for people to find about what matters to them, be it transport policy or embroidery. It is a fascinating way of looking at free speech and implicitly asks what anyone who restricts access to information and the internet has to hide.

2. Blogging beyond politics
The political bloggers tend, I think, to overstate their own importance. We are on the verge of unseating the ‘dead-tree press’ and heralding a new era of political engagement. We are not there yet, and the changes will most likely occur from the bottom-up rather than by a decapitation of existing filters.

The modal average blogger is, it would appear, a teenaged girl and people blog about everything – literally, everything. Whatever it is that someone finds interesting, someone will be blogging about it. One of the things people do most often is work and so it is not surprising that work comes up a lot in peoples’ blogs, whether it be Petite Anglaise, Dooce or, indeed, Erik Ringmar. The way companies react tell us a lot about them; they seek criticism in general and blogs in particular as a threat to be jumped on. The case of the LSE is instructive. I did my undergraduate degree at LSE and had a great time. I would recommend the LSE to anyone. That does not mean it is perfect; there are areas where it could improve. Erik highlighted some of them; the response to his speech was instructive; the fact that someone would give a warts-and-all representation of the LSE made the good more believable. Consumers, as students are increasingly treated, can see through PR but find honesty appealing. This applies to all consumers, broadly defined.

3. Hear my voice
There are risks associated to blogging. It gives a platform to anyone, not just people we are willing to be heard. Not only does this allow this allow the deeply unpleasant to express themselves, it means that the vulnerable can be targeted. The answer to both problems is education. In the case of the vulnerable, it is education about the risks of the internet and, given that people tend to ignore advice, how to remain as safe as possible. In the case of the deeply unpleasant, the most effective countervailing force is an educated citizenry with the ability to critique information presented as fact; these are skills that should be developed in school but can be developed later.

If there is more information out there, it is more likely to concern any given person or organisation; this seems to explain the paranoia among some companies and the raft of PR companies offering services for blogging and other social media. The message that comes through for me from Erik’s book is that blogging is not ‘there’… yet. It is growing and finding its voices – and it’s voices in the plural, not voice. The utilitarian justification for free speech that Mill outlines in On Liberty stands and organisations would do well to foster constructive criticism. They have much to gain.
Erik has an engaging style of writing and his breadth of knowledge and natural inquisitiveness, coupled with some sour personal experiences and the resultant support, make it a book that starts firing t. I thoroughly recommend that anyone interested in anything more than the superficie of blogging read this book. It is available for free download on Erik’s website and is published by Anthem Press and is available on Amazon.

xD.

PS – I declare a relevant interest here, as I sent information to the author for the book and was firmly ‘on his side’ during the disagreement at LSE.