Review: Democracy: A History

Democracy: A History by John Dunn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book gets 5 stars for content and quality but 3 stars for being difficult to read. I am sure if I was a little better versed in political philosophy and the history of democracy it would not have been as difficult to read. I am just saying this as a warning for the would be reader that it is a good but not easy intro to the history of democracy. However, since it was a short book (188 pages before about 40 pages of notes) it was like a small dive into the deep end.

Dunn splits the history of democracy into two comings - the first coming (ch.1)- athenian democracy and the 2nd coming (ch.2)- modern day democracy from the lens of the french and american revolutions. Both chapters have great historical context, original thoughts and a good overview of each democratic era and model. As a beginner to political history I was introduced to characters like Pericles, Robospierre and Babeuf along with the usual suspects of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Locke, the Federalists etc.

After going through the two "comings of democracy", Dunn has a chapter titled "the long shadow of thermidor" that I recall being mainly about "egoism and equality" as political forces and how modern day democracy embodies egoism perfectly as to allow the people to put up with under the belief that they live in a society where everyone is equal (this is my very simplistic idea of his well worded and complex presentation of the dynamics of equality and egoism within modern political systems going under the name of democracy). His last chapter is titled "why Democracy" and seeks to answer the question "why has democracy become the standard system of legitimating political power in the modern world. This chapter also has some good original thoughts on the modern push for "deliberative democracy" and an enlivening of the publich sphere and some good reflections on the pitfalls and importance of representative democracy.

One of the more interesting and constant themes throughout the book is actually about the word democracy. In a way this book tells the history of a word and how it has been used and understood by people from Athens till today. I did not know that "democracy" was usually said with negative connotations for the larger part of philosophical history ranging from Plato up to the Federalist party that wrestled with how to use the term. So Dunn wrestles with how this word which used to be viewed negatively and as a sign of a country in chaos became a rallying cry of hope and has enabled America and Britian to storm into Iraq by justifying the move as liberating from tyranny and establishing democracy. How did democracy shift from a negative political term to a modern day war cry? This question, and Dunn's answers, rolls throughout the whole book.


Quotes:

“Why should it be the case that, for the first time in the history of our still conspicuously multi-lingual species, there is for the present a single world-wide name for the legitimate basis of political authority? Not, of course, uncontested in practice anywhere, and still roundly rejected in many quarters, but never, any longer, in favor of an alternative secular claimant to cosmopolitan legitimacy.” (pg.15)


“When any modern state claims to be a democracy, it necessarily misdescribes itself” (pg.18)

Pericles: “for we alone regard the man who takes no part in public affairs, not as one who minds his own business, but as good for nothing…. it is not debate which is a hindrance to action, but rather not to be instructed by debate before the time comes for action.” (pg.27)

“What happened in France in the few short years between 1788 and 1794 changed the structure of political possibilities for human communities across the world almost beyond recognition.” (pg.92)

“A representative democracy was no system of direct citizen self-rule. Instead, what it offered was a system of highly indirect rule by representatives chosen for the purpose by the people.” (pg.122)

“Once the happiness and strength of a society is placed in riches, the exercise of political rights must necessarily be denied to those whose fortune provides no guarantee of their attachment to the creation and defense of wealth. In any such social system, the great majority of citizens is constantly subjected to painful labour, and condemned in practice to languish in poverty, ignorance and slavery.” (pg.124)

“In America, once the Constitution was firmly in place, democracy soon became the undisputed political framework and expression of the order of egoism.” (pg.125-126)

“To delegate government to relatively small numbers of citizens but also insist that they be chosen by most, if not all, of their fellows was a cunning mixture of equality and inequality.” (pg.128)

“As a modern political term, democracy is above all the name for political authority exercised solely through the persuasion of the greater number, or for other sorts of authority in other spheres supposedly exercised solely on a basis acceptable to those subjected to it.” (pg.132)`



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Review: Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore

Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore by Peter L. Berger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great book!

An autobiographical account of Berger's sociological career that at times looks at his religious/theological journey as well, though it is not the main focus. One of the values of this book is that he summarizes almost every book and paper he wrote, giving the context of his life at the time, what the book was about and what he thinks about now. Berger has written a lot of books that I want to read (Social Construction of Reality, In Praise of Doubt...), I felt like this was a good place to start to get an intro of his work before diving into some of his specific projects.

Berger's perspective is unique and mature; it comes at the end of a long and diverse career and he doesn't fit neatly into an ideological box as some of his stances will upset both liberals and conservatives. He speaks briefly but sharply on a wide range of topics in this book: economic development of third-world countries (marxism vs capitalism), development in S.E. Asia in light of Weber's protestant ethic, Pentecostalism in South America, Evangelicalism in America, culture wars and politics, multiple modernities and globalization, development after apartheid in South Africa, the ins and outs of academia, basic explanation of some key figures and concepts in sociology and even a sociological look at comedy. For some this list might be boring, but for others it is a treasure to have such a great mind writing on so many topics in less than 250 pages.

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Peter Berger on Constructivism

Peter Berger's "Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist", an autobiographical sketch of his sociological career, is a mix of light anecdotal stories and brief reflections on important topics such as the sociology of religion, secularization, race relations in the U.S. and the cultural movement of the 60's among other things. I personally enjoyed his 1-2 page comments on the Postmodern movement associated intellectually with Derrida and Foucault and popularly with the mantras of "relativism and tolerance". His important work with Thomas Luckman, "the Social Construction of Reality", is viewed as some to be influential in this postmodernist/constructivist school; and so he spends some time addressing misconception of his work on the sociology of knowledge as a green light for absolute relativism and absence of facts. Below is quotes from pg.94-95 of his book where he defines the constructivist/postmodernist philosophy and gives his criticism of it and describes where he is in relation to it. The basic jist of what he has to say is "yes everything is interpretation, but not all interpretation are equal".

"The [constructivist] argument goes something like this: Since all reality is socially constructed, there is no objective truth or at least none that can be accessed. Indeed, there are no facts, only 'narratives.' There is no objective way to make epistemological judgments as between the 'narratives.' But what one can do is to 'deconstruct' them - that is, to unmask the interests that they invariably express. These interests are always expressions of the will to power - of class, or race, or gender. And here, of course, postmodernism links up with various ideologies of the Left - Marxism, 'post-colonialism', 'Third Worldism,' and all the various strands of identity politics (notably radical feminism and 'queer theory').

This amalgam of theoretical trends has become enormously influential in American academia over the last few decades, and in many places it has become an oppressive orthodoxy. But these trends have been popularized far beyond academia. They have a pronounced affinity with a widespread relativism... It is a widely diffused worldview, in which the only real virtue is 'tolerance' and the only real vice is 'being judgmental."

The disastrous intellectual and indeed political implications of this type of nihilism cannot be followed up here. But it should be clear why Luckmann and I have felt constrained to say repeatedly, 'We are not constructivists' (perhaps imitating marx's statement 'I am not a Marxist'). Our concept of the social construction of reality in no way implies that there are no facts. Of course there are physical facts to be determined empirically, from the fact that a particular massacre took place to the fact that someone stole my car.... Reality indeed is always socially interpreted, and power interests are sometimes involved in some interpretation. But not all interpretations are equal. If they were, any scientific enterprise, not to mention any medical diagnosis or police investigation, would be impossible. As to the most radical formulation of this 'postmodernism' - that nothing really exists but the various 'narratives' - this corresponds very neatly with a definition of schizophrenia, when one can no longer distinguish between reality and one's fantasies. 

Luchamn and I would place ourselves in a tradition of sociology rooted in the Enlightenment project of seeking to understand the world by exercises of reason. Many 'postmodernists' have proudly described their purpose as the end of the Enlightenment project. We understand our sociology as a defense of that project."  

 

 

 

Influential Books in Academia

Came across two cool links while browsing  openculture aobut influential books in academia. The first is called "the Open Syllabus Project", by a group that I think is from Columbia University, the Open Syllabus Project took over 1 million syllabi and figured out what were the most commonly studied books in higher educational institutions and made a pretty cool data chart to see it on.

The other link is an article from the Guardian that talks about a UK poll of publishers, librarians and academics about what were the most influential academic books. The number one book was Charles Darwin's "the Origin of Species" and the list of the top 20 in alphabetical order are below:



A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Orientalism by Edward Said
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer
The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson
The Meaning of Relativity by Albert Einstein
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
The Republic by Plato
The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Ways of Seeing by John Berger

MLK Day- Bernie, West, Turner and Killer Mike

This is a pretty relevant weekly talk because of the recent MLK day and the rise of Bernie in the polls. If you do not really know much about what Bernie is running for then check out a video series he does with the rapper killer mike or some interviews he has with vox. Those are good ways to get to know what Bernie Sanders is running for. I mention those, because Sander's proposed policies are not the central theme of this but rather implied and if you don't know what he is calling for then you might not know how he lines up with king.

All in all, just a great panel of speakers and it made me want to get Cornel West's new book "the Radical King", a collection of some of  Martin Luther King's more liberal teachings.

Pope Francis' Encyclical - "on Care for our Common Home"

Augustine Warning of Foolishness

Augustine warning Christians about talking nonsense on topics they don't understand and deterring people from wanting to come talk to them with their questions about "resurrection, eternal life, etc."   This is from his work on the literal meaning of Genesis, which can be read on Google books.

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn (…) If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?"