One of my favorite essays of all time comes from old-school conservative writer Whitaker Chambers. In the late 1950s he reviewed Ayn Rand’s thousand-page paperweight Atlas Shrugged, in a piece titled “Big Sister is Watching You”.

What is great about “Big Sister” is not that it hits Atlas Shrugged in most of its considerable weak spots, but that it also lays down a great critique of political novels:They frequently become a cliché Chambers describes as “The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness”, in which both sides are “operatic caricatures”.

So, too is Jack London’s The Iron Heel. Unfortunately, though, its heroes are leftists, as opposed to Rand’s flawless industrialists. What does this mean for today? I contend that the absolutism of this political novel is also reflected in America’s own ideological conversation.

Jack London is best known as the naturalist who wrote White Fang and The Call of the Wild, stories about men braving the wilderness, or animals succumbing to domestication. Little known is that he was a devoted leftist, an important member of the American Socialist Party. The Iron Heel, written in 1908 near the height of socialist power in the United States, is infused with this ethos, to the exclusion of all others. Interestingly, George Orwell was very much inspired by the novel, using it as an inspiration for1984.

Like his friend H.G. Wells, London takes a turn for the futuristic. The framing device of the story is a new edition of the Everhard Manuscript, a journal from the twentieth century: In London’s fictional chronology, three hundred years in the future, humanity finally overthrew the fascist Oligarchies and established a world socialist collective. In this utopia, scholars have uncovered the Everhard Manuscript, a journal written by Avis Everhard, a socialist revolutionary who fought the rise of the Oligarchy in the United States, from around 1912 to 1940. She is married to Ernest Everhard, who more or less leads the movement. The future scholars dispute Avis’s claim that Ernest was such a great man, but London still makes Ernest out to be as much of a Child of Light as Rand’s Jon Galt or Howard Roark: A hero with zero flaws.

Neither Avis nor Ernest nor anyone else in the novel emerges as interesting characters. Rather, I found two particularly interesting elements in The Iron Heel. The first is its rather accurate prediction of the rise of fascism.

Eleven years after The Iron Heel was written, Mussolini founded the world’s first fascist party, using the principles of nationalism, corporatism, and centralized authority. These principles are very close to the Oligarchy of London’s novel. As the fictional chronology progresses, the evil capitalists of the United States band together, stifle the nation’s representation, and establish a dystopia in which the majority of Americans live in horrific poverty. These conditions mirror those in real-life fascist Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain in a very accurate way.

The second clever aspect of The Iron Heel is the way in which moral ambiguity is developed toward the end of the novel. Avis admits that the socialists did not predict the sincerity of the Oligarchs: After the initial cynicism of the corporations, a new generation emerged that believed that the Oligarchy was the only thing preventing a horrible socialist revolution that would devour all joyous things in the world. This was the justification for fascism; it is also the justification for our contemporary far right, who think that any attempt at economic reform is more or less communism.

The ending of the novel describes the Chicago Commune, a revolt in that city based on the real-life Paris Commune uprising in 1871. The socialists revolt, the armies of the Oligarchy put it down, and Avis witnesses the absolute misery of the poor, then called “the people of the abyss”. At this point they are mostly illiterate, barbaric, and animalistic. The message is clear: If you make the people so poor as to become animals, then they will act as such.

Still, these good points don’t disperse the main criticism I have with the novel: It is still a story of the Children of Light fighting the Children of Darkness. London does take time to identify some morally ambiguous characters: The “Frisco Reds” are a splinter group from the socialists who commit violent and useless terrorism; The big unions defect from the cause and become a “labor aristocracy” aligned with the Oligarchs; and a Bishop changes from an oblivious theologian to a sympathetic champion of the poor. This is more in line with how things work in real life: various factions contend for supremacy for their ideas and personnel. We may be disgusted with the fascism portrayed in the book (and its similarities to modern-day American corporatism), but more often than not I believe it is harmful to look at things in a simple good vs. evil narrative.

And that’s what The Iron Heel comes down to, really: The good guys beat the bad guys. These absolutist dichotomies are very much alive in modern American ideology: the greedy poor and the dignified rich; the heroic Americans and the cowardly terrorists; the white oppressors and the black victims; the evil Israelis and the downtrodden Palestinians. So long as we view things in this light, our literature, and our intelligentsia as a whole, will not provide constructive or realistic solutions to our problems.

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I’ve been listening to Barbara Kingsolver read her new novel, Flight Behavior, on my car CD player, and I have to wonder what the other drivers must think of me as I shake my head and talk to myself.  Of course there are lots of people with those little earpieces talking to themselves nowadays, so they probably assume I’m up to speed technologically.

My head shaking isn’t negative.  Quite the contrary.  I can’t help exclaiming, “Damn, she’s good.”   Or just “Wow.” The woman is master of the metaphor and sneaks them in so slyly that they flit on by like the butterflies in the story.

Kingsolver tells stories about the universal lessons of life forms, human and otherwise. Some take flight out of necessity and others because they can’t necessarily adapt to their physical and emotional surroundings.  In this story, a young mother in the mountains of eastern Tennessee has an epiphany of sorts because she forgot to bring her glasses with her on a walk up a hill.  When she sees millions of Monarch butterflies on an adjacent hill doing what butterflies do during roosting season, she thinks it’s a message from either god or her mother-in-law. The vision is so powerful that she changes her mind about committing adultery in an old cabin hidden among the trees and goes back home.

The story wraps itself around the question about why millions of Monarch butterflies chose to roost in eastern Tennessee, rather than their natural habitat in Mexico. The reader learns just about everything there is to know about Monarch butterflies, without being force fed a whole semester of entomology.  Anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for 30 years knows the moral of the story is going to be about climate change.

On one of my errand runs recently, I passed a little church on a country road and read on its message board: “Judgment Day is Coming.”  Yes it is. But we’re not going to line up before St. Peter. We’re going to face each other down over the dwindling supply of natural resources and see who is fit to survive. When wheat won’t grow in the breadbaskets of the planet anymore, how will we adapt? When superstorms aren’t “super” any more, can we afford to rebuild over and over?

Climate scientists tell us the average temperature on Earth has already risen two degrees. The National Geographic Society offers a DVD called “Six Degrees Could Change the World” where the viewer sees, by way of some very clever photographic tricks, what parts of the world will look like when the temperature has risen by four degrees, five degrees and then six degrees. Lower Manhattan will flood just like it did recently during Superstorm Sandy. Only this time, the water won’t recede. Islands in the South Pacific are already disappearing. Well, not really disappearing, just not visible above water. California and Florida have already lost expanses of beaches, as the ocean laps up against the pitiful piles of rocks meant to keep it away. Meanwhile, the lack of rain and snow in the  Mississippi River watershed has closed the once “mighty” river to commercial traffic.

The butterflies found a resting place in eastern Tennessee despite the distinct possibility that their little bodies will freeze and die. But they couldn’t go home to Mexico because they would not survive there either.

When I finish listening to Kingsolver’s story sermon, I’ll let you know how it ends.  Or maybe the story isn’t really over.

The post Kingsolver’s new novel, <i>Flight Behavior </i>, delivers a powerful sermon on climate change appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Jeff Greenfield’s historical novel, Then Everything Changed, is a collection of actual facts and plausible alternatives to facts. Without divulging too much about the book, the first of his three “what might have beens” involved Lyndon Johnson becoming president in 1960. Johnson knew that he was considered somewhat of a southern country bumpkin by many Northerners, particularly those who supported John F. Kennedy. He concluded that an effective way to gain their support was by advancing the cause of civil rights.

What Greenfield describes Johnson doing in 1961 is essentially what Johnson did in 1964 following the assassination of Kennedy. LBJ may have been from the South, but he wasn’t a Confederate.

Johnson’s strategy involved currying favor of members of Congress who were necessary to passing civil right legislation. He also worked the media. But fundamental to making civil rights legislation palatable and desirable to both Congress and the American people, was the way in which Negro leaders (as African-American leaders were called in the early 1960s) framed the issue.

Desegregated schools were already federal policy as a result of the Supreme Court’s unanimous landmark 1954 Brown v. School Board of Topeka decision. But discrimination in public accommodations was still legal. In February, 1960 when four young African-American men went to eat at the lunch counter of an F.W. Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, NC, they were not served and taunted. African-Americans essentially couldn’t eat at most restaurants in the South, stay in most motels, or use a restroom unless it was designated for “colored.” What Johnson knew was that the greatest fear of southern whites was that if an African-American male could sit next to a white female at a lunch counter, soon they’d be talking, then they’d be laughing, and ultimately they would wind up in bed together.

In Greenfield’s book, Johnson determined that the best way to advance civil rights was by extending the right to vote. There was constitutional protection through the 14th and 15th amendments. What was missing was federal legislation that would allow the Attorney-General to send federal officials to oversee the registration of African-Americans as well as their access to polls on election days. He reasoned that there was no plausible connection between voting and sexual relations between African-Americans and whites. Thus voting rights would be the best way to advance civil rights with the least amount of white resistance.

Johnson knew that he could not be the primary advocate for advancing civil rights. In fact, his best chance of success was if as president he played the role of a southern sympathizer who reluctantly came to the conclusion that there was no alternative to advancing civil rights.

So if not Johnson, then who would be the primary proponents of civil right legislation? Here is where timing was everything. The nation had a remarkable group of civil rights leaders. While most were men, they varied quite a bit in age. There were wizened veterans like A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer and Whitney Young. There were young ones such as John Lewis, Andrew Young, Julian Bond, and Rev. Jesse Jackson.. All were committed to advancing civil rights, but there was not a coalition that agreed upon a strategy.

This is where Johnson brilliantly played the “back channels.” While he had occasional scheduled appointments with civil rights leaders, he kept them limited in order to make its leaders look like just another interest group that was bidding for his time and attention. But after hours, Johnson was relentlessly on the long lines talking to Dr. King, Lewis, Wilkins, and others. His message was two-fold: (a) civil rights had to be united behind a single issue if legislation was going to be passed, and (b) that issue had to be voting rights.

Many of the civil rights leaders had fought the battles of public accommodations, fair housing, and police brutality. Johnson reasoned that all of these issues could be addressed once African-Americans had the right to vote and actually exercised it. Using his unique combination of honey and vinegar, he brokered a consensus among the civil rights leaders to focus on voting rights. Though not visible to anyone other than the civil rights leaders and a few of his top aides, Johnson essentially organized a march on Washington in favor of voting rights. He picked the leaders, speakers, invitees as well as the date and location. He would do everything but be present at the march. He wanted to be the solitary, pensive figure in the White House who saw this march for justice. He heard the stirring rhetoric and viewed hundreds of thousands of marchers who were non-violent and law-abiding. He had no choice but to act.

In Greenfield’s book, behind the scenes Johnson orchestrated this effort to make voting rights the call of the nation. Whites joined blacks in clamoring for immediate passage by Congress, and that’s precisely what happened.

What about President Barack Obama and back channels? As president, is he making private calls to advance his priorities? What issues are important to him that he can’t state publicly. Does he work cleverly behind the scenes to advance these causes?

Tens of millions of people voted for Barack Obama because they truly believed his progressive rhetoric in the campaign. They thought that his conservative words, such as continuing America’s presence in Afghanistan, were pro forma words that he had to say in order convince the Americans he would support military action when needed.

While he didn’t fully endorse a public option in health care, many felt that once in office, he would settle for nothing less and use back channels to make that clear to anyone who was uncertain. He would quietly and invisibly reach out to Planned Parenthood to not just protect existing reproductive rights, but to advance them so that every woman in American would be in charge of her own reproductive decisions.

Barack Obama may not be an enigma to those who know him best. But to many Americans, particularly those left of center, many of his actions seem unfathomable. Why did he give away the public option with no apparent concession in return? Why did he not take a firm stand against continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy? Why did he cut the payroll tax when we need to actually increase it, specifically on those making over $106,800, to provide the long-range viability that we all seek?

On the surface, President Obama does not seem to be a very clever or even active negotiator. This would be acceptable if behind the scenes he was orchestrating progressive and effective change. Just as there’s no way to prove a negative, there’s no way to assess what is invisible to us. He must be doing something through back channels, right? Let’s hope so, and let’s hope that it involves the progressive agenda that so many of us want.

What we see gives little reason to be confident about what he is doing behind the scenes. What I do know is that he’s an avid reader. Mr. President, may I suggest Jeff Greenfield’s Then Everything Changed?

The post Using back channels: LBJ and Barack Obama appeared first on Occasional Planet.

During the 2010 election cycle, Arthur Lieber ran for Congress in Missouri’s 2^nd Congressional district.  By percentages, Lieber lost badly to the heavily favored incumbent Todd Akin.  But the final vote tally is not as compelling as the story behind the numbers.  In a year when Democrats were positioning themselves as centrists, Lieber was openly progressive.  In a year when candidates of all parties chased donor money more frantically than ever, Lieber ran his campaign on a tiny budget and accepted no monetary donations.   And in a year when mud-slinging and smears were far more common than reasoned dialogue, Lieber’s campaign was relentlessly civil.  In fact, Lieber’s run for office was the most principled, unconventional campaign that most Missourians never heard of.  In his book, An Unlikely Candidate: Reflections on My Run for Congress, we find out why.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should begin by saying that I have known Arthur Lieber for over half my life.  Many years ago I met him when I was a high school student participating in Civitas’ Model United Nations program, and in my more adult incarnation I actually coordinate middle school programs for Civitas.  I am not an unbiased reviewer.  That said, I think anyone who picks up his book will find it a compelling read.  At its core it’s the tale of a thoughtful human being attempting to navigate the all-too-often inhumane process of campaigning for elected office.

Part one of Lieber’s book is a narrative of the congressional campaign itself.   Upon reading this section, one immediately is struck by how draining (physically, mentally, interpersonally) a political campaign is.  Canvassing, candidate forums, phone calls, candidate questionaires…and Lieber readily admits that by refusing monetary contributions he avoided the hugely time-consuming (and soul crushing task) of fundraising.  To maintain one’s sense of self in the face of such a process is a daunting task, it seems, and one that requires the sense of humor and irony that Lieber evidences again and again in the first section of the book.

Impressively, Lieber manages to give readers a true “insider” look at the campaign without engaging in petty character slams against those who slighted his candidacy or were less than genuine in their interactions with him.  In reading the book you gain insight into local media figures and politicos, but you never feel like Lieber was simply using his book to settle scores.  He is as quick to lavish praise as he is to level reasoned criticism.  Whether discussing Don Marsh, Bill McClellan, or Jack Danforth, he paints portraits of local personalities in a way that feels insightful but not exploitive or gossipy.

Furthermore, there are no sacred cows in Lieber’s book.   In one of the most powerful passages, he recounts his long standing respect (and financial support) of Planned Parenthood, and how he ultimately lost some of his esteem for the organization once he saw the process by which the organization endorsed—or didn’t endorse–candidates.  Leading and narrowly designed candidate questionaires, frustrating communication difficulties with the Planned Parenthood office, and an unwillingness to endorse a candidate unless they looked like they would win, all forced Lieber to look more critically at an organization he has long supported (and may well continue to support).

Part two of Lieber’s book focuses more on policy than narrative and attempts to layout concrete steps that could be taken to improve the political process.  In this section, Lieber is brave enough to offer unorthodox policy suggestions but also humble enough to admit that he doesn’t have all the answers.  His chapter on the need for schools that prepare students for democracy is particularly strong.  Does Lieber tilt at a few windmills here, suggesting changes to our current political and education system that seem to be highly unlikely at best?  Definitely.  But if more candidates were willing to engage in such thoughtful, unconventional problem solving, our political discourse would certainly be richer and more fruitful.

Upon finishing  An Unlikely Candidate, one can’t help but wonder how our country would be different if those who ran for office approached it more like Lieber.  Impossible?  Given our current system of funding campaigns and educating the electorate, it probably is.  But it’s exciting to imagine nevertheless.

The post “An Unlikely Candidate” reflects on an unusual campaign appeared first on Occasional Planet.

2011 is the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, an era in which St. Louis had grandiose ideas for itself. A just-published book, The Great Heart of the Republic, looks at the role St. Louis played in the cultural conflicts of those tumultuous times. And, if you read between the lines, there are lessons—and conflicts—that still apply today, as St. Louis continues its quest for recognition, redemption and advancement in the constellation of American cities

Historian Adam Arenson’s account of St. Louis’ late-19^th Century civic struggles flows more like a novel than what one might expect from such a deeply researched, academic investigation. His straightforward writing style pulls you along, immersing you in the political wrangling of the times and introducing you to information that explodes some of St. Louis’ favorite historical myths.

It all starts with the Great Fire of 1849. Rather than a tragedy for the city, it was, in Arenson’s account, the spark that—as the city was rebuilt—transformed a French fur-trading hub into a potential commercial powerhouse on the doorstep of the vast Western territories.

It’s  Arenson’s focus on that Western connection that sets apart his view of St. Louis and the Civil War. He shows us a St. Louis—and an America—that were not just in conflict over slavery vs. abolition, but also in contention over the future of everything west of the Mississippi. In Arenson’s view, that third aspect of the cultural civil war is often overlooked.

Arenson’s book is absorbing and refreshingly short—an easily digestible 222 pages, not counting the extensive and fascinating bibliography. If understanding history is a way to help us avoid repeating it, the book offers more than just a new and intriguing prism through which to view St. Louis’ past: It’s also a guidebook to the future. Here are a few civic-development lessons that I took away from The Great Heart of the Republic:

Transform a crisis into an opportunity

The Great Fire of 1849 could have wiped St. Louis off the map, but it didn’t, because city leaders and citizens didn’t let that happen. I certainly don’t wish for a similar disaster to spur St. Louis into action. But somewhere in Arenson’s dramatic account of the fire, I think there’s a metaphor. Is it that much of a stretch to say that the City of St. Louis is in an existential crisis in 2011? The public schools are failing. Downtown is devolving into a hollowed-out core, as businesses go elsewhere. We can view the situation as hopeless, or we can see it as an opportunity for sweeping innovation and rebirth, as city leaders did in 1849. The parallels aren’t perfect, I know. But the lesson is there, and to move forward St. Louis needs to…

Think creatively

One of the surprises [for me] in Arenson’s book is the fascinating story of how several prominent local citizens tried to get the Capital of the United States moved to St. Louis in the 1870s. Apparently, people in the late 19^th Century were not afraid to propose “crackpot” ideas and be taken seriously. In those heady times of the emerging industrial revolution and Manifest Destiny mania, people thought anything was possible. The leaders of the “capital removal” project made some excellent arguments, earned a measure of credibility, and got national attention. Okay, so ultimately, they failed. But the effort showed creativity and the willingness to take a risk. Lesson taken: Contemporary St. Louisans need to take a self-esteem pill and think bigger. The effort to win the hosting contest for the 2012 Democratic convention is a positive example [even if the convention itself will inevitably be a meaningless exercise in political theatre.]. But I digress.

Some of the teachable moments in Arenson’s book derive from bad decisions. One of the worst, with implications still felt in St. Louis, came from politicians’ inability [or unwillingness] to…

Imagine

If you haven’t heard of the Great Divorce of 1876, you haven’t lived in St. Louis—or at least not for very long. In The Great Heart of the Republic, Arenson shows how and why, in 1876, St. Louis civic leaders circled the wagons around the known world of the existing city and seceded from the perceived burdens of supporting farmers and their cows and pigs and cornfields in the rest of what was then St. Louis County. Many also viewed the notion of Forest Park, at the western end of the city, as a waste of money and developable land. Their lack of imagination is particularly stunning because of the ultimate irony of closing off the city from neighboring tracts of land: At the same time that city leaders were touting St. Louis as the gateway to the vast Western territories that stretched to California—and looking for ways to exploit those possibilities and the accompanying riches—they turned their backs on their own western frontier!

The reversal of fortune resulting from their decision has been dramatic, as St. Louis County has prospered, while the City [which became its own county in the divorce] has suffered. Understandably, city leaders probably couldn’t have predicted the impact that cars would have on life in a metropolitan area. But the lesson endures. And as St. Louis movers and shakers kick around—for the umpteenth time in the 20^th and 21st Centuries—the concept of rejoining the suburbs with the city, some imaginative, big-picture, non-parochial ideas could be very helpful in shaping a better future.  [Two of which are not, in my opinion, represented by billionaire Rex Sinquefield’s selfish, ideological, unfair plans to eliminate the City earnings tax and to replace Missouri’s state income tax with a flat sales tax.]

Just read it

I’m fairly sure that Arenson didn’t write his book as a cautionary tale for contemporary metropolitan leaders. And there’s much more in it than I’m talking about here. Some of what he documents may surprise people who learned their St. Louis history from conventional sources. Even some Civil War aficionados may find something new to ponder. Without spoiling the story, I’ll simply mention that in Arenson’s view—contrary to local lore—the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi was not the most important bridge in St. Louis’ railroad and economic history. That story is a dramatic highlight in the book. But it’s a story that I recommend you read for yourself.

The post Can St. Louis get its groove back? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

A Question of Values is Morris Berman’s seventh book of cultural history and social criticism and his first book of essays, which were written between 2007 and 2010.  The book covers four general topics: American culture and politics, the human existential condition, the nature of progress, and thoughts on where we are headed. (He thinks not a good place.)  He feels our problems are as much ethical as they are political.

In the second essay in the book “conspiracy vs. Conspiracy in American History” Berman outlines four American values that he feels are problematic and that are at the core of our accelerating decline.  He suggests these four values or “unconscious mythologies” negatively influence how we behave with each other and the rest of the world. No matter where we are politically, whether we reject them or not, these mythologies are part of our DNA. Because of that reality, Berman feels we need to bring to consciousness the following notions that are not serving us well.

The first is the idea of Americans as the “chosen people,” and of the nation as a “City on a Hill.” He attributes this notion to the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony John Winthrop who said: “ He [God] shall make us praise and glory. . . .For we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

In other words, the idea is that it is our unique mission to bring democracy to all the peoples of the earth because the American way of life is superior to all others. Berman underscores that the idea of American exceptionalism—that America is the manifestation of God’s will on earth—runs deep in the American psyche. It was the belief in American exceptionalism that eventually sold Americans on the Iraq War, which after the weapons of mass destruction lie failed, transformed into a mission to bring American democracy and the American way of life to the Middle East.

Berman’s second unconscious mythology is of the existence in the United States of what he calls a “civil religion.” Even though Americans claim to be highly religious, the real religion of the American people is America itself.

To be an American is regarded (unconsciously by Americans) as an ideological/religious commitment, not an accident of birth. This is why critics of the United States are immediately labeled “un-American,” and are practically regarded as traitors. (Quite ridiculous, when your think about it: can you imagine a Swedish critic of Sweden, for example, being attacked as “un-Sweedish?”)  The historian Sidney Mead pegged it correctly when he called America “the nation with the soul of a church,” while another historian, Richard Hofstadter, declared that “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one.”  Quite obviously, this is not a position that encourages self-reflection.

The third unconscious mythology, according to Berman is the existence of a “supposedly endless frontier into which the American people would expand geographically. Eventually, it became an economic frontier, and finally an imperial one—Manifest Destiny gone global. . . .The American Dream envisions a world without limits, in which the goal, as the gangster (played by Edward G. Robinson) tells Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, is simply ‘more.’”

Finally, Berman identifies us as having a national character based on extreme individualism—Emerson’s “Self Reliance.” He notes a shift occurred in the definition of the word “virtue” in the Colonies in the 1790s. Previous to this time, the word virtue referred to the European idea of the capacity to rise above personal interest and devote oneself to the public good. But, he says, by 1800, the definition was reversed. Virtue came to mean the ability to “further oneself in an opportunistic environment.” Jeffersonian Republicans championed this idea as a way to break with all things European. “Life was not to be about service to the community, but about competition and the acquisition of goods.. . .The “self-made man” is expected to make it on his own.”

Berman goes on to say that

American history can be seen as the story of a nation consistently choosing individual solutions over collective ones. One American who did dissent, however, was Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. In Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions he wrote: “The philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.”

As if to underscore Berman’s point, on October 11, 2008, Harold Bloom wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Out of Panic, Self-Reliance.” In it he said, referring to the economic crash and the upcoming election:”

Regardless of these differences, whoever is elected will have to forge a solution to today’s panic through his own understanding of self-reliance. As Emerson knew in his glory and sorrow, both of himself and all Americans: “The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me …. I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born.”

Interesting, that Bloom didn’t question the “wealth of the universe is for me” mentality that contributed to the economic crisis, but, instead, celebrated it.

Berman acknowledges that these same unconscious mythologies drove technological innovation and the “Yankee can-do mentality.” However, he feels that “in dialectical fashion, they have begun to turn against us, and the crash of 2008 is merely the tip of the iceberg.”

Morris Berman is a well-known cultural historian and social critic. He has taught in a number of universities in Europe, North America and Mexico. Berman won the Governor’s Writer’s Award for Washington State in 1990, and the Rollo May Center Grant for Humanistic Studies in 1992. In 2000, his book Twilight of American Culture was named a “Notable Book” by The New York Times.  http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

The post Morris Berman: A Question of Values appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s  reassuring to know that presidents and congressional representatives–or, perhaps, their staff–sometimes read something other than staff-prepared briefing books and lobbyist-generated manifestos. Well, at least some of them do. A recent blog post by Elham Khatami at congress.org offers a short list of books that had a direct and positive influence on national leaders. Here’s the list and descriptions of some very impressive consequences.  How many of them have you read? Although I wish I could say otherwise, my personal score is embarrassingly low.

Who needs a book agent when you have Congress?In recent weeks, Members of Congress have cited Michael Lewis’ book, “The Big Short,” at least 15 times in hearings, debates and interviews about the economic crisis.In words that would melt a literary agent’s heart, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) even called the book, which focuses on the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, “an eye-opener.”

“The Big Short” joints a long list of books that have been cited by lawmakers. In recent years, the unofficial Congressional book club has also included Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars,” an account of the CIA’s involvement  in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, and Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” which calls for an environmental revolution.

We took a closer look at some of the most influential books in Congressional history.

1. “The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair

A young Chicago socialist, Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” to raise awareness about workers’ rights, saying he hoped it would be the “‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ of the labor movement.” What he did not anticipate was that the novel would fuel public outcry over the unsanitary conditions in the food preparation industry.

Although the book is a work of fiction, Sinclair conducted interviews and immersed himself in food preparation business to make his story of the problems in the meatpacking industry come to life.

After being published in magazines and then as a book, it led to public pressure to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which created the Food and Drug Administration, and the Meat Inspection Act.

2. “The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck

Published in 1939, Steinbeck’s fictional account of the Joads, an Oklahoma family of sharecroppers during the Great Depression, personified the plight of migrant farm workers in America.

In search of work and dignity, the family travels to California. But jobs are scarce and their arrival is met with persecution by the authorities and locals. After reading the novel, President Franklin Roosevelt said of California’s farmers “something must be done and done soon.”

Shortly after the book’s publication, a subcommittee of the Senate’s Education and Labor Committee, chaired by Sen. Robert LaFollette (R-Wisc.) suggested that protective labor laws be expanded to cover farm workers.

3. “The Other America,” by Michael Harrington

An advocate of democratic socialism, Michael Harrington released his sobering study of poverty in the United States in 1962, arguing that it is America’s moral responsibility to solve the problem.

After reading the book, President John F. Kennedy began contemplating anti-poverty legislation.

Following Kennedy’s death, President Lyndon B. Johnson continued this “war on poverty,” influencing Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which provided health, education, welfare and other social programs to the poor.

4. “Silent Spring,” by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson’s ecological treatise “Silent Spring” challenged the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, arguing that they killed animals, harmed the environment and had detrimental health consequences for humans.

Published in 1962, her book is widely regarded as the root of the green movement.

Despite the controversial nature of Carson’s argument, the Kennedy administration supported her views that pesticides were unsafe and overused in the United States the following year.

Her book was credited with launching the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and with pushing Congress to pass the Pesticide Control Act of 1972.

5. “Unsafe at Any Speed,” by Ralph Nader

Nader’s 1965 book about the automobile industry’s lax safety regulations completely changed the way cars were manufactured.

Before the publication of “Unsafe at Any Speed,” vehicles were made without seatbelts and dashboards were made of metal, making injury or death high risks in even the smallest of accidents.

Nader highlighted these and countless other dangerous conditions and his book prompted Congress to pass Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, which made certain safety measures mandatory, including the installation of seat belts.

It also led to the creation of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission.

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