Politics and a book review
Oct. 12th, 2008 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineAwesome day with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wendy yesterday. Gymnastic superstars tour thing! About one-third high-energy exhibition, one-third amateurish Cirque-du-Soliel knock off, one-third truly crappy concert, yet somehow combined for way more entertainment value than I anticipated. Also, much better ratio of barely pubescent girls to hot hunks without shirts than I was expecting. It is good to be pandered to!
Random political link: Wick Allison endorses Obama. (Yes, THAT Wick Allison. The one who was editor/publisher of the National Review. Yes, THAT National Review)
Every once in awhile an avowed conservative articulates their vision of conservatism in a way that makes me go, "But wait a minute! That's me!" It seems like for this man, who formed his basic political philosophy between, say, 1964 and 1970, conservatism = "skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes," pragmatic considerations and actual results, being driven by facts and goals rather than ideology, doing good rather than feeling good, thoughtfulness, realism, and prudence, "a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world."
And for me, who formed my basic political awareness between the years of, say, 2000 and 2004, those exact same criteria equate to liberalism. Because the conservative movement changed; because we have accumulated more experience and more history and therefore more evidence to evaluate things such as Neocon foreign policy and supply-side economics and progressive income taxation and the private health insurance market and whatever else; because traditionally conservative policies simply do not WORK, by any sane, pragmatic, realistic measurement, and traditionally liberal policies DO.
Do you remember back in 03-04, when it became obvious that the scariest thing about Bush wasn't his intelligence or hawkishness or ties to oil or anything else, but his simple conviction that facts did not matter in the slightest? Do you remember Ron Suskind's Without a Doubt, the single most influential and insightful article ever written on the Bush administration, which laid bare Bush's disdain for any objective reality outside his own certainty, and for a long time made "proud member of the reality-based community" the standard tagline for Democrats? (Man, I wish I still had that button)
Now I suspect that Wick Allison and I still have some fundamental disagreements (how much tradition should be respected as tradition, for starters, and probably quite a lot of disagreements as to what constitutes "working" and "sane, pragmatic, realistic measurement" of same, especially with regard to social issues), but the basic, undeniable fact is that we share fundamental intellectual values. We both believe that decision making should start from facts and evidence and observed behavior, proceed with definite goals and a sober evaluation of capabilities and resources and likely outcomes, and proceed to solutions which ought to be implemented and tested and refined based on actual results. And, had I been born forty years earlier, those basic intellectual values may well have led me to the Republican party. Now, they lead him to Obama.
All I am saying, really, is this:
-That there are conservatives and Republicans who do not identify in these ways because they're uninformed, or reactionary, or xenophobic, or religious wackjobs, or stupid, or evil.
-That there are some that share my basic worldview, my thought processes, my way of thinking about the world, who I would find intellectual equals and valuable conversation partners and admirable antagonists... and that while I obviously know that, I perhaps do not really hear it as often or sincerely as I should.
-That party labels are not inherently tied to rightness or wrongness of ideas or policies, or even to basic worldviews or values.
-That I sincerely hope that if political labels slip from my original conception as radically as they have for him, I will have the same courage he does to step back and consider with intellectual honesty and clarity.
Passage, Connie Willis.
I adored Connie Willis' two time-travel books and short stories, and had a blast chatting with her at Comic-con, so I'm a bit saddened by how disappointing this book was. Its main flaw is length- it clocks in at 800 pages, and I think if I'd been editing it, it would have come in well under 500. Her plot is good and her characters are good, and her fundamental conflict is the main character's struggle to stay in the realm of intellectually honest and sane science even as the book circles perilously close to woo-woo New Agey spiritualist bullshit, which it avoids at the last minute in a VERY satisfying way... only to let the very last page undermine that. Sigh. But still, that basic sensibility is a lot of what I want out of science fiction and what it delivers so rarely these days, and I love it.
The two hundred pages of setup are great, and the last two hundred pages of plot are great, and the four hundred pages in between are interminable. Gripping! I read five hundred straight pages today, started at 11 am and didn't stop till 6:30, but she could have done everything she needed to do in half the time or less and I can't imagine anyone who is a slower-than-average (or even average-speed) reader would ever keep up the momentum to get through the middle. Her characteristic humor is completely intact- lots random frustration and exasperation and detail that feels very irreverent and completely true and low-key amusing without ever being exaggerated slapstick. Really, I liked it. Just... get a red pen. And an editor with a backbone.
wendy yesterday. Gymnastic superstars tour thing! About one-third high-energy exhibition, one-third amateurish Cirque-du-Soliel knock off, one-third truly crappy concert, yet somehow combined for way more entertainment value than I anticipated. Also, much better ratio of barely pubescent girls to hot hunks without shirts than I was expecting. It is good to be pandered to! Random political link: Wick Allison endorses Obama. (Yes, THAT Wick Allison. The one who was editor/publisher of the National Review. Yes, THAT National Review)
Every once in awhile an avowed conservative articulates their vision of conservatism in a way that makes me go, "But wait a minute! That's me!" It seems like for this man, who formed his basic political philosophy between, say, 1964 and 1970, conservatism = "skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes," pragmatic considerations and actual results, being driven by facts and goals rather than ideology, doing good rather than feeling good, thoughtfulness, realism, and prudence, "a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world."
And for me, who formed my basic political awareness between the years of, say, 2000 and 2004, those exact same criteria equate to liberalism. Because the conservative movement changed; because we have accumulated more experience and more history and therefore more evidence to evaluate things such as Neocon foreign policy and supply-side economics and progressive income taxation and the private health insurance market and whatever else; because traditionally conservative policies simply do not WORK, by any sane, pragmatic, realistic measurement, and traditionally liberal policies DO.
Do you remember back in 03-04, when it became obvious that the scariest thing about Bush wasn't his intelligence or hawkishness or ties to oil or anything else, but his simple conviction that facts did not matter in the slightest? Do you remember Ron Suskind's Without a Doubt, the single most influential and insightful article ever written on the Bush administration, which laid bare Bush's disdain for any objective reality outside his own certainty, and for a long time made "proud member of the reality-based community" the standard tagline for Democrats? (Man, I wish I still had that button)
Now I suspect that Wick Allison and I still have some fundamental disagreements (how much tradition should be respected as tradition, for starters, and probably quite a lot of disagreements as to what constitutes "working" and "sane, pragmatic, realistic measurement" of same, especially with regard to social issues), but the basic, undeniable fact is that we share fundamental intellectual values. We both believe that decision making should start from facts and evidence and observed behavior, proceed with definite goals and a sober evaluation of capabilities and resources and likely outcomes, and proceed to solutions which ought to be implemented and tested and refined based on actual results. And, had I been born forty years earlier, those basic intellectual values may well have led me to the Republican party. Now, they lead him to Obama.
All I am saying, really, is this:
-That there are conservatives and Republicans who do not identify in these ways because they're uninformed, or reactionary, or xenophobic, or religious wackjobs, or stupid, or evil.
-That there are some that share my basic worldview, my thought processes, my way of thinking about the world, who I would find intellectual equals and valuable conversation partners and admirable antagonists... and that while I obviously know that, I perhaps do not really hear it as often or sincerely as I should.
-That party labels are not inherently tied to rightness or wrongness of ideas or policies, or even to basic worldviews or values.
-That I sincerely hope that if political labels slip from my original conception as radically as they have for him, I will have the same courage he does to step back and consider with intellectual honesty and clarity.
Passage, Connie Willis.
I adored Connie Willis' two time-travel books and short stories, and had a blast chatting with her at Comic-con, so I'm a bit saddened by how disappointing this book was. Its main flaw is length- it clocks in at 800 pages, and I think if I'd been editing it, it would have come in well under 500. Her plot is good and her characters are good, and her fundamental conflict is the main character's struggle to stay in the realm of intellectually honest and sane science even as the book circles perilously close to woo-woo New Agey spiritualist bullshit, which it avoids at the last minute in a VERY satisfying way... only to let the very last page undermine that. Sigh. But still, that basic sensibility is a lot of what I want out of science fiction and what it delivers so rarely these days, and I love it.
The two hundred pages of setup are great, and the last two hundred pages of plot are great, and the four hundred pages in between are interminable. Gripping! I read five hundred straight pages today, started at 11 am and didn't stop till 6:30, but she could have done everything she needed to do in half the time or less and I can't imagine anyone who is a slower-than-average (or even average-speed) reader would ever keep up the momentum to get through the middle. Her characteristic humor is completely intact- lots random frustration and exasperation and detail that feels very irreverent and completely true and low-key amusing without ever being exaggerated slapstick. Really, I liked it. Just... get a red pen. And an editor with a backbone.