Book Description
The Activist's Handbook is a hard-hitting guide to making social change happen. Shaw, a longtime activist for urban issues, shows how positive change can still be accomplished-- despite an increasingly grim political order--if activists employ the strategies set forth in this desperately needed primer. In a new preface, Shaw describes how the power of grassroots activism has won newfound respect. Mass protests against globalization and in favor of stricter gun controls have led once-invulnerable targets like the World Bank and the National Rifle Association to take citizen action more seriously.
Inspiring "fear and loathing" in politicians, building diverse coalitions, and harnessing the media, the courts, and the electoral process to one's cause are only some of the key tactics Shaw advocates and explains. Central to all social-change activism, Shaw shows, is being proactive: rather than simply reacting to right-wing proposals, activists must develop an agenda and focus their resources on achieving it.
The Activist's Handbook details the impact of specific strategies on campaigns across the country: battles over homelessness, the environment, AIDS policies, neighborhood preservation, and school reform among others. Though activist groups can have widely different aims, similar tactics are shown to produce success.
Further, the book offers a sophisticated analysis of the American power structure by someone on the front lines. In showing how people can and must make a difference at both local and national levels, this is an indispensable guide not only for activists, but for everyone interested in the future of progressive politics in America.
Customer Reviews:
Highest Recommendation.......2002-12-29
Even if you're not an activist and don't want to be, as long as you have any sort of interest in social change, this book will be well worth reading. Packed with examples of how movements have succeeded and failed, this extremely readable handbook will inspire through its analysis of strategies and tactics that can be used to accomplish what many of us desperately want. Most of us understand already that simply arguing for social justice will fail to achieve it, but -- as Shaw demonstrates -- Herculean efforts, if miscalculated, will just as surely fail. In this book, Shaw describes successful strategies for community organizers, effective relationships with elected officials, the use of coalitions, ballot initiatives, the media, lawyers, and direct action strategies. The most persuasive theme tying each of these discussions together is that the best defense is an effective offense, that a failure to aggressively pursue positive change is a strategy for worsening the status quo.
GREAT ideas and examples for Activists.......2001-08-17
This book is highly readable and has GREAT examples and tips. The author shows examples where organizations succeeded and where they failed. As a novice activist, I found it to be very helpful. The examples are diverse so I think there is a great deal for more experienced activits to learn as well. The only drawback of this book is that it focuses only on domestic issues. For those whose causes are on the international level as well as the domestic level would find that to be the only draw back. Still, this is a useful book with great examples and ideas that any activist could use and relate to their own campaign.
Book Description
Gilles Kepel takes us into the world of the students, professionals, workers, and unemployed who are caught up in the Islamic movements of Egypt. Events that have riveted world attention--the first World Trade Center bombing, assassinations in Beirut, the attempt on the life of the Pope, the assassination of Sadat, and, in a new preface, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--are illuminated by this penetrating study.
Customer Reviews:
A great piece of research.......2005-10-06
This book was written over 20 years ago, long before anyone focused on the possible consequences of a growing menace to humanity in the guise of Islamic fanatics calling the masses back to the founding tenants of Islam. Kepel lived in Egypt and spent a lot of time researching and reading what was happening in the 70's and 80's as well as examining the causes and consequences of Islamic calls to jihad and having Muslims continue their conquest of the earth in the name of Allah.
This book shows how Egypt's experiment with socialism resulted in a corrupt, dishonest, and totally failed state. Kepel points out the costs of this experiment by showing that the state created a horrific perfect storm, using the establishment of Israel as the ultimate bogeyman to deflect the masses attention away from the failures of socialism. Essentially the Egyptians were no different than the other kleptocracies in the Middle East and held the hand puppet of Israel as the focus of attention while the other hand deprived the general population of any semblance of a decent standard of living. Kepel's insights into the assassination of Sadat because of his overtures to Israel were most enlightening, essentially showing that Sadat was killed by forces he had nourished with years of hatred toward modernity. Carter and his advisors probably still do not understand to this day what damage they did in the Camp David accords when Sadat traded Soviet handouts for American ones. The view held by the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East of the American-Zionist plot to overtake the Middle East was cemented and fermented in the accord. It took another generation for it to come to fruition in 9/11, but it all started there. Kepel was not aware of Carter's funding of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 70's at the same time so is not able to link the beginnings of bin Laden's lunatic fringe groups as well. Another interesting observation by Kepel, which is now becoming more apparent is that the Islamic social code of the separation of the sexes lends itself to sexual frustration on the part of the massive numbers of young and horny Muslims so that the lure of 72 virgins may well be the primary recruiting tool for the jihadists to get them to be a "martyr" by committing suicide and getting the sex they cannot get in their own societies.
Having traveled throughout Egypt many times myself, I can say that the classic "jelly bean" theory has come to pass. Feed the bear a jelly bean to ward him off will only work as long as you still have jelly beans. When you run out, be prepared to be the next meal of the bear.
A great book, especially given its date of publication. It was far ahead of its time. If only the idiots in the US State Department, CIA, or FBI had read it, the prime instigator of the first attack on the World Trade Center would have been banned from the US instead of being allowed entry after the Egyptians arrested him for his terrorist activities in the 1980's.
A clear and sensible description of the Muslim Brotherhood.......2004-02-06
This is without a doubt one of the best and most readable texts on the subject of the rise of Islamist movements in Egypt. It also works as a fitting sequel to Doanld Mitchell's groundbreaking volume - the only one of its kind ever translated into Arabic - on the Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood written almost two decades earlier. The book describes the social, historical and economic context behind the Islamist movements neither resorting to apologetic arguments or righteous accusations. Kepel shows that Egyptian Islamist organizations have adopted a variety of approaches that are, more often than not, peaceful such as to effectively constitute what may be civil society in Egypt. Indeed, such organizations as the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt have recently shown that some compromise is possible with the representatives of the status-quo as well as with rival factions by participating in national elections, such as to avoid a civil war scenario. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt now opposes government policy from a legal and regulated official position but it faces pressure from more radical Islamist groups.
Nonetheless, intractable socio-economic problems have made it ever more difficult to contain unrest. The continuing reduction of the public sector since the late '70s and the failure to stimulate private economic enterprise has made it even harder for Egypt to sustain the precarious economic conditions that stimulate Islamist unrest. Although the Egypt achieved significant development in the '50s and '60s, it has pursued misguided economic policies that have fallen short of their potential. The benefits of the oil boom after 1973 and the Sadat-Mubarak economic liberalization policies that followed were mismanaged. Economic liberalization was primarily directed in the speculative construction and real estate sectors and failed to attract foreign investment in other labor intensive and professional areas. Unemployment persisted as the State reduced spending in conformance to IMF debt re-structuring that by 1986 brought about a gradual erosion of the human development achievements of the '50s and '70s. The series of economic reforms benefited the already wealthy. Islamist organizations have also gained popularity by absorbing the void left by the declining State.
Support and membership for such organizations has cut across class and income barriers and is representative of the frustration of a large portion of society, and youth in particular, with the current political establishment in Egypt. The government has not offered viable solutions to problems of unemployment, housing shortages, deteriorating municipal services or the poor quality of health care and education. Kepel also shows that Islamist organizations have solved problems that the government has been unable or unwilling to confront. Unlike government and private banks, the Islamic Brotherhood has operated Islamic Investment Companies (IIC) since the mid-'70s that have provided a real positive rate of interest. Ultimately, in view of chronic economic difficulties and the Government of Egypt's inability to adopt serious reform and tackle the problems of poverty and unemployment seriously makes Egypt very vulnerable to the zeal and violence of militant Islam.
highly recommended reading.......2004-01-10
This is the first book I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand (1) the agenda of Muslim extremist groups, and (2) what draws people to their "cause".
Kepel argues that the extremist groups have been around since the departure of the European imperialist powers, seeking to create a "pan-Muslim" state as an alternative to the secular nation-states that occupy the region today. Naiive, groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood were easily subverted, repressed and generally thought of as harmless until the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
Citing the poverty, lack of opportunity and political repression as the fertile ground that created these groups, Kepel sympathetically goes on to discuss their agenda - essentially that "secular" "nation-states" are alien and counter to the history and culture of the Islamic world. Truly and outstanding book.
Classic in the Field.......2003-05-26
This is the work that made the now imminent French scholar of Islamism famous. Kepel was more or less the first scholar to frame "Muslim Extremism" as 1) an extremist phenomenon and 2) a real political threat to the region in such an explicit fashion. As such, this work has been much debated and criticized; however, it still remains a classic in the field.
Ideally, Kepel's work should be read in tandem with Mitchell's work on the Muslim Brothers as Kepel himself seemed to see this work as the follow-up to Mitchell's groundbreaking work. Mitchell's work stopped at the incarceration of the Brotherhood after the Free Officers now longer found their support politically desirable or expedient, and basically, Kepel's picks up at that point-the inhumanity of the prisons, the gallows, and the torture rooms.
Unlike Mitchell's work, however, Kepel's study is not confined to a study of the Muslim Brotherhood but is a study of the radicalization of the Islamic trend in Egypt which splinter into many factional, competing parts-at times as a result of state initiatives as under Sadat. The differing policies of the Nasser and Sadat regime are compared, the influence of Sayyid Qutb emphasized, the moderation and political compromise of the Muslim Brotherhood emphasized, and the desperation and impoverishment of the violent groups such as al-Jama'at al-Islamiyyah and Takfir wa-l-Hijrah are cited as their sources. These all became classic themes in the field. Kepel's work demonstrates that the sources of political Islam are as varied as its social manifestations.
A MOST IMPORTANT IN-DEPTH INTRO TO EGYPTIAN EXTREMIST GROUPS.......2000-09-07
This is one of the most comprehensive and well-documented study and analyses of the islamic fundamentalist groups in modern Egypt that has seen the light up to the present. I read it from start-to-end in a run, so involving is the matter it researches as the way in which it is written. An authoritative essay and a source of information on one of the most shocking issues of the last (and present) century, focused on one of the less known areas about religious terrorism. The translation from the French edition is accurate and confiable. A title you can not miss if you are engaged in studying the subject or merely in knowing more about it. Highly recommended!
Book Description
Drawing material from dozens of divided societies, Donald L. Horowitz constructs his theory of ethnic conflict, relating ethnic affiliations to kinship and intergroup relations to the fear of domination. A groundbreaking work when it was published in 1985, the book remains an original and powerfully argued comparative analysis of one of the most important forces in the contemporary world.
Customer Reviews:
Looking for alternatives in a world of Black and White.......2001-02-05
Donald L. Horowitz's project, in Ethnic Groups in Conflict, is the nature of contention in both the social and political relations between unranked ethnic groups. According to Horowitz, "Much of the confusion can be dispelled by recognizing a simple distinction between ranked and unranked ethnic groups. The distinction rests upon the coincidence or non-coincidence of social class with ethnic origin. Where the two coincide, it is possible to speak of ranked ethnic groups; where groups are cross class, it is possible to speak of unranked ethnic groups". If, in the specific milieu in focus, each constituent ethnic group has its own rightful elite, its own, hierarchy, more or less complete (which looks suspiciously like class) - then it is essentially, in an unranked system of ethnic relations. Horowitz carries his argument to its next level with his explanation of the role of the elite. He outlines that, "The clearest indicator of subordination, on the other hand, is the logical impossibility of an acknowledged upper class among the subordinate group" and that the, "Lack of group autonomy in leadership selection is a sure sign of ethnic subordination". Horowitz concludes that, "In general, ranked systems are produced by conquest or capture". A ranked system contains ethnic groups, which are in relationships of subordination and domination to each other. Unranked systems, which Horowitz posits, are more stable than ranked systems. Politics in unranked systems is mainly concerned with inclusion and exclusion, rather than domination and power. According to Horowitz, the majority of the post-colonial societies in the third world fall into the category of unranked systems. Dr. Horowitz is by far on the leading edge of his discourse and treats the subject of middle ground or alternatives with sensitivity as well as the detached and objective view of the academic. The rest is up to us to prove or disprove via implementation. A top notch introduction to a long and arduous process. A political science must read. Be warned the whole thesis is explored in detail and is not for the timid.
Miguel Llora
Everything you think you know is wrong..........2000-04-18
*ALL* beliefs about ethnic that are commonly accepted in USA and the basis of far-reaching policies are 100% wrong based on the information in this book. US policies actually *increase* ethnic conflict! Don't expect the author to analyze the situation in USA directly - that would force him to drop the good-guy/bad-guy approach that is practically required by law here. It's not too hard to read between the lines, though.
Horowitz thinks that the best way to reduce ethnic conflict (elimination being unrealistic) is to allow each group to become economically specialized. Ethnic specialization is good, in his view, and not at all similar to ethnic ranking, which is bad. Of course, some groups will be specialized in high finance and others will be hewers of wood and drawers of water...
This book reviews the major theories and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. He never does come down solidly in favor of one theory, but he clearly considers some very popular theories virtually worthless.
I don't see how anybody who isn't an "ethnic entrepreneur" could read this book and still think that affirmative action, massive immigration and group rights will reduce ethnic conflict. This is a very scary book and difficult, too, but well worth the effort.
A solid scholarly treatise on ethnic conflict.......1999-01-31
This book is a scholarly treatise on ethnic conflict. The author's ideas are thoroughly developed, and supported with numerous examples and references. I finished the book with a far greater understanding of the roots, complexity, dynamics, and interventions for ethnic conflict. Horowitz shows how the ethnic conflict which we may be most directly aware of is an example of a larger phenomenon. The book is not easy to read. It is 684 pages. Many of its 16 chapters have over 100 footnotes. The writing style favors cautious scholarly precision with exhaustive attention to detail, rather than an easy to understand summary of the central ideas.
Book Description
Robert Dahl’s Preface helped launch democratic theory fifty years ago as a new area of study in political science, and it remains the standard introduction to the field. Exploring problems that had been left unsolved by traditional thought on democracy, Dahl here examines two influential models—the Madisonian, which represents prevailing American doctrine, and its recurring challenger, populist theory—arguing that they do not accurately portray how modern democracies operate. He then constructs a model more consistent with how contemporary democracies actually function, and, in doing so, develops some original views of popular sovereignty and the American constitutional system.
For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Dahl has written an extensive new afterword that reevaluates Madisonian theory in light of recent research. And in a new foreword, he reflects back on his influential volume and the ways his views have evolved since he wrote it. For any student or scholar of political science, this new material is an essential update on a gold standard in the evolving field of democratic theory.
“A Preface to Democratic Theory is well worth the devoted attention of anyone who cares about democracy.”—Political Science Quarterly
Book Description
In this timely book, the first comprehensive study of the modern American public intellectual--that individual who speaks to the public on issues of political or ideological moment--Richard Posner charts the decline of a venerable institution that included worthies from Socrates to John Dewey.
With the rapid growth of the media in recent years, highly visible forums for discussion have multiplied, while greater academic specialization has yielded a growing number of narrowly trained scholars. Posner tracks these two trends to their inevitable intersection: a proliferation of modern academics commenting on topics outside their ken. The resulting scene--one of off-the-cuff pronouncements, erroneous predictions, and ignorant policy proposals--compares poorly with the performance of earlier public intellectuals, largely nonacademics whose erudition and breadth of knowledge were well suited to public discourse.
Leveling a balanced attack on liberal and conservative pundits alike, Posner describes the styles and genres, constraints and incentives, of the activity of public intellectuals. He identifies a market for this activity--one with recognizable patterns and conventions but an absence of quality controls. And he offers modest proposals for improving the performance of this market--and the quality of public discussion in America today.
This paperback edition contains a new preface and and a new epilogue.
Customer Reviews:
It's Not the Economy, Stupid.......2005-09-28
Richard Posner is the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He gained notoriety - aside from writing 30 plus books - as the court-appointed mediator in the Microsoft case. And if that weren't enough, he is the most frequently cited American legal scholar, making his own list (number 70) of the top 100 American public intellectuals. Henry Kissinger is number 1.
Posner claims to have taken the term "public intellectual" from Russell Jacoby's 1987 book "The Last Intellectuals." Jacoby's study was a jeremiad lamenting the disappearance of the urban, bohemian and independent intellectuals. Posner, on the other hand, has written a completely different kind of book.
Posner's fields of expertise are law and economics, and he has written several books on the economic analysis of law and justice. In this book, he attempts to do a market analysis of intellectual ideas, and finds that intellectuals are not held accountable to the laws of the market. He is dismayed at the fact that intellectuals are not held accountable for their mistakes. "Quality controls that one finds in other markets for goods and services" do not apply to public intellectuals. When constructing a supply and demand chart as it applies to intellectuals, he wonders why works of certain scholars who have been hopelessly wrong in their predictions - Francis Fukuyama, Lester Thurow, John Kenneth Galbraith,for example - continue to top the sales charts. Why, he asks, do people continue to read their books?
The answer that Posner provides for his own question is that people don't listen to intellectuals much anyway. And the people that do listen are believers already. Intellectuals are selling credence goods, they are preaching to the choir. Ultimately, because of this, intellectuals have very little influence on the issues of the day.
Notwithstanding the fact that his economic model does not explain intellectual debate, Posner goes on to criticize a wide range of intellectuals in various fields in which he has no expertise. Posner is obviously brilliant, but he can also be exasperating and contradictory. He criticizes public intellectuals, who are experts in their fields, for debating issues in the public domain which they know very little about. His critcisms suffer from the same shallowness that he attributes to others. Many of the reviewers of this book thought it was a satire. You have to ask yourself, what was he thinking?
His main criterion for making the list of the top 100 public intellectuals was the number of media citations received, in other words, the popularity of the work as opposed to its quality. This is exactly the kind of commercialism and careerism that Jacoby was warning against. This book is a good illustration of why Posner's economic and statistical models of intellectual "goods and sevices" are misguided. When intellectuals enter public debate to express their ideas they are entering uncharted territory, there are no experts of the unknown. Ideas are part of an ongoing debate, they are not something to be purchased and consumed.
Posner has expressed himself poorly in this work, but undoubtedly his books will continue to be read because he continues to contribute to and enliven contemporary debates.
A definite study in decline.......2005-01-22
I found this book sophomorically disorganized, rambling and the author's obvious lack of concern for the reader presumptuous if not insulting. He pretentiously ambles from one discussion to the next, most having little if any relation to the purported topic and almost all of it useless in a more general sense. I would say the title is an apt description and the author thoroughly convinces his reader though probably not in the intended way.
A decent book. Not Posner's best........2002-11-20
In Public Intellectuals, Judge Richard Posner sets out to understand why academics, philosophers, and commentators in the American media have so little influence over public opinion. Posner finds that most debate is very good at mobilizing those who already agree with you, but has little impact on others. No public intellectual every really changes anyone's mind.
Posner gives several reasons for this decline. 1) Public intellectuals are now more than ever college academics. Their professional jargon and personal lives keep them out of touch with day to day affairs in America. 2) Public intellectuals make bold predictions that are almost always wrong. We were supposed to be poor and starving by 1975, according to some environmentalist intellectuals. We are still here, rich and full, but they won't admit they were wrong. 3) Public intellectuals usually get that title by publishing outside their sphere of expertise. Noam Chomsky, for example, is a linguist, but the media seek out his opinion in the area of foreign policy. Intellectuals are out of their league, and often don't understand even the most basic facts. 4) Intellectuals seek moral status, with very clear lines between right and wrong. Real life is not so clear, so the intellectual is not very helpful for the average person, or the average politician. Posner went to great lengths in another of his books, The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory, to address this last point in depth.
Overall, historians and sociologists interested in studying academics and commentators will find this book useful and enlightening. Average folk will find it long winded and rather boring. After all, we already know that commentators and media personalities are clueless windbags, right?
I think this is the biggest weakness of the book. Posner looks at the marketplace for ideas from the perspective of the producer: the media and the intellectuals. If he were serious about trying to understand the decline of intellectuals, he would have spent as much time looking at consumers of ideas. Mostly, he looks only at other intellectuals as consumers, perhaps because they're the only ones buying. As a major figure in economic analysis, I thought it appalling that Posner did not spend more time on day to day consumption of these ideas.
As mentioned briefly above, Posner takes a lot of time in this book rehashing themes from his other books. He looks at morality and public policy, the Clinton impeachment, and many other subjects on which he has written quite extensively. It is nice that his ideas all fit into a unified framework such as this, but that doesn't mean I wanted to hear about these other subjects at length.
What does it mean that a public intellectual like Posner would write a book criticizing public intellectuals? Could it be that his ideas are not getting the acclaim that he thinks they deserve?
like public intellectuals, my attention span also declined.......2002-10-14
The prolific and erudite Judge Posner turns out books at such an astoundingly rapid rate that you'd swear the man has two brains. He is, without a doubt, one of the most notable scholarly writers of our time. It is too bad, then, that this initially appealing book, "Public Intellectuals," falls short of what I expected.
I first learned of this book during an interview with the author on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" with Brian Lamb. As the dust jacket correctly boasts, this volume "is the first systematic analysis of the contemporary American public intellectual." In Part One of the book, Posner's critical chronicle of how today's public intellectual is most often out of his/her league is right on the money. Modern public intellectuals are almost exclusively academics, members of an ever more specialized university culture. Because of this solid trend, the typical public intellectual has very little "expert" knowledge outside of his/her esoteric area of study, lending him/her little if any credentials to comment on the general subject(s) he/she so "authoritatively" tackles in the public media. Posner's arsenal of examples, evidence, names, citations, and footnotes (he is a legal writer, of course) makes his case clear and well-defended.
However agreeable his basic thesis is, though, it is his market approach to characterizing the problem that seems rather incongruent and almost far-fetched. In his effort to quantify the problem of the worsening American public intellectual, Posner draws heavily on economic principles to explain why public intellectuals today are no good--in terms of "market failure." He demonstrates this model in Chapter Five with a veritable data section, full of charts and graphs. Though there is no better way to fortify one's thesis than with scientific evidence, the model Posner chooses just doesn't seem convincing. Public intellectuals do not really participate in a consumer culture, if you think about it. So long as there is (and always has been) public media outlets, intellectuals (genuine and self-proclaimed) will write, comment, prognosticate, and critique.
Part Two of the book consists of five "genre studies" of areas where modern public intellectuals most often tread. Here, Posner takes a detailed look at key intellectual players and painstakingly criticizes and discredits each of them with what can only be described as an off-putting and perfectionist air--except for MIT's Noam Chomsky, who deserves it. From George Orwell to Chicago's Martha Nussbaum, Allan Bloom (whom he "outs") to NYU's Ronald Dworkin (his personal sparring partner), Richard Rorty to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Posner deals each writer a summary list of their shortcomings--and then thanks many of them in the Acknowledgments! Within these 150 pages, the reader is left with little to suggest that any of the prominent public intellectuals of our time retain even one shred of competence.
The Conclusion, the most potentially redemptive (but shortest) section of the book, mollifies some of the blows inflicted by Posner in Part Two. However, the remedies suggested by Posner on how to improve today's public intellectual "market" are so soft, implausible, and ineffective even if implemented, that he might as well just say that restoring integrity to the public intellectual is a hopeless endeavor. The reader can only conclude that Posner's book, enlightening though it is in recognizing and attempting to explain the problem of the declining quality of public intellectuals, falls short of fulfilling its promises in the end.
Scrutiny of Media-Centered Public Deliberation.......2002-05-29
This is a marvelous meta-book. Posner studies in detail the personalities and the arguments that receive prominence in public debate. The result is the solid documentation of a paradox: The public intellectuals that dominate the media are not particularly good. In a deliberative democracy, this should be of profound concern. Posner's thesis, in addition to being painstakingly proven, is not only disturbing, but also undermines our confidence in the quality of public discourse and, consequently, in the quality of this society's democratic decision-making. Like every one of Posner's books, this too is profound, thought-provoking, and unsettling.
One cannot resist thinking about the thesis further. In a way, the idea of inadequacy of public debate is trite. Distinguishing a high-quality deliberative democracy from a debasing kowtowing to crowd impulses and manipulation is difficult. The difficulty has been recognized since Socrates and Pericles; the history of Classical Greece seems a perfect case study of the issues involved. Is Posner losing confidence in democracy? Is this book a justification for undemocratic features of our governmental structure? One cannot help but be reminded of the unelected federal judiciary-of which Posner is a leading member-and the extraordinary secrecy in which the judiciary operates. If public deliberation is defective, a secretive undemocratic deliberative body like the federal judiciary is a highly desirable component in an otherwise very public and democratic structure of government. A constitutional structure that denudes this high-capacity body from material power-from budgeting and military authority-prevents its dominance and preserves democratic balance. Thus, disquieting as this book may be, my confidence the judiciary makes me find it agreeable. The question that follows is how confident we should be in the decision-making of the federal judiciary. The Supreme Court has severely reduced the role of federal courts. The confirmation process shows no signs of favoring profundity and scholarship over political preferences. When Posner shows the inadequacy of public intellectuals, it would be comforting to be able to rest assured that an army of secretive Posners will continue to populate the courts. Unfortunately, no such indication exists.
Posner also makes the very true observation that contemporary public intellectuals lack a quality monitor. He emphasizes that as fields become increasingly specialized, the lay audience becomes less able to determine the quality and accuracy of the speech of public intellectuals. As a law professor, I should reply that a significant fraction of legal scholarship consists of sieving through other scholarship and presenting the conclusions of a deliberated evaluation of a large body of scholarship.
Although I deeply admire Posner and his work, I must add that he is not immune from errors that he points out in others. The Lewinsky issue rears its ugly head: "By forcing these attitudes [of different private views about sex] into articulate competition, Clinton precipitated a rancorous Kulturkampf." (p. 109) The obvious transgression here is the attribution of causation. When private attitudes are in conflict but hidden, how does one more hidden act-rather than the revelation of the hidden act by those who are politically motivated-"precipitate a war of cultures"?
In sum, this is a much more important book than it lets on. Perhaps unwittingly, it touches the foundational premises of democratic society. The quality of public debate is central to the quality of democratic governance and to the success of our political system. Yet, in this book, a component of political debate that some might have thought was important, is proven to be mostly driven by sensationalism and its entertainment value.
PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS, despite trivial displays of political susceptibility (as the above Lewinski example) should be acceptable to any non-extreme political ideology. It joins other books of Posner that belong to the same group. These books are accessible social science at its best, and this book may not only be one of the leading candidates but also the one that opens the gate for one of the largest and most important research programs, one about the detailed study of the social foundations of democracy. To the extent voluminous scholarship is based on the assumption that public discourse is of high quality, it is roundly debunked.
Book Description
In a substantial new afterword to his classic account of the collapse of American triumphalism in the wake of World War II, Tom Engelhardt carries that story into the twenty-first century. He explores how, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the younger George Bush headed for the Wild West (Osama bin Laden, "Wanted, Dead or Alive"); how his administration brought "victory culture" roaring back as part of its Global War on Terror and its rush to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq; and how, from its "Mission Accomplished" moment on, its various stories of triumph crashed and burned in that land.
Customer Reviews:
Nice and easy.......2007-08-31
Nice and easy - I was very pleased with the service and timelyness. Plus the book is in great condition
Book Review: "The End of Victory Culture : Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation".......2006-04-10
American "triumphalism" and the American "war story" began its decline after WWII and collapsed completely after Vietnam (or so the author thought). The victory myth is constructed out of an America history that has its roots in the Puritan struggle. The US had always fought against the evil oppressors of freedom, democracy, and the freedom of peaceful worship. The myth of American triumph was part of 1950s "boy culture" and was depicted on screen in the justifiable slaughter of Indians on the western frontier; cowboys and /or Cavalrymen who rescued families and females from savages; science-fiction and vengeance movies, and eventually in galactic villians and Evil Empires. War stories and movies consumed by Baby Boomers vindicated the annihilation of (usually non-white but always non-American) villains.
Central to the maintenance of the victory culture in American is the "war story" a tale in which there is an evil Other who threatens the United States. Contributing to the end of victory culture was the almost immediate reevaluation of the atomic bombing of Japan after WWII; an event that left the United States looking more terrifying than protective . The Cold War followed the euphoric victory of WWII . In the Cold War there was no victory or defeat; and the enemy and self became blurred and threatened to merge. Many of the villains in the Cold War were other Americans; rather than victory, the US sought containment. Then came Korea, a failed police action, better off forgotten. The Vietnam War was a disaster. Even the president lost enthusiasm for a battle where there appeared to be no definable enemy. Even the sacred cowboy was attacked as racist during the d?nouement of the victory culture. New westerns depicted sociopathic bad guys in cowboy hats rampaging around the West hunting down innocent Indians. In the late 1960s, even military toys were transformed into action figures. "Boy culture" was not recaptured until Ronald Reagan appeared on the scene with his Star Wars rhetoric. George H. W. Bush seized on the opportunity to eliminate the evil dictator Saddam Hussein; only to have his efforts to win a "war to re-establish war, American style" and capture the bad guy fail.
Engelhardt is an active journalist and writer who was surprised in 2000 when the United States elected George W. Bush President. Geroge W. Bush, he says, is a man "who had stayed way too long in those dark movie theaters" watching cowboys and Indians; a man who managed to evade both sides of the Vietnam War debate; a man who glories in the victory clture and wants to relive a period in American history when bugles blared, crowds cheered, and flags waved. In The End of Victory Culture Engelhardt failed to predict that 2005 would see a US President whose dream is to "dress up like G.I. Joe, [and] appear in front of massed ranks of soldiers chanting "hoo-rah," and assure the crowd he was going to bring `em back dead or alive (tomdispatch.com). This book's value is in its examination of the impact of popular culture in shaping public perceptions of the US and its place in the world. Sources include popular culture products such as Mad magazine, TV shows, monster movies, and westerns. Tom Engelhardt graduated from Yale University; he is a book editor and a freelance journalist. He maintains a website, www.tomdispatch.com; is co-founder of the American Empire Project; a consulting editor at Metropolitan Books; a fellow of the Nation Institute; and lecturer at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley.
one of my favorites..........2006-03-23
With the outcome in Iraq still uncertain more than 3 years after the U.S. led invasion, many people have blamed the media for not being critical enough at the outset of the war. Additionally, as the war rages on, comparisons to Vietnam are becoming especially noticeable as a growing number of people continue to question our involvement in Iraq.
These two relatively recent phenomena of questioning the media's role in wartime and the tendency for U.S citizens to be skeptical of their government during war took root during the Vietnam war.
According to Tom Englehardt in "The End of Victory Culture," prior to Vietnam the media played a key role in perpetuating the idea of a noble and just United States battling savages of color including Native Americans and Japanese soldiers in World War II.
The public eagerly imbibed this "victory culture," regularly attending movies featuring John Wayne defending America by battling Indians; playing games like "cowboys and indians;" and reading cartoons featuring horribly caricatured Japanese and Chinese soldiers, never questioning the integrity of the government or doubting United States policies.
A seismic shift occured during Vietnam when, for the first time, Americans became especially frustrated over a war that could no longer be justified by statements from the President. Demonstrations raged throughout the country as the once sacred tenants of U.S. heroism and leadership were shattered.
During this time, the media's role transformed as well. Rather than mindlessly trumpeting American nobility, the media worked doggedly to unearth the truth. David Halberstam's coining of the term "quagmire" when referring to war and Morley Saffert's piece revealing the horrible killings of helpless Vietnamese villagers are just two examples that Englehardt cites.
Although accounts from Vietnam and World War II comprise the bulk of Englehardt's thesis, he provides copious examples of the movies and excerpts from television programs when talking about the 1980's in an effort to further demonstrate the dismantling of the "victory culture."
Brilliantly written and extremely well documented, Englehardt has written a gem of a book that remains as relevant today as it was 11 years ago when it was first published.
A different perspective on post-war culture and history.......2006-03-07
Tom Engelhardt's dense but throughly readable cultural history presents the past fifty-six years of American history as an investigation of narrative. A common theme in analysis of nationalism and nationality is the concept of an historical narrative that members of a nationality look to for explaining their present position within their world. Engelhardt investigates a time period that saw, as he argues, a violent uprooting and reconfiguration of the American cultural narrative.
This narrative makes use of a wide ranging set of metpahors and images, such as the frontier and its mythology of American innocence, that have helped Americans understand their position within a complex and ever changing world. World War II provided the last war in which the innocence of America was posited with little debate (although the dropping of the atom bomb indeed challenged this innocence).
The beginning of the cold war and military endeavors in Korea and Viet Nam saw a gradual erroding of this narrative of innocence. As the enemy became harder to identify, at times even looking like ourselves in the case of anti-communism, the moral clarity and absolute innocence of American military actions disolved. Engelhardt takes a sweeping view of the last half-century of American history and tracks the profound shift in narrative and cultural understanding that we are still dealing with. It would be interesting to see what Engelhardt would say about September 11th. I would argue it has restored much of America's innocence, allowing us to attack Iraq with little domestic objection.
Engelhardt writes with an engaging voice helping to make what could be a tedious read quite enjoyable. At times his ideas can be difficult to connect, making this a book to be tackled as quickly as possible so that the plethora of information and full scope of the analysis can be engaged without loosing what was written in earlier pages. Do not expect any sort of 'traditional' work of history. This is for the students of American culture and anyone interested in the intricacies and complexities of the American identity. When you read this book, to a large extent you are learning about yourself.
Good on Media, Bad on History.......2005-09-12
Although he provides an in depth analysis of the modern media's role creating stereotypes of "non-whites", he actually attempts to say that this was the primary motivater to fight our "enemies" for centuries. This, of course, is nonsense. The Revolutionary War, Barbary Wars, War of 1812, World War I, and a large portion of World War II against the Rome-Berlin part of the Axis were against "white" people. And I'm probably missing other major conflicts.
Further, to say that America is unique among countries in using color or ethnicity to denigrate a people it is either at war with or has hostility towards is totally absurd. It's par for the course throughout the history of warfare and culture as a way to motivate its people to carry out and tolerate the acts of war. Unfortunately, he lets his biased political opinions biasedly spill into the pages of his book.
Nevertheless, he does an excellent job describing the power of the media to work as the Government's collective propaganda machine in their portrayal of the "eastern bloc" countries as the Cold War rose from the end of World War II.
Book Description
A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin.
May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics.
May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question.
Book Description
This radical analysis of globalization reveals the crucial role of women in international politics today. Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes--governments promoting tourism, companies moving their factories overseas, soldiers serving on foreign soil--and shows that the real landscape is not exclusively male. She describes how many women's seemingly personal strategies--in their marriages, in their housework, in their coping with ideals of beauty--are, in reality, the stuff of global politics. In exposing policymakers' reliance on false notions of "femininity" and "masculinity," Enloe dismantles an apparently overwhelming world system, revealing it to be much more fragile and open to change than we think.
Customer Reviews:
Terrific Read.......2007-06-26
An excellent book for anyone interested in feminism, international politics, or simply if you want an informative and interesting non-fiction book. The pressing question of BB&B is: "'Where are the women at?'" Cynthia Enloe takes the reader on a tour of some international hot topics and explores this question. Terrific book and I could not put it down. For a long time I had been searching for a feminist critique of the military, etc and I found exactly what I was looking for here.
The Other Side of International Politics.......2007-06-06
This book is an original study of international politics through the lens of women who influence husbands who happen to be the major power brokers within the international system. Enloe also studies how third world women are used as expressions of sexual and national power through agribusiness, tourism, and military bases.
This work is enlightening because it examines the quiet yet immensely influential roles women play within the geopolitical economic system. Unfortunately where Enloe falls short is her limited scope of how she defines masculinity and femininity. Ultimately she defines them as constructs forged out of power, rather than choice, however when it comes to these types of dichotomized debates, the answers usually fall somewhere in the middle. Enloe's main thesis is that the personal is political, therefore the power plays within international politics correlates strongly with the power struggles within the personal relationships between men and women.
First, what isn't clear is Enloe's use of the term `political' in which she also uses to mean `economical'. The problem is if you don't clearly distinguish between the two then it's difficult to identify who is a genuine victim of the vicissitudes of international political fiat, versus someone who is making choices deciding between trade offs in an environment limited by scarcity. Enloe commits this fallacy because she views today's market system as a form of neo-mercantilism. In some cases she may be right but nevertheless it's important to make the distinction. In addition, if the personal is political and the political is economical, why should the political/economical be of concern to anyone if the source of it all is personal and people are happy within the personal? It only makes a difference if you believe the personal to be a construct forged primarily out of power, rather than of choice or even symbiotic in nature. In this case happiness isn't possible because when it comes to power, there is always a winner and a loser. Therefore commanding power over international politics means commanding power within the personal. The problem is power is subjective and arbitrary. If masculinity and femininity are simply power constructs then ones power is as good as the other. Questions of morality, rights, obligations and expressions of individual free will are inapplicable. Secondly, Enloe discusses how both first and third world women are `used by the makers of the international political system', who are primarily men. However, Enloe limits her definition of masculinity within the context of European nationalism. What about third world men who are `used by the makers of the international political system'? To discuss their role, Enloe risks watering down her general theory that the source of international politics lies primarily within the personal power struggles between men and women.
Despite these criticisms this is a great book and it's highly recommended for anyone interested in learning about the `quiet' power women have in influencing international affairs.
Fascinating.......2002-12-08
I've been studying international politics and gender issues for some time but they've always been presented as separate subjects. To find a cohesive, academic work integrating the two was fabulous. Her work is jointly informative and interesting providing enough theory to be of academic interest and enough examples to exceed the category of a mere textbook. Highly recommend this!
Women and Global Politics.......2001-10-18
What do nationalism, Chiquita bananas and Mexican garment factories have in common? In Cynthia Enloe's trailblazing book, they illuminate the interplay between global politics and women. Few scholars have investigated why and how international politics and global trade shape definitions of masculinity and femininity; this book does that and more, providing new perspectives on the gendering of power. For Enloe, power imbues the cultural, social and economic interactions that gird global politics; "relationships we once imagined were private or merely social are in fact infused with power, usually unequal power backed up by public authority (p.195)." Here, Enloe extends the analytical approach Friedan used in The Feminine Mystique (1963), which considered the connection between feminine stereotypes and evolving US global power and security interests. Enloe pushes Friedan's analysis into a global context and brings into sharper focus the way public politics are masculinized via the control of women's activities.
Each of the chapters in Enloe's book explores a different theme -- from tourism to US military bases -- in order to demonstrate how the personal is political and the political is personal. Enloe most successfully draws out the linkages between domestic life and public authority in her chapters on nationalism, banana republics and garment factories. Looking at the experiences of women in places as diverse as Sri Lanka and Palestine, Enloe finds women asserting a sense of national identity that conflicts with their feminine roles of tending home and children. Even more problematic, if increased militarization creates an emphasis on communal unity, issues of sexual inequality are often discounted; thus, the nation is redefined, but in a masculinized form. Enloe's most global chapter nicely couples women in the United States with women in Honduras, both of whom the United Fruit Company controls to a certain degree by promoting and relying on women's feminized roles. In the United States, housewives respond to advertising and turn bananas into a booming business, while in Honduras, mothers and daughters accept low paid work on banana plantations or in nearby brothels. In a later chapter, Enloe turns to the international garment industry, noting again how industry keeps women's work cheap by drawing on patriarchal ideas about labor. At the same time, concepts like risk and adventure underlie international financial decisions and masculinize global banking, the money driving the garment industry.
In arguing that international processes depend on particular configurations of masculinity and femininity, Enloe has produced an important work. However, this book is so wide ranging that it often forgoes providing a complex analysis of its topics; Enloe makes sweeping and often simplistic generalizations, such as "international tourism needs patriarchy to survive (p.41)." Yet Enloe depicts a tourism industry that responds to changing cultural and social norms; for example, the tourist industry incorporates the idea, launched by women, of the white female adventurer. Enloe wants to demonstrate the importance of gender in tourism; however, this reader was more struck by the way her book illustrates tourism's dependency on racism for its survival. In addition, many of Enloe's linkages, especially between female sexuality and the control of predominantly male populations, while intuitively comprehensible, are poorly supported by evidence. The presence of high levels of prostitution around US military bases, for example in the Philippines, seems at least equally tied to issues of international economics as it is to providing security for military bases. Why, I wonder, is there a collapse (in the host country) of previously defining notions about male / female domestic and sexual relations? Why are the patriarchal values that keep women at home or considering the needs of their compañeros in Afghanistan and Mexico suddenly demolished in the Philippines? Attention to the pressure that international economics places on the gendering of domestic relations in countries that maintain US military bases would have nuanced Enloe's argument.
Despite these flaws, Enloe should be commended for broadening our understanding of global politics. Indeed, Enloe challenges our conceptions of international politics while empowering female readers to think about how global issues might relate to their own experiences. The author's portrayal of the September 19th Garment Workers Union in Mexico highlights how women can recognize their dehumanized role in the global economic system; moreover, in examining the lives of working women across the globe, she calls on middle class feminists to hear and support a diversity of female needs. This book provides a welcome addition to current scholarship on the global market and will benefit anyone interested in considering the complex forms that power can take in international politics.
Sexploitation vs. just plain old exploitation.......2000-09-21
I can't call myself a feminist. That would be quite ridiculous. But I have never been one to disparage the motivations of the movement in general. Women have been suppressed and oppressed and still are, for the most part. Their male oppressors still want to tell them what they can or cannot do with their bodies, hence with their very lives. That's the bottom line. I didn't really ever do any deep reading in the voluminous literature on feminism, women's rights, etc. I didn't think that I was clever for having avoided it, I just didn't have time or (I admit) burning curiosity. So, when I saw BANANAS, BEACHES and BASES on a bookstore shelf some years ago, I bought it, thinking that the subtitle, "Making Feminist Sense of International Politics" brought together two topics about which I could learn more. I finally read it recently, but must give it a very mixed review.
The author picks some very interesting issues. Tourism for one---a global business that touches nearly every corner of the earth and has created as many problems as it has solved. Mass, commercial tourism can be compared with plantation agriculture or clear-cut logging in terms of the amount of damage it does to human lives and the environment. Enloe brings this out very aptly. Military bases, plantation agriculture (for instance, of bananas), the need for cheap but fashionable, ready-to-wear clothes, and the high demand for domestic servants all fall under her discerning eye. Nobody can argue with her general positions on these subjects or on lesser topics such as `diplomatic wives' and their ambiguous position in the foreign services of the world. However---and this is a big however---I do disagree with her overall presentation. Sentences like "Yet nationalist movements have rarely taken women's experiences as the starting point for an understanding of how a people becomes colonized or how it throws off the shackles...." appalled me. Why just women ? Haven't the men been exploited, albeit in different ways ? Is not the entire country affected ? Prostitution exploits women, we are reminded. There is a vast number of male and child prostitutes too, just as exploited. Domestic violence may assist base commanders, but this is very far from being what is centrally dangerous and exploitative about bases. Such simplistic examples are legion in this book.
I think the basic fault of BB & B is to separate the fate of women from that of men or rather, from the fate of all victims of imperialism, oppression, and exploitation. If Enloe's aim was merely to show how women have been severely oppressed in X numbers of ways, that would be fine. But it is a reductionist argument to claim that women should be the focus for anti-exploitative actions, that women are central to the solutions. As women are half the human race, it is OBVIOUS that they cannot be excluded. Men have controlled and do control women, but international politics cannot be interpreted as a system for controlling women ! It is a system of power and anything and everything will be controlled if it can be. Feminism, as an attack on the way the world is presently constructed, is strong. Gender, as an ideological mode or framework, is weak, just as race, class, religion or language would be. Male/female, light/dark, yin/yang---these are eternal principles that cannot be ignored. ANY solution which leaves out a part, is no solution. If that were the only message Enloe put out, I would have no quarrel with her. As it is, I do.
Customer Reviews:
Clearly Written Moral Defense.......2004-03-14
I'm puzzled by the people who claim that this book doesn't offer any defense of anarchism. Surely its main argument - that its the only system of government that can possibly be ethically justified - is defense enough. Indeed, since one assumes ethics are one's highest obligation, one would assume this is the best possible defense - that any alternative would be plain and simply wrong.
In any case, most of the other things people are saying about this book are spot-on. It's clearly-written, engaging, and short. The biggest sticking point for people will be the book's explicit Kantian bent. As a Kantian, I must simply say, "Get over it."
Knocking out Philosphical Cobwebs.......2002-12-18
First, a disclaimer: this book is not about how some form of anarchism might operate. It is purely theoretical, arguing for "philosophical anarchism" based on the imperitive of not undermining personal autonomy. So don't expect it to defend anarchists in the Spanish Civil War or something. That's not what it is about.
But, the book is excellent. I am no anarchist, but the arguments set forth here are completely convincing. If we value autonomy--and almost everyone claims they do--then these are the necessary conclusions. Wolff's comments on majoritarianism vigorously ring the bell of indisputable truth. This is not what you learned in high school government class.
The book is quite short. The preface is a fun read, as Wolff talks about the how the book came into being, but once the first chapter starts, he is all business. But though it deals almost exclusively with philosophical ideas, it had no problem keeping my attention. A short 80 pages has given me a whole new understanding of the justifcation of government. Consider my philosophical cobwebs knocked out.
Title misleads and there are better books!.......2002-09-17
This book, at 80 pages, had me really excited at the halfway point. HIs critiques of the existing systems of government- especially direct, representitive, and majoritarian democracy are deft and well formulated. I figured that as the author had presented his case against the state pretty well by page 40, he'd have a great affirmitive case for anarchism.
WRONG!! There was no case. Once he'd laid down his anti-government case, he simply repeated most of what he'd wrote one more time. Even the last sub-chapter 'Utopian Glimpses of a World Without States" didn't attempt anything. That in mind, the books title is not only misleading, it is a fabrication. AS there is no defences of anarchism here, it might best be called 'Critiques of the Idea of Government."
Well, the two stars I gave it were for amazing clarity in writing. This book, under a worse writer, could've easily been two hundred or more pages but Wolff keeps it short and energetic. Also, his critiques of the state (especially on voting procedure and inadequacies in district-representation) were great.
To Close, I must mention that there are many books similar to this one that are far superior to this one. For a great deffense of anarchism (favoring the market) read Randy Barnett's "Structure of Liberty." For a good defense of anarchism (favoring no market) read Proudhon's "What is Property" and for a book questioning the legitamacy of the state coming to a minarchist- libertarian- conclusion, the true classic is Robert Nozick's "Anarch, State and Utopia."
It's a moral argument against government..........2002-08-12
...not a practical argument for anarchism; which is precisely why (as a reviewer below noted) there are no specifics presented. Indeed, Wolff does not seem to even think anarchism *is* practical.
The title is misleading, as Wolff's essay is not so much apologia for anarchist ideas about social structures, it is in fact an exploration of the apparent paradox between the authority of the state and the moral autonomy of the individual. After running through the arguments for various kinds of representative and direct democracy, Wolff concludes that the only form of government which is morally acceptable (that is, which does not subvert moral autonomy) is 'unanimous direct democracy', which for obvious reasons is not a practical form of government. Wolff concludes that, from the perspective of moral philosophy, anarchism is the only acceptable social arrangement.
Wolff's treatment of the subject was rather illuminating for me, it finally revealed to me why political scientists as a whole do not regard anarchism as an ideology; it is instead considered a moral stance independent of political and economic issues, despite what some people might assert.
I've been thinking a little bit about his arguments, and they all seem sound. But I'm inclined to agree with Wolff's sentiments that even if the authority of the state truly cannot be reconciled with moral autonomy, the alternative is not practical. I was briefly considering pursuing the line of argument that societies as a whole can possess moral autonomy, and that a 'social moral autonomy' would outweigh the individual's moral autonomy. The obvious problem with this argument, though, is that if you accept it, it can make any form of government acceptable.
On Attacking Democracy.......2000-06-09
Wolff's book is more an interesting critique of democracy than a stirring defense of anarchism, but it is a worthy read. It is hard to find fault in his logic that autonomy is compromised by any political system (unanimous direct democracy, notwithstanding), but Wolff does not present specifics as to which conditions are necessary for anarchy to successfully supplant an "authoritarian" government.
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