Dan O'Huiginn

I've recently been posting mainly on Livejournal, rather than here. But, since I don't want to totally kill off this blog, I thought I'd cross-post a few things from there. So, a few book reviews:

Malise Ruthven, Islam in the world. A history of Islam both as a religion and as a political force. This was written 20 years ago by a journalist with a knack for picking out telling details, for tracing currents of thought through centuries, and for telegraphing detail into a paragraph without drying it out. It clarifies many of those names and terms that keep popping up, but tend to be explained only in terms of day-to-day politics.

He's particularly successful explaining the Islamic world through the eyes of Muslim thinkers. So, for instance, much of the military history is described in terms of 14th-century writer Ibn Khaldun, and his ideas of repeated conquest by close-knit tribal groups (Once in power, these groups become entangled in bureaucracy and urban life, zhence lose their sense of community and so fall victim to the next invaders). Ruthven falls flat only when he turns to modern Western intellectuals for ideas: Marx, Freud and Jung all look ridiculous here.

Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth. Feminist tract from 1990. Powerful as a polemic, fairly convincing as an account of how ideals of beauty are used against women, but almost silent as to why. The 'beauty myth' becomes a free-floating malignant entity, causing oppression but itself without a cause.

More economics might have helped Wolf here, especially in the chapter on employment. Are women discriminated against at work because they are female, or because those who are already weak are easiest to exploit? I half-suspect she left out this kind of analysis deliberately, as it would have put off chunks of her audience.

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine. Market reforms are like torture, says Klein: they're most effective when the victims are too bewildered to resist. It's not so convincing as an argument, but serviceable as an excuse to string together analysis of political repression and market liberalisation.

Most persuasive is her account of Chicago School economists as an organised, influential force that took advange of - or created - economic and political catastrohes to advance a neoliberal agenda. Except - she somehow thinks right-wing economists are the only group with long-standing agendas, who wait for crises in which to advance them. What about Marxists with their vanguards, with their dialectic of spontaneity and organisation, their plans to lead the people when they rise? For that matter, in any revolution you'll find discontent being used to serve ulterior aims. The free-marketeers have won in recent decades because their ideas were in the ascendant, not because they were the first to take advantage of crises.

Posted by Dan at 9:01 PM | Permalink

Bangalore's government has an excellent solution to the social problem of gated communities: simply abolish them by fiat.

It is noticed that several layouts within the old BMP area and the erstwhile CMC area have established barricade preventing entry of vehicles and pedestrians and have also put up boards mentioning that entry is restricted.. They have even posted guards to prevent people from using the road. Such layouts generally call themselves as "Gated community". It is hereby brought to the public notice that under the Town and Country Planning Act, there is no such concept of a "Gated Community". Once when any layout is formed, the roads in the said layout automatically come under the jurisdiction of the respective municipal corporation the general public has free access to use the roads within the layout. Hence, establishing barricades and preventing general public from using the internal road of a layout is against the law.

It makes me sad that this kind of thing is unimaginable in Europe or the US.

[via the sarai urban-study list]

Posted by Dan at 6:44 PM | Permalink

Nobody except me will like this rant by Nataša Velikonja, but I'm going to post it anyway:

Europe is boring. Boring for its self-sufficiency, among its own boundaries; Europe is a jail of virtual affluence and credit standard in which migrants without asylum, lesbians without lovers, intellectuals without mass media, and the homeless without comrades are wandering around. Europe is boring for its “white” conviction that it is better than the others, as it is supposedly the cradle of education, culture and literature. It is boring in its perpetual ecstasy with its fat kisses and broken glass on our lips. It is boring with its perpetual integration, which is being swallowed as a sacrificed young body, while images of hatred, slaughter and genocide are whirling in its eyes. Europe is boring because of its ritualized oblivion and ritualized machines of desire that never stop their craving.

Incidentally, why are there so many excellent Slovenian writers/activists/theorists these days? Is it just that when your main export is Slavoj Zizek, you at least have somebody interesting to kick against? Or that small nations have to synthesize foreign culture, not having enough local production to be tediously inward-looking? Or just the result of decades buffeted by Tito, Austrian Social Democracy, and Italian radical theorists?

Posted by Dan at 1:34 PM | Permalink

Mother Jones' account of the Victor Bout arrest is good, but it's more fun reaing the DEA's charges against him. Not for the facts - Mother Jones summarises most of the interesting bits - but for the sheer semiotics of the thing.

Just look at the document: Monospaced Courier 12 in numbered paragraphs. Badly reproduced text, lines sloping up the page. Government stamps and signatures. It fits so perfectly into nostalgic stereotypes: typewriter keys clattering in a nondescript government building, as a sweating government agent writes up his report.

And the text plays up to every cliche. The boilerplate allegation that Bout "affected interstate and foreign commerce". The long, oft-repeated list of aliases (VIKTOR BOUT, a/k/a "Boris," a/k/a "Victor Anatoliyevich Bout," a/k/a "Victor But," a/k/a "Viktor Budd," a/k/a "Viktor Butt," a/k/a "Viktor Bulakin," a/k/a "Vadim Markovich Aminov"). The whole document is begging to be stuffed into a brown paper envelope and sent to Bob Woodward or Fox Mulder.

Since I don't spend much time reading US legal documents (maybe I should?), I have no idea how standard all of this is. Apparently a lot of US court documents really do still have to be produced in this format. Intentional or not, though, the layout makes it all seem like part of a great cloak-and-dagger Cold War adventure. I'd like to believe that somebody in the US goverment has figured this out, reasoned that it gives people the impression they have mountains of secret information, and decided to stick to Courier.

Oh, and the content? Still reasonably entertaining. Bout's henchman Andrew Smulian comes off as a complete muppet, calling Bout on a phone the DEA had given him. It looks like the main problem with arranging the sting was that they couldn't do it in Moscow, but had to entice Bout out to more US-friendly Thailand. Mostly, though, I'm just reading for the typography.

Posted by Dan at 3:04 PM | Permalink

So here’s a trick: A first step toward understanding Russia would be to read the press and academic accounts on China — and then substitute the word “Russia” for “China.” (This works in reverse as well.) [New York Times]

Posted by Dan at 4:46 PM | Permalink

Something I should have noticed years ago: 'Moscow Echo', commonly described as Russia's only (or only significant) independent radio station, is majority owned by Gazprom Media. Gazprom Media is a subdivision of Gazprom. The chairman of Gazprom is Dmitri Medvedev, the President-elect.

Next time I stop being cynical about the entire world, somebody please punch me. Hard.

Posted by Dan at 8:49 PM | Permalink

Public intellectuals in China are the subject of a fascinating article by Mark Leonard in this month's Prospect. He namechecks several of them, but has no room to do any more than briefly sketch their ideas and outlooks. So in the interests of hearing from the horses' mouths, here are links to what I've been able to find of their work in English...

Wang Hui is easily the most interesting figure mentioned. Wang has a few good articles in Le Monde Diplomatique European views of China and on political dissatisfaction in the 80s. But he is a literary critic by training, and what really caught my eye was 'Borderless Writing'. Framed as a celebration of the essayist Yu Hua, this piece is mainly concerned with the role of the author: must she be a tortured soul, or is technical virtuosity enough? And how can literature be political without turning into punditry or social science. On the way he pulls in Bulgakov, Dostoyevsky, Borges and Isiah Berlin, and weaves in his own romantic rhapsody on writing:

Writing is merely the power with which the writer is shaping himself. What is more important, however, is that writing is a way in which the writers open themselves up and entrust themselves to time and to fate. Writing is a struggle in which a writer is fighting against himself and where happiness and gloominess coexist together. Writing unites a writer with the world of fiction, brings oneness with reality.

This main source of Wang Hui's reputation, though, is his 11-year stint (he was removed last summer) as co-editor of Dushu, one of China's main literary journals. Dushu was founded in 1979, and initially focused on biographies of Chinese intellectualls. Over the 80s it developed more interest in European philosophy and critical theory, printing works by and about Heidegger, Foucault, Buber and Camus. When Wang and his co-editor Huang Ping took over in 1996, they gave it another push: towards the theoretical, the international and the political. It became a pillar of the so-called "New Left", a movement which Wang (although he dislikes the term), describes:

Political democracy will not come from a legally impartial market, secured by constitutional amendments, but from the strength of social movements against the existing order. This point is central to the genealogy of the critical intellectual work that is now identified as a New Left

If you can't get enough of Wang (I can't), there's a long profile of him in the IHT, and he has at least one book in English (reviews: one, two), and there are one or two) interesting and (apparently) well-informed blog posts on him.

Many of the other intellectuals mentioned are economists, so I find it a little harder to figure out where they're coming from. There's Zhang Weiying, a member of the 'new right' who 'thinks China will not be free until the public sector is dismantled and the state has shrivelled into a residual body designed mainly to protect property rights.' His own page lists many of his English-language publications. Another economist is Hu Angang, author of several English-language books (google has an extensive extract from one). Has several economics papers; his interests apparently center on economic history, measuring the extent and distribution of growth, and tax and development policy.

Foreign policy I find more comprehensible that economics, but I didn't come across anything mind-blowing here. Zheng Bijian is a 'liberal internationalist', he introduced the concept of China's Peaceful Rise - that is, emphasizing economic and cultural power over military power, and taking a relaxed attitude to border disputes. All of that sounds eminently sensible - and US-friendly enough for Zheng to develop ties to RAND and Brookings. But what I've found of his writing seems worthy rather than exciting. Possibly he's just too powerful to be interesting (He advises Hu Jintao, supervises the training of new officials, and runs the China Reform Forum). Being inside the Chinese establishment must make it hard for him to express views far beyond the mainstream.

Yan Xuetong is more conservative (Leonard calls him a 'neo-comm'). He writes on China's foreign policy towards major powers, The rise of China and its power status, Missile defense and soft power.

As for civil society and democracy, Leonard brings us Yu Keping. His views would be (or rather, are) unsurprising coming from a European or American think-tank. He believes 'democracy is a good thing', but that it can only be introduced slowly. This looks (from skimming) to be one of his more interesting pieces: a survey of Chinese views of globalization.

I couldn't track down work by everybody Leonard mentions. Either Fang Ning, Pan Wei and Chi Zhiyuan don't write much in English, or their names are too common for easy googling. Not that I mind much; the rest of the names amount to days of reading.

Posted by Dan at 5:04 PM | Permalink

Getting your PhD into the national press is pretty impressive. But getting two articles devoted to it (one on the front page) before you even submit, must mean you're on to something. Alternatively, perhaps you have a journalist friend who doesn't mind writing the same article twice.

Today's Observer devotes much of its front page to a report by Anushka Asthana, beginning:

Damning new evidence that faith schools are siphoning off middle-class pupils can be revealed today, as research shows they are failing to take children from the poorest backgrounds nationwide.

This 'new evidence' is, of course, a complete revolution compared to the last time Asthana wrote this article, back in September. That one only made page 2:

Faith schools are 'cherry picking' too many children from affluent families and contributing to racial and religious segregation, according to the most extensive research of its kind...

[OK, there are some differences. For a start first article only covers London, the second is nationwide. But the articles don't take much trouble to explain what's actually new. Besides, how can I concentrate on the technicalities while distracted by visions of the Heath Robinson contraption which will 'cherry-pick' the affluent, and 'siphon off' the merely middle-class?]

What about the research papers on which the articles are based? Neither has been published or peer-reviewed. Neither is the work of a notably eminent scholar. Neither has sent shock-waves through the social science community. And - they're both the work the same PhD student, Rebecca Allen, who is currently finishing her PhD at the University of London's Institute of Education. The first was an conference paper (the online version is marked 'draft paper - please do not cite'; blasting it at 450,000 Observer readers clearly doesn't count as citing). The second I can only guess is Allen's PhD thesis.

So, how did Anushka Asthana spot this academic rising star, assess her work, and decide that it was a matter of national importance? I'd like to think she spends her days poring over conference proceedings and hustling preprints out of postdocs. But I'll go with circumstantial evidence - and the way everything in the British media works, and put it down to Oxbridge cliqueyness. In this case, Anushka Asthana (the journalist) and Rebecca Allen (the PhD student) were contemporaries at Cambridge, on the same Economics course in 1999. Slanderous as the accusation may be, I think I'll chalk this one up to the old girl's network.

[FWIW, I do think that class segregation of schools is a Bad Thing, and probably should make the news. I'd prefer that news reports are based on academic research rather than think-tank lobbying. But I don't trust 'evidence' that isn't publicly available, I don't trust journalists who sensationalize everything and put nothing in context, and I wish journalism - and politics - didn't always come down to looking after your friends]

Posted by Dan at 8:39 PM | Permalink

This is the only article I've read on the US presidential elections which hasn't been a waste of time. Briefly, Obama is more fond of behavioral economics than Clinton. Therefore she wants small targeted changes that have the most effect cheaply; he is suspicious of policies which rely on everybody being a rational actor, fully informed about government policy. Why hasn't anybody else mentioned that?

On a vaguely-related topic, I find it fascinating watching the campaign idly from afar, and so being on the outer reaches of massive, smart media campaigns. They twist everything I read so thoroughly hat I end up with firm feelings about the candidates, without (barring the article above and maybe two or three others) having the faintest idea what they stand for. The only thing that comes close is Apple's marketing, which is perfectly capable of convincing me that I need an iWhatever even when the rational part of my head knows it's overpriced rubbish.

Posted by Dan at 1:35 AM | Permalink

Bruce Sterling:

Pakistan could very easily smash to bloody pieces in 2008. If it does, nobody anywhere is gonna try and stitch Pakistan back together. Pakistan has a bigger population than Russia. It is just too big for any of the other power-players to handle. So if it ignites, it'll burn.

I'm not entirely convinced - China benefits from Pakistan's existence, and a breakup of Pakistan would be '47-scale messy. But it's well-placed cynicism, nonetheless.

Posted by Dan at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Images from 'carceri d'invenzione', by 18th-century artist Giovanni Piranesi. Eisenstein called them 'architectural frenzies'; they're extremes that could never exist beyond art or film.

Posted by Dan at 10:13 PM | Permalink

Missed this one last month in the UK: a woman was convicted for "possessing records likely to be used for terrorism", whatever that means. As far as I can see, she had downloaded some documents on guns and bombs (like, er, just about every teenage boy in the country), and written some angry poems about killing people.

So, basically, she's been fantasizing about being a jihadi rather than fantasizing about being James Bond.

For this she's already been in jail for 5 months, and has a 9 month suspended sentence.

Posted by Dan at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"In 1989, the [Chinese] government didn't know why Tiananmen happened. Now, by reading the Internet, they know what's going to happen. They know about movements in their infancy and they're able to kill them when they're still young"

...according to Chinese blogger Michael Anti. Ethan Zuckerman's summary of a Berkman talk he gave has lots of other fascinating comments.

Posted by Dan at 12:54 AM | Permalink

Livejournal has just been taken over by SUP, the russian company that was already managing Russian-language livejournals. Compared to when SUP first started managing the Russian service, the reactions among Russian users seem surprisingly positive. i.e. more people are pleased to have LJ under Russian control than are frightened that they'll be more vulnerable to government pressure. Still, I'm not thrilled by their decision to announce this just after the Russian elections. It looks a lot like trying to bury the news while Russian lj users are distracted, even if it wasn't intended that way.

Posted by Dan at 12:20 PM | Permalink

A phrase I never expected to read: seat-of-the-pants jurisprudence

Posted by Dan at 1:35 PM | Permalink