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Meme Wars

May16

Meme Wars by Joan Donovan. Emily Dreyfuss and Brian Friedberg is an analysis of the memes that have flourished in online subcultures in the 21st century and their impact on real world events.

Memes are units for the transmission of ideas, behaviours and styles, usually images or phrases with highly symbolic content, that move from person to person through a culture, or between cultures. The term was coined by Richard Dawkins in the The Selfish Gene but he acknowledged that it was not a new idea. Indeed, the use of visual and written imagery and oral storytelling traditions were consciously used ways to transmit ideas throughout human existence. An example is the way Roman Emperors used mass-produced statuary of their likeness to support their authority across a large, multi-cultural empire.

I don’t think the internet has changed people’s behaviour. There’s nothing new about the worst aspects of us online. What the internet has done is make it more visible, and make the transmission of ideas much quicker.

Meme Wars looks at how people and groups in America who hold fascist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi views used online memes to influence the electorate and media and shift the political consensus to the right, culminating in the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021. The authors look at the origin of the use of memes in this way with the Occupy Movement and it’s subsequent adoption by the alt-right and evolution through Gamer Gate and conspiracy theories to its deployment to elect Donald Trump. They examine some of the ideas that are being transmitted and to what extent they are rooted in genuine beliefs or used to undermine trust in established authorities.

The influence of phrases and images which started out in the dark corners of the internet has had on the mainstream ‘real-world’ media is analyzed. This is a combination of public figures using the phrases on shows and in speeches and of media outlets following their commercial imperative to provide content attractive to their viewers. The recent case around Fox News and its promotion of ‘Stop the Steal’ despite knowing that it was factually unsound demonstrates those pressures. Other impacts, such as the Charlottesville rally and the Republican party are also discussed.

Of course, the US isn’t the only country in the world that has seen a political shift towards nationalism, intolerance and regressive politics in the last twenty years and the causes of these trends are far bigger than internet trolls. Meme Wars is an excellent analysis of the mechanisms by which the ideas and beliefs generated by those bigger trends are spread through cultures in an online era. It’s very good. The images and phrases examined in this book are probably familiar, but like me, you may not fully understand the symbolism. This book will lift the veil and, disturbing as it might be, it is always better to see clearly.

Some we Love, Some we Hate, Some we Eat

Mar20

Some we Love, Some we Hate, Some we Eat: Why it’s so hard to think straight about animals by Hal Herzog is an examination of the complex and contradictory ways we interact with animals.

The book looks at our relationship with pets and working animals and how some animals are considered pets and some aren’t. The impact of breeding for specific characteristics and its often negative consequences for the animal somewhat undercuts our expression of love for these animals. One factor is our primitive response to certain features like soft fur and large eyes, which raises the question as to whether we are able to rationalise our feelings about animals or we’re simply at the mercy of biology.

The author explores vegetarianism and veganism, again highlighting the contradiction inherent in some of these positions. It was interesting to read that most people eventually return to eating meat, usually for health reasons. It contrast our squeamishness, or lack of it, around farming chickens for food and raising cocks for fighting. Many people would instinctively say that cockfighting is worse than killing chickens for food, but the life of a fighting cock seems a lot nicer than the life of a battery chicken. Through examples and contrasts like this the author is able to draw out why it’s so difficult to have a coherent approach to our relationship with animals.

One aspect of our relationship with animals is their use in the development of medicines or the understanding of biology and psychology. It seems people are more likely to take a cost-benefit approach here, prioritising the benefits to humans much higher than the suffering of animals. It also looks at our ability to convince ourselves that some animals don’t suffer or feel pain, and how research is challenging that belief. There are also stories of the researchers who become too attached to their subjects. The irony that in order to demonstrate that animals feel empathy or pain we have to experiment on them or dissect them is not lost.

Some we Hate, Some we Love, Some we Eat doesn’t take a position, perhaps a reflection of the author’s point – it’s hard to straighten all this out in your head. Through a compelling combination of storytelling and facts, Herzog lays out the various ways we use and interact with animals, and reveals the contradictions. It’s one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read in a while. It doesn’t lead to answers, but will make you question yourself.

White Fragility

May21

If you have ever wondered why some people respond to the suggestion that something they’ve said is racist with outrage over the implication that they could ever be racist rather than with a desire to understand why, make amends and educate themselves, this book will help you understand.

White Fragility: Why it’s so hard for White People to talk about Racism is written by Robin D’Angelo, a white person with decades of experience delivering racial justice training to organizations. Throughout that experience she has met with responses that are familiar to me, and probably many other people. These responses generally go along the lines of ‘I define myself as not-racist, so therefore nothing I say or do could possibly be racist’ and ‘You saying something I said or did was racist is far, far more offensive and harmful to me than the racist thing I said is harmful to someone else, and therefore it is much more important for me to defend myself than to entertain the idea that I inadvertently said something racist’. What we’re not talking about here is the overt sentiments and statements of someone who consciously identifies as a white supremacist. We’re talking about progressives, moderates and conservatives who truly believe they are not racist (and certainly don’t intend to be) but who do not understand how growing up in historically racist societies have embedded attitudes and language that have their origins in racist ideology.

For me, knowing that I grew up in a country with an imperial legacy that used racist ideology to justify its exploitation of non-white peoples, some of which was enshrined in law, and lots of which was embedded in literature, art and other cultural media, makes it seem pretty obvious that I enjoy privileges that I wouldn’t have if I weren’t white, and pretty obvious I might not be fully aware of all the racist opinions and beliefs I’ve absorbed from my culture. Of course I would be horrified if someone told me I’d said something racist and probably my first instinct would be to be defensive (isn’t it always?). But I like to think I could move past that to apologising and figuring out what was behind what I’d said so that it didn’t happen again.

D’Angelo’s book pulls apart the various factors that lead to a different response and it’s illuminating. Central is the idea that we like to see ourselves as good people and the definition of a good white person currently includes not being racist. This means that being called out for saying something racist is an identity threat – to which people tend to respond with some emotional heat.

I found the discussion on how white people are taught about their own history or, more to the point, not taught interesting. When I was at school I learnt about a sanitised, positive British empire focused on exploration, adventure and discovery, and it wasn’t until reading more as an adult that I began to understand what empire was really all about. Even if a white person grows up in an area where there are lots of non-white people, that doesn’t mean we understand anything about the social construct of race and how it impacts people, because it is not openly talked about in the arenas most white people get their information. Also interesting is the information about how classifications of someone as white – in order to determine who was eligible to own property – developed and how convoluted they became, all in the service of restricting wealth and privilege to a small minority.

Reading White Fragility gave me a lot of insight into why it is actually so hard to shift the systemic disadvantages/privileges associated with race and to create more equal outcomes and opportunities for people. It also gave me better ways to talk about these things. Highly recommended.

DeGrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era

May10

DeGrowth: A Vocabularyfor a New Era is a collection of essays exploring degrowth and related concepts.

Degrowth is a philosophy that says in order for human societies to survive the climate catastrophe, we have to shrink our economies, and to re-think what it means to live a good life. The dominant ideology of our time is rooted in constant, devouring growth, using up finite material resources such as oil and rare earths. The degrowth movement says that we have to let go of growth as our marker of progress and success. Sustainable development is rejected as a delusion; we can’t halt or reverse the damage we’ve done to the earth and still have a consumerist society.

A challenge with the degrowth point of view is how societies are organized and focused if we are not driven by growth. Many of the concepts defined in this book are ideas of how to do that both in terms of institutions and individuals. Some sectors of the economy, such as care, healthcare and education would be expected to expand, and societies would be more focused around community. Ways in which to reduce inequality and to ensure that the onus of degrowth is put in the right place (on the over-consuming elites of the Global North) are also described.

This is a useful book which lays out a series of concepts that could help us live more at peace with the earth and each other. It’s also a good pointer to the thinkers in this space so that you can read more.

Crisis

May31

I started reading Crisis by Henry Kissinger as Covid-19 lockdown started in the UK. It seemed… appropriate, given that it’s a record of a group of people trying to respond to a situation that is changing on a daily basis with limited information.

Crisis covers the Yom Kippur war and the last days of the Vietnam war. Most of the book is dedicated to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. It is largely transcripts of phone calls between Henry Kissinger and the various other actors involved. It is fascinating to read actual transcripts because people don’t speak in proper sentences, context (which we don’t have in this book) is what makes everything make sense and simply from the words on the page it is impossible to know what is going on. Not really. You get the impression that differences in opinion in the US government – between the executive, the various committees, Congress and the Senate – mean that stuff isn’t getting done. Kissinger finds himself making promises that others don’t fulfill. Then people don’t tell the truth, or change their minds, or are relaying the best information they have but it’s just wrong.

Kissinger calls out that some of his colleagues found it hard to let go of the belief that the Israeli army was so superior to the Egyptian army that the war would be over in a couple of days, even when the evidence clearly showed the two armies quite evenly matched. He notes how assumptions impeded decision-making. Although it’s also clear, especially in the section on the Vietnam war, that he doesn’t examine his own assumptions. Trying to work out what’s going on – especially as it’s a long time since I read anything about that war – without any context is challenging: however, lacking the context meant I was more focused on the content of the verbal communication. It is really amazing how randomly we speak and yet manage to understand each other. And really clear how easy it is to misunderstand.

The section on the Vietnam war is shorter and has more commentary around the transcripts. It focuses on the last days of the war when the US is trying to get people (US military, US civilians and Vietnamese people who had worked with the Americans) out of South Vietnam before the North Vietnamese arrive. Kissinger allows himself to show much more emotion in this section about the responsibility the US had to get people to safety and his frustration with the US government failing to agree sufficient budget.

Crisis is an interesting book, both for what is intentionally revealed and what is unintentionally revealed.

Peterloo 200: The Path to Proportional Representation

Feb21

Published by Make Votes Matter and the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, Peterloo 200: The Path to Proportional Representation is a short report making the case for adopting PR in the UK.

The 200 year anniversary of the Peterloo massacre was in 2019. This report was published to highlight that the fight for democracy in the UK has a long history and is far from over.

The report covers the democratic deficit inherent in First Past the Post (FPTP) systems. Your vote may not count at all in a safe seat and the system incentivizes parties to spend nothing on many voters but loads on swing voters in marginal seats. What I didn’t quite realise was how few marginal seats there are, and therefore how few voters are really of interest to parties.

In addition to the democratic case for PR, the report covers a number of other reasons why PR is a better system for most people. Countries with proportional representation have greater economic equality, tend to elect governments that act in the interests of the majority (the real majority, not just a small section of the largest minority), are able to invest in longer term solutions to societal problems because there is much less policy reversal, are more stable societies, and less likely to go to war.

Lastly Peterloo 200 addresses some of the myths about PR, like that countries with coalitions have more elections and are unstable (they don’t, they aren’t) and that the referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system means that UK voters don’t want PR (AV is not a form of proportional representation).

It’s aimed squarely at Labour members and voters but is packed full of research and facts and is very digestible. Before I read it, I thought that PR was a good idea but didn’t feel that strongly about it. Now, I am convinced this is the way forward.

 

The Balkans 1804-1999 Nationalism, War and the Great Powers

Feb16

Misha Glenny’s The Balkans has been my breakfast book for the last year. Breakfast books are the many large, heavy books I have on my shelf that I can’t commute with so they get read in twenty minutes stints while I have breakfast. Sometimes twenty minutes is enough time to read a reasonable chunk. Other times, when a book is densely packed with facts and ideas, then twenty minutes gets me about five pages. If I’m lucky and really paying attention. The Balkans was very much the latter.

The book is very insightful. Glenny has spent much of his career as a journalist working in the Balkans and is most knowledgeable. The structure of the book is chronological, taking a span of years and addressing what is happening in each of the areas of the Balkans. I hesitate to say countries because, although nationalism has been a driving force behind much of the conflict in this part of the world, the experience of colonialism over this period has meant that the areas known as Bulgaria or Greece or Albania or Serbia (or others) have grown larger and smaller at various times. What becomes evident because of the structure of the book is the near constant experience of war for people living in the Balkans between the mid-19th century and the 1950s. The social and psychological legacy of that is appalling.

Glenny’s lens is one of imperialism. The start of the period he covers is the wane of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. The ways in which they sought to undermine each other or to retain power at the edges of their influence had a destructive effect on the peoples of the Balkans. Interference from the other great powers, Britain, France and Russia, made things generally worse. The great powers only sought to extract the wealth of the area as they did all around the world. Nazi Germany’s interest in the region was marginally more positive in that it had an economically beneficial impact, but following classic colonial policy agriculture was encouraged and manufacturing denied. When the Balkans (mostly) become part of the Soviet Union, it looks much like more imperialism to Glenny. The Balkan countries are treated as bread baskets for Russia and state terror follows a similar pattern to that of earlier empires.

Only a handful of pages at the end are devoted to the events in Yugoslavia after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which was a little disappointing (but it seems Glenny has written more elsewhere on the subject) but the threads of history and the interference of the great powers (preferring to call themselves the international community now but still playing the same game of putting their strategic interests over the lives of ordinary people) are visible.

This was a compelling and often disturbing read that inspires me to learn more about the Balkans. I remain convinced that nationalism is one of the stupidest ideas humanity has ever had. And there’s some stiff competition.

 

Natives

Jan11

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala is about how the intersection of race and class affect black working class people living in Britain today. It combines academic research with personal experience and biography in a way that makes the statistics accessible and relatable. As well as deeply upsetting. We have nothing to be complacent about. Hate crimes are on the rise in the UK and social mobility is less easy than it was a few decades ago. Racism has a powerfully detrimental affect on people’s life chances and if we don’t act to tackle those affects they will get worse.

Natives covers a lot of ground, focusing on the impact of experiences in education, with the police, and with representation in the media. I particularly enjoyed the chapter contrasting the UK mainstream media’s treatment of Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro as this was a new lens for me. It highlights how curated our news is and how much the way events are reported, the way people are talked about influences our understanding. Our understanding of recent history is distorted in many respects.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is funny and erudite and moving. Highly recommend.

Non-fiction round up 2019

Dec27

I have been a bit sporadic with posting to this blog for a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. What I have now is a backlog. An evergrowing backlog that induces procrastination. Because I am lazy, I am doing a round up post of the non-fiction books I read this year that I enjoyed enough to want to talk about.

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman: This book presents the case for imagining a better world for all the people who live in it and a way out of the trap of consumption. There are a few key ideas such as a universal basic income, paying well for jobs that contribute to wellbeing (like rubbish collection and caring jobs), and reducing the working week to two or three days. It was cogently argued, well-evidenced and easy reading. Just what you need to re-inspire you about the possibility of positive change.

London, the biography by Peter Ackroyd: Well, this was just lovely. Spanning from the origins of human settlement in the London area to the end of the 20th century it covers the development of London thematically. There are chapters on theatre, crime and punishment, rivers, food and drink, disease, and many other ways of seeing. It’s a big book and packed full of stories and connections. It perfectly captures the romance of London in all its corrupted beauty and compelling horror.

The Shortest History of Germany by James Hawes: When I visited Berlin earlier this year, I was keen to learn more of the history of Germany beyond the world wars. Must be more to Germany than that, right? This book spends some time on the early history of the peoples of the land that would eventually comprise modern Germany, and some time on the relationship between catholic Prussia in the East and the protestant cities and states in the West. Most of the book though, at least half, is actually about the world wars and the eventual rise of the Nazis. Maybe this is because Germany as a country hasn’t existed for that long. It was interesting to see a longer perspective on the forces at play. It’s a perspective that goes some way to illuminating the same currents in evidence today.

The Rise of the Green Left by Derek Wall: A fascinating book on the relationship between socialism and environmentalism and the history of eco-socialism. This was really educational and gave me a much better understanding of eco-socialist movements across the world. One small element that was particularly enlightening was the discussion of eco-fascism. It seemed self-evident to me that environmentalism and socialism are naturally compatible, but there has also been a tradition of environmentalism allied with right-wing ideology and so the link should not be taken for granted.

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber: Bullshit jobs are jobs where no one actually benefits from what you do. So, jobs like being a carer, or a nurse, or teacher, or road sweeper, are not bullshit. We need to do those jobs and we’d all be a lot worse off if they weren’t getting done. Graeber identifies five types of bullshit job: flunkies, whose job it is to make someone else look or feel important; goons, whose jobs have an aggressive element, like lobbyists and corporate lawyers; duct tapers, whose job is to fix problems that shouldn’t really exist; box tickers, allowing a company to claim it’s doing something it isn’t; and taskmasters, assigning work to people and creating more bullshit jobs. It is full of anecdotes about the crappy jobs people have held and is a very entertaining read.

The Art of the Good Life by Ralf Dobelli: Sequel to The Art of Thinking Clearly, this is another collection of short essays on cognitive fallacies and the ways in which our thinking gets distorted. Always useful to have a reminder.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo: I love Marie Kondo. It’s not about decluttering or only having six books or whatever other nonsense has been said about the book and the tv series. Marie Kondo is about appreciating what you have and arranging your house so you get the most enjoyment from it. Her folding method is brilliant – I have found I can get lots more clothes in my drawers and still be able to see more clearly what I’ve got. Magic, indeed. I’m also a big fan of talking to my house, because I love my house. I think anything that encourages appreciation is a good thing.

The Inflamed Mind by Edward Bullmore: New science around the understanding of depression shows a link between physical inflammation and mental depression. This is a dense book, but really interesting and worth the effort. The research outlined in this book challenges conventional understanding of the links between physical and mental health, and challenges the categorisation of symptoms. I’ve long thought that depression is a catch-all term for very different experiences that don’t respond to the same treatment.

The Devil’s Doctor, Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science by Philip Ball: This is not the sort of thing I would normally buy. As it happens, I found it on a train. Paracelsus lived from 1493 to 1541, when magic and demons and gods were still very real in people’s lives, yet the scientific discoveries that would drive the Enlightenment were coming thick and fast. It is an insight into a period of great change, through the biography of a man that was both scientist and magician. Considered a key figure in the development of chemistry and medicine, he was also a charlatan and got run out of town several times. I’m glad I picked it up.

Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky: This is a must-read for anyone who consumes news. What happens and how it is reported is very important. This book highlights the disparity between the stories we tell about events depending on who the actor is and the values that actor wants us to believe they hold. If you’ve ever had the sense that how you’re being told to interpret world events is distorted and confusing, this book will explain why that is.

History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell: I’m not sure it’s true to say that I enjoyed this book. It’s certainly not true to say I understood very much of it, although I now have a much better understanding of what philosophy actually is. But I felt very clever and pleased with myself for having read it.

Prisoners of Geography

Mar19

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Let’s just say 2017 was a challenging year and leave it at that.

I’m starting with Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall, lent to me by a friend. The book looks at ten areas of the world and how the geography affects foreign policy and strategic interests. Tim Marshall is a foreign affairs correspondent with a lot of experience.

The book is wonderful to read. It’s engaging and brilliantly written. The content is interesting. Much of it was familiar to me but plenty was new, and the stuff I knew was presented in a way that opened up another level of understanding. It was crazy to think about how much of Russia is uninhabitable. I liked that Marshall considered both the historical effects of geography, such as how the Himalayas have kept India and China apart, as well as how technology might overcome those effects. What happens once one of those nations can realistically prosecute a war across the mountains?

The best chapter was the last one, on the Arctic. It was very enlightening, especially around the implication that some countries and corporations might want to see the ice completely gone.

Definitely recommend this one.