The Cherry Orchard

Quiz question: name three influential political scientists or academic theoreticians who play a major role in shaping world opinion on important global issues.

If I spend my day asking this question to everybody I see, I expect to hear two alternating answers:

a) (silence)

b) “Noam Chomsky” (followed by silence)

I am ashamed to admit that I can’t even come up with three good names myself. But, please understand that I have only been running this blog for a week, and have barely begun doing the research that will, I hope, make this site informative and useful (I’ve actually spent the last few years absorbed in literary news and fiction and poetry scenes, and I’m only now beginning to invest the same amount of my time into staying thoroughly up to date on political topics).

So, at this moment, I am in the same position as most people I know — I’ve read some Noam Chomsky, and other than that I have absolutely no idea what the most brilliant representatives of our top universities and research centers and think-tanks are doing to improve our world. I know there are many academic journals read by specialists in the field, like the Political Science Quarterly, but I don’t know anybody who reads or talks about these publications.

What should we think about the fact that our top contemporary academics have so thoroughly failed to penetrate popular consciousness? Doesn’t this amount to some kind of failure? I think it does.

And then there’s this amusing fact about Noam Chomsky, the only academic I can think of who has managed to penetrate popular discussion of global issues in our times: he’s not a professor of political science. Noam Chomsky is a linguist, and he made his reputation in 1956 with the introduction of the Chomsky-Schutzenberger Hierarchy, described by Wikipedia as a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars that generate formal languages (which is probably a very exciting development if you’re a linguist). Books like 9-11, Failed States and Manufacturing Consent have benefited from Chomsky’s reputation as a highly-respected academic, but Chomsky is an academic in a field completely unrelated to political science or history.

It seems that the contemporary community of top political academics are utterly failing to play a role in the popular understanding of global issues. I hate to use a cliche like “ivory tower”, but that’s apparently where these guys are broadcasting from, and it doesn’t seem like anybody’s tuning in.

It’s standard practice to laugh at musicians, artists or writers who speak out on politics. “What the hell is Bono doing in Africa? Why don’t these rich rock stars leave the politics to the politicians?” Yeah, sure, the politicians are doing such a good job of it, right?

I applaud any celebrities who stand up for political causes, and I’m sick of hearing people put them down. I don’t particularly like Bono’s music, and I usually change the radio real quick as soon I start to hear “un … dos … tres … quatorce”. But I really respect the fact that he constantly risks embarrassment by working for causes that have nothing to do with music, and the fact that so many amateur comedians make fun of him (or Bob Geldof, or Bruce Springsteen, or Pearl Jam, or the Dixie Chicks, etc. etc.) for this only proves that these comedians don’t have the brains to come up with better material.

There’s a long tradition of writers covering the political field. Shakespeare’s history plays were firmly grounded in the partisan politics of his day. Rousseau, Voltaire, Locke and Hume created the intellectual environment that gave direction to the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Emile Zola famously stood up for Alfred Dreyfus in France, Harriet Beecher Stowe raised awareness of slavery with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Joseph Conrad exposed the hypocrisy of Belgian exploitation of the Congo in Heart of Darkness. There are far too many examples of politically-engaged writers to even consider listing any subset of them.

Outspoken artists and musicians like Pablo Picasso, John Lennon, Bob Marley have also reached large audiences in the past, and famous musical events from Woodstock to Live Aid to Live 8 have succeeded in generating public awareness of global issues. It’d be hard to say the artists and writers and musicians of our time are doing enough to affect important global issues, because so much needs to be done. But many are doing everything they can do. In these cases, I think it’s pretty sad that the best most of us do in response is laugh their hard work off.

Do independent non-governmental activist organizations like Amnesty International and Greenpeace accomplish anything? It’s hard to say. Some of these groups have large enrollments and keep extremely busy with focused activities and grassroots causes. But they rarely manage to penetrate popular awareness, and remain “niche communities” separated from mainstream dialogue. I am glad the major (and minor) organizations are there, and I know they do good work, but I wish they were more aggressive, more vocal, and more disruptive when needed.

To tell the truth, I haven’t paid much attention to any of the more well-known groups recently, but as background research for this new blog I am going to begin paying more attention, and I plan to use this space to report on the activities and pronouncements of as many independent international organizations as I can, including the following:

• Amnesty International, which works on many fronts and issues useful reports like this one

• Greenpeace (which is mainly an environmental group, but also engages in political dialogue

• The Red Cross

• The Carter Center (founded by Jimmy Carter)

• United for Peace

• Peace Action

• War Resisters

In the popular imagination, the United Nations is an international joke. If you mention this organization in a political debate, you are sure to hear snorts of derision in response. Well, okay, they probably deserve it. The organization was formed by the victorious nations in the aftermath of World War II, and while they have helped to prevent a third World War (so far) and have promoted economic development around the world, they have also failed to prevent a depressing number of damaging wars, genocidal campaigns and humanitarian disasters. Most people consider the United Nations a bloated and ineffective mess, and it’s hard to say whether they’re completely wrong or not.

But four United Nations peacekeepers were killed in Lebanon today, and that adds some perspective. As bad as the U. N.’s record has been, it seems unfair to expect them to succeed so easily. Humans have been waging war and oppressing each other for a long time. The U. N. has had sixty years. Most importantly, the United Nations is all we’ve got. We’re better off with them than without them, and maybe every once in a while they’ll even manage to do something (okay, probably not, but we can hope).

Given its makeup, it’s unlikely that the United Nations will break the bounds of bureaucratic inertia and begin to act decisively any time soon. One would think, though, that this organization would manage to inspire greater worldwide discussion and debate. This has been one of the U.N.’s great unspoken failures. How often have you heard of a useful international debate taking place inside these lush walls? A book of “Famous Speeches Made at the U.N.” would be surprisingly thin. In a world that badly needs global understanding, it’s incomprehensible that the United Nations does not manage to present any useful public dialogue at all.

Overall, the United Nations scores a lot higher on the peacemaker report card than either the politicians or the religious leaders of the world. They earn a C+, easily, which is the first passing grade we’ve seen this week. Tomorrow I’ll talk about a few other groups: non-profit organizations like Amnesty International and the Red Cross, writers and artists and musicians, bloggers and journalists.

Now that we’ve determined that we can’t sit around and wait for politicians to find the path to peace, who are we going to entrust this important job to? I’ll be examining this question in the next few posts, and today I’d like to introduce another candidate: religious leaders from the major faiths of the world.

It’s truly sad how badly the current leaders of the world’s religions are faring as peacemakers. Their legacy is great. We don’t need to go as far back as Jesus of Nazareth, whose sharp words should be endlessly inspiring to people of any religion. Many great peacemakers of our recent past were religious figures: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa. The first two of these names are notable for their strict adherence to the doctrine of non-violence, and if anybody doubts the effectiveness of non-violence, they need only look at the success of the democratic, free, multi-cultural nation of India (which has weathered many crises but remains the brave nation Gandhi and his partners imagined into being) or the great progress made towards racial equality in America during the period when the innovative Martin Luther King was on television news every night. Here’s the surprising truth: non-violent protest works.

Unfortunately, no well-known religious leader of today compares to Mohatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King in either character or talent. I think I’ll refrain from naming names at this point (I’d rather buttress up my research before I start slinging any actual mud on this site, so please be patient and return soon). Today I’m just going to speak collectively about the whole set of Western religious leaders who are vocal about political issues today, including well-known representatives of various sects of Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Reform Judaism. Yesterday I gave the politicans of the world a D+ for positive action towards peace. The religious leaders of the world, hmmm, well … is there an F-?

They are a disappointing lot. The Dalai Lama of Tibet is one exception — he’s a wonderful speaker and a humble Buddhist — but as wars rage and rockets fly and bombs fall I sometimes wish the Dalai Lama would meditate less and talk more.

Some mention Pope John Paul II as a peacemaker, and he was certainly inspiring in many ways. But in 1994 the Catholic nation of Rwanda burst into a orchestrated and politically motivated genocide, and the Vatican failed to find any way to influence events in this churchgoing nation. A million Catholics were killed by their fellow Catholics over the course of one scary month, often with the complicity of priests who allowed church grounds to be turned into slaughterhouses.  (When I discussed this with a Catholic friend, he angrily asked what I expected the Pope to do: “Did you expect him to deploy the Vatican army to Rwanda?”  Funny line, but what I expected the Pope to do was exercise his leadership to improve the situation.  There is a direct line of communication and accountability from the Vatican to the parish priests, and I would have expected a remarkable effort to influence events, using the powerful weapons known as words.)

Other than the Dalai Lama, the field of religious leaders who work for peace is pretty empty. If I’m forgetting somebody, please do post a comment and let me know.

I plan to be observing the words of some of the world’s well-known religious figures more closely on this site in the future. Tomorrow I’ll continue this series with another party that might be considered a productive contributor towards the cause of world peace: the United Nations. (Now stop laughing. Yes, I’m going to talk about the United Nations as a positive force for peace.)

When we complain about the wars that rage around us, we often ask why the politicians and military leaders of the world can’t discover the path to peace. In fact, it’s our mistake to assume that politicians and military leaders are suited to this task.

Why do we sit and wait for them to do everything? The problem with this approach is obvious: they are the ones at war. Since when do peacemakers sit back and wait for the warring parties to create peace? We’d have to wait a long time. A person engaged in leading a nation must think strategically. This is why there’s such a vile sense of gameplaying when the top leaders of the world meet to shake hands and kiss and discuss “the world’s problems”.

The real problem becomes clearer when you think of the fact that all of these politicians and national leaders must satisfy their own constituencies and prove to their supporters that they are capable of tough military action. This explains much of what we see from both Israel and Iran — in Israel, Olmert’s aggressive response to Hezbollah and Hamas is helping to establish his credibility as a successor to Ariel Sharon, and in Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using the battle with Israel as a national call to unity. War is an essential political tool, and most political leaders are only capable of using it as such.

If peace is hard work (it is) and if we can’t trust our favorite politicians to do this work, who can we trust? Religious leaders? The United Nations? Independent organizations like Amnesty International? Artists and writers and musicians?  Theoreticians and academics? Journalists and bloggers? I’d like to spend the next few posts on this site examining this question in some detail.

In the past, political leaders have sometimes proved capable of working for peace. Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat come to mind (though Sadat sadly sacrificed his life for his actions, and Carter’s hard work failed to earn him re-election in 1980), as do Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk in South Africa and Albert Reynolds, Gerry Adams and John Major in Northern Ireland and England. But if I had to grade the work of our current crop of world politicians in promoting world peace, I’d give the whole class a D+. And that’s just because I’m feeling generous. How do the other parties I mentioned above stack up? I’ll be writing more on this soon.

I respect people who are willing to change their opinions. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is a good example. He established himself as a famous young follower of Bertrand Russell with the hyperactively rational “Tractacus Logico-Philosophicus”. He then realized everything he’d argued was wrong, and argued that the entire foundation of logic and rationality lacked concrete meaning. Some contemporary academics favor the conclusions of the early Wittgenstein, some favor the later Wittgenstein, and there is nothing they all agree on. I think this is the sign of a great philosopher.

What is an opinion, and why do we cling so tightly to our own? I think it’s a sign of intellectual maturity to stand up in public and declare: “I said this, I thought some more about it, I listened to your responses, and I now realize I was wrong.” How rarely this happens! More often, a person who loses an argument will put his head down and duke it out forever, undeterred by logic or evidence.

I try to never do that, and I am determined to make it my method and my practice, as I operate this blog, to always admit my mistakes when I make them. I hope I don’t make too many. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I’d like to log where I stand on some of the topics we’ll be covering here, so that if any of my beliefs ever change I’ll be able to mark the occasion.

First, let me introduce myself. I’m a New York Jew (though my own religion skews to Buddhism), and I’m generally a liberal moderate, though I sometimes find myself on a conservative side in an argument. Of course, any Jew will choose political philosophies with a sense of irony, since we tend to get fucked over by extremists of any belief. This fact is extra ironic because Jews also tend to be the extremists of many beliefs, and if you think too much about this whole thing your head starts to spin. What conclusions can you draw about my political heritage when my ancestors include both Karl Marx and Henry Kissinger?

I don’t have a great deal of respect for the way the Jewish religion is currently practiced (nor the way the Christian or Muslim religions are currently practiced), but I do take a lot of pride in my ethnic background. I’m pretty sure the greatest Jew of all time was Jesus of Nazareth, and I’m also pretty sure that Bob Dylan and Groucho Marx are tied for close second.

Economically, I’m a middle class 2nd and 3rd generation American, and I work hard (as a website developer and writer) so I can support myself and my three kids and still have enough left over to take my girlfriend on a date. I’ve been broke and I’ve been (dot-com) wealthy. Now I’m still basically broke but I’ve learned how to cook my own meals.

Enough about me. Please meet my opinions. I’m going to list eight issues that will probably be discussed within this site in the future, and I’m going to try to keep this punchy and short:

1. The Arab-Israeli Conflict

In 2002 I created a fake organization called The Committee to Give Jerusalem to Tibet, and that pretty much sums up how I feel today. I want the fighting to stop, and I have no patience for the idea that compromise is impossible; it is possible because it must be possible. There is an incredible amount of propaganda, cheap mythology and dubious history on both sides of this debate, and I would like to improve the quality of the discussion and find the moral center that seems, at this moment, to be completely lost.

Okay, that was neither punchy nor short. I’ll try harder with the next few:

2. George W. Bush and the War in Iraq

Terrible. I hate the destruction this has caused, and I do not believe the victory over Saddam has made the world more stable or secure. In strategic terms, I really think George W. Bush proved himself to be a bad poker player, since only an amateur overplays a big hand. We fell into a classic trap. Osama bin Laden’s best month wasn’t September 2001 … it was March 2003. I do believe in international activism to overthrow dangerous or genocidal governments, but the case must be made in international debate and there must be a much greater consensus.

Even less short and punchy. Okay, I’m doing the next six in one sentence each.

3. Is the U.S.A. a positive or negative force in the world?

Spotty record, but I’d give us a B- overall, which is better than a C+.

4. Is religion a positive or negative force in the world?

Positive.

5. What can prosperous peoples do about famine, poverty and economic injustice around the world?

Most people I know would like to do more but don’t believe that anything they can do will make a difference.

6. Should the nations of the world intervene to prevent genocide in Africa and other similar atrocities?

Yes, and I believe the United Nations should and can play a much bigger role than it currently does.

7. Should the U.S.A. have stronger gun control laws?

I would look for a compromise solution here — I have spent enough time in “red states” to know that it’s a waste of time and effort to try to separate a stubborn homeowner in Indiana from his private stash of rifles and pistols, so gun-control advocates should relax the rhetoric, try to find an effective middle path and get some useful laws pushed through.

8. Should the U.S.A. Supreme Court outlaw abortion?

I’m personally opposed to abortion, but I believe it would be a humanitarian disaster to deny pregnant women the right to make choices about their own bodies — I believe a woman’s right to choose is the most basic right here.

That’s about it … please feel free to start telling me where you completely disagree.

I just announced the plans for this site on LitKicks. So I’m really doing this? As I put the final touches on my initial (and very primitive) WordPress theme, I feel strangely dizzy. Why on earth am I creating a new blog? I’m not busy enough already? Then I turn on the TV news and I remember why.

Somebody said this to me: “Why do we need another political blog saying the same old stuff?” Strangely, I don’t hear anybody saying much at all. Of course there are many well-written political blogs (I hope to engage with some of them here) but only a few have broken out to a larger readership. There’s The Huffington Post, which I like a lot — but the Huffington Post has a fast-moving, fast-talking style that is not conducive to in-depth political discussion. I sometimes post to Daily Kos, and of course I admire this blog’s flair for organization and activism. But Daily Kos is very much about electoral politics, and the site is currently so focused on the 2006 midterm elections you can’t get a good conversation about the war in the Middle East going there if your life depends on it (Israelis and Palestinians don’t vote in Tennessee).

I’d like to search for great political writing and link to it here, and I promise to link to the best pieces I can find, whether or not I agree with their points of view. I’m hoping to find the same level of intelligence, individuality and taste for controversy that I’ve already found within the online literary scene, where I have spent a lot of time. I’ll probably write a few essays and maybe an occasional history review (or History Channel review) or opinion piece, but most often I plan to use this space to respond to other political commentators and journalists, both online and off.

And I guess that’s why I’m not worried that this blog will take up too much of my time, because I already spend a lot of time commenting on what other political analysts say or write. But, until now, my commenting has taken the form of screaming at my television, pounding my mouse angrily on the surface of my desk or shaking my head in silent disbelief as I peruse the New York Times. Starting now, I’m going to put my reactions into words. And that, I guess, is why I need another blog.

Thanks for visiting, and please be patient with me as I figure out exactly what this place is supposed to be.

Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard is a hilarious and bitter play about a magnificent house filled with foolish people. During the last years of Tsarist rule, this noble family is facing poverty and ruin due to a financial downturn, but nobody in the house knows how to begin to deal with the problem (save a friendly former servant, who is utterly ignored). Chekhov’s brilliant satire ends with the noise of cutting crews destroying the famous cherry orchard that surrounds the estate.

I created TheCherryOrchard.org because I need to speak about the foolishness I see around me in the Middle East, in Africa, in the Americas, Asia, in Europe — even in Australia, even in Antarctica the people must be fools, because in every corner of the world it seems that moderate, humane and peace-loving voices speak only in timid whispers about the violence, injustice and militant propaganda that dominates our world. I intend to use this website to talk about politics, news and history, but I won’t toe any party lines. I stand against stupidity, complacency and conformity, and other than that the only thing I’m sure of is that ice cream tastes good on a summer day.

I run a literary website, LitKicks.com, and I guess I created this new blog to allow me to write about a wider array of topics while keeping that site focused on books and literature. So this is my place where I can talk about whatever the hell I want to talk about, and I plan to talk a lot. I plan to do some listening too. Have a seat, my friend, and join me as we begin this expedition into the heart of human ignominy.