2023 Summer Link Review

One year of reviews! I appreciate the productive feedback and the conversations these have brought me over the last twelve months. The cohesion and fragmentation of societies has been a focus for during this period, so here's a seasonal review in that spirit.

And There Was Light

Jon Meacham

Another Meacham! And There Was Light is another presidential biography, this one perusing the life of one of the most recognized presidents in American history: Abraham Lincoln.

Born in 1809 in Kentucky, Lincoln's early life was unremarkable, and he described it as no more providential than a life anywhere else on the planet. His father struggled to make a stable living for the family and would move them to Indiana after a slew of legal disputes in Kentucky ruled against him and stripped the family of everything. Abe's mother would abruptly pass at the age of 9. Thomas Lincoln's relationship with his son, Abraham, was never any good after this. Abraham hated the laboriousness of farm life, preferring to read. Thomas moved the family again in 1830 to Illinois, and Abraham would part ways soon thereafter. The future president wouldn't attend his funeral in 1851.

The Lincoln family had strong anti-slavery ideals from early on, ideals imbued in a young Abraham. The lanky boy would admire the transient pastors who climbed stumps in the fields, delivering magnificent orations to crowds of abolitionists and locals. Meacham attributes Lincoln's outstanding speech-craft to these early influences.

Young Abraham completed a law degree early on, but he would bounce around occupations while attempting to make progress in his political career. The Indianan would serve in the Army during the conquest of the Midwestern territories, describing it as a war against the mosquitoes more so than the Natives. Leading up to the presidency, his tenures as an elected official were interspersed, short, and unimpressive. However, his speaking and writing garnered him much attention from the nascent Republican party – a party whose leadership he would ascend to despite not holding influential political positions nor having a notable administrative record.

Lincoln's political renown emerged during a time when the abolitionists were beginning to believe that the constitution was flawed. There was a growing movement that slavery could not be snuffed out without reforming the foundation of the nation. He never accepted this premise and vehemently combatted it within the movement's ranks. Lincoln's slavery policy was simple: the abolition of slavery but not the equality of peoples. He did not expect the white America he existed in to view their black countrymen as political, much less social, equals. Yet he was unwavering in his belief that the constitution was rightly interpreted as the man that grows the corn should be free to choose who eats it. It was this adamancy that the union must be preserved and governed by the constitution that would carry him to the presidency and through the most catastrophic war in American history.

The Southerners' lost election was the straw that broke the camel's back. Convinced Lincoln was a Republican extremist ready to force abolition upon them, southern states began seceding before Lincoln had even been inaugurated. Saber rattling began, and many in the United States lost their nerve. Republicans joined the northern Democrats in begging for concessions to be made to avert the dissolution of the union and the impending war. Lincoln was resolute and unconvinced that the South wanted war, a lack of preparedness to which General Sherman commented "the country was sleeping on a volcano". The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, mere months after the inauguration.

This story of Lincoln and the Civil War delves further into the philosophy, resolve, and triumph of the United States through its greatest leader. And There Was Light is an inspirational memoir of duty, morality, and strength of character that any appreciator of American history should know.

Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

I was first made aware of this book by my Sicilian grandmother. She had praised the book dozens of times over the years, and especially the movie. I made a mental note of it, and then I filed that memory next to The Lone Ranger – very deep storage. It wasn't until a few months ago that I listened to an interview where a historian, Niall Ferguson, named two books as being the most important fictions of the 19th century: The Brother's Karamazov by Dostoevsky and The Leopard by Lampedusa.

Lampedusa was the descendant of a Sicilian noble family whose power had decayed during the unification of Italy – the Risorgimento. He writes a story of Sicily in the 1860s from his vantage of the 1950s. His tale is dominated by a dark, ironic humor that is fitting for the history it tells and the author's attitude towards humanity. More subtly, this is the chronicle of a society's death. Its scenes portray the perverse priorities of an apathetic, ineffective, and haughty nobility and a people almost entirely deprived of industriousness, duty, and motivation. Nihilism flows through every page.

The novel begins by following Don Fabrizio, a Sicilian aristocrat, the prince of house Salina, and the fictionalization of Lampedusa's grandfather. He's an intelligent, handsome, and cultured man that lacks in nothing except for the qualities that would improve life for himself, his family, and his country. He is all too aware of his class and his family's decline, yet he lacks the will to take action. The only actions he will take in the book are political maneuvers to ensure his wealth and status.

The attitude and atmosphere of the Leopard possesses eerie parallels to modern societies. These parallels don't exist in neat quotes, but across the pages as you follow the thoughts, actions, and experiences of Don Fabrizio.

But though a shot had killed the rabbit, though the bored rifles of General Cialdini were now dismaying the Bourbon troops at Gaeta, though the midday heat was making men doze off, nothing could stop the ants. Attracted by a few chewed grape-skins spat out by Don Ciccio, along they rushed in close order, morale high at the chance of annexing that bit of garbage soaked with an organist's saliva. Up they came full of confidence, disordered but resolute; groups of three or four would stop now and again for a chat, exalting, perhaps, the ancient glories and future prosperity of ant hill Number Two under cork tree Number Four on the top of Mount Morco ; then once again they would take up their march with the others toward a buoyant future; the gleaming backs of those imperialists seemed to quiver with enthusiasm, while from their ranks no doubt rose the notes of an anthem.

This is among the few quotable moments that illustrates the fundamental conflict of the book. While their king's army is besieged, the Sicilian noblemen are napping and enjoying snacks during a leisurely hunt. While the humans care for little but their own conveniences, the ants celebrate their society's great fortune. They have secured the grape rind spat out by the snackers, food that they return to their hill with pride and optimism. Of the little work Fabrizio partakes in, the work that stands out the most is the mission of protecting his family's lands from the revolution. Ironically, the family's indiscreet spending would hemorrhage their accounts so fast that this work counted for nothing by the end of the century.

To read The Leopard is to glean an understanding of one the ills that can befall societies. Sicily never recovered from this illness, instead remaining poor and bled of its human capital. Ferguson is right in placing Lampedusa's only work amongst the greatest on the 19th century. Those concerned with the health and future of our own society would do well to read Lampedusa's masterpiece.

Introduction to Political Philosophy

Steven B. Smith

It has been a few years since I stopped concerning myself with news and politics. Since then I have drifted towards subjects like history and political philosophy. Steven B. Smith's Yale lectures are a treat to anyone interested in understanding our political system, our culture, and the ideas undergirding them. We often hear about a "culture war" raging in the West, but what exactly the war is over was never made as obvious and clear as is done in these twenty-four videos.

I recommend beginning with the final lecture, In Defense of Politics. Smith makes the case for why politics matters, why it is important for Americans to engage with our public institutions, and the philosophical bases of our society's current condition. Most ideas anyone will ever come up with for what a government should be are in this series. You probably found yourself disposed to one of the two political philosophies contrasted in Smith's conclusion. Consider that the conclusion is only the final thoughts of the course, and that any conclusion shouldn't be understandable without having understood the ideas behind it. With the conclusion in mind, begin with the first lecture, and try to understand how that alternative position emerged.