Gwynn Dyer. War (1985)

 

     Gwynn Dyer. War (1985) Dyer devised, wrote much of, and presented a TV documentary series on war. This book is based on or related to that series, and while it includes much material from it, it is not a print version. Both aim to explain the development of war, and the need to find an alternative or replacement for the present system of independent sovereign nations, each of whom sees no moral limits on pursuing its own interests, and each of whom sees all others as rivals. It’s an impressive work, and although a few things have changed (climate change being now as great a threat to human survival as nuclear war), the central thesis is as valid as ever. We do still run the risk of stumbling into a world-wide nuclear war, the results of which will make the current argy-bargy about climate change utterly irrelevant.
     Dyer’s central point is that war and civilisation were invented at the same time, and that we have to separate the two. Early civilisations, city states, competed for resources, and the invention of war made conquest a quick and relatively cheap way of increasing wealth and expanding territory. For thousands of years, the inefficiency of killing technology meant that war cost the victor relatively little. The victors usually destroyed the enemy as thoroughly as possible, but war itself was profitable. That has now changed. A few so-called conventional weapons, e.g., tanks and fighter bombers, unopposed are capable of destroying a city. We are stumbling towards alternatives to war, but whether we will devise a way of living together on our crowded planet before some fool triggers Armageddon is anyone’s guess. **** (2008)

I reread the book, and wrote this review I wrote in 2010 :
     Dyer, Gwynne War (1982) I've been reading Gwynne Dyer's book about war. He wrote it in 1982, basing it on a television series on war that he made for the CBC and PBS. It's a gloomy and depressing subject, but anyone who wants to understand how the world works has to take account of war.
     Dyer’s thesis is that civilisation and war were born of the same agricultural revolution that led to the invention of cities, to an increasing human population, and the accelerating developments of technology and science that have made war a suicidal institution in our own day. Significantly, all the ancient references to cities take it for granted that they are walled and gated: cities were invented to protect people from robbery and murder, and war was initially merely highly organised crime, and as such was profitable. Nations and states (ie, their rulers) that went to war got what they wanted politically and economically at a price they could afford to pay. That is no longer the case. The next world war will cost the destruction of our civilisation. The smaller local wars of our day end in stalemate, in which the losing side often turns to brutal terror instead of giving up its political ambitions.
     Dyer wrote at a time when nuclear war between the great powers was a real possibility, either in direct confrontation, or triggered by a minor war between their client states. The probability of a world-wide nuclear war is both lower and higher than it was then. Lower in the short term, because the major powers do not want to destroy themselves; higher in the long term because global warming could well trigger wars of survival, in which people could see the destruction of rivals as the only way to ensure a passable standard of living for themselves. The only environmental concern Dyer discusses is nuclear winter, which would certainly result from a nuclear war, for even a minor, localised one would entail the explosion of several dozen weapons, each several times the power of the ones that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether that would reverse global warming is another question, but there wouldn’t be many people left to observe the answer or contemplate it, and they would have other things on their minds than arguing a moot controversy..
     Dyer’s conclusion, that war must be replaced by something else, is slowly entering people’s consciousness. Despite the Conservatives’ exploitation of the jingoistic “support for our troops” in Afghanistan by the more paranoid, most Canadians (and Americans) realise that some rule-based protocols for conflict resolution must be found. The core dispute is about who will make and enforce the rules: no one wants to surrender their “national sovereignty”, but it will have to happen. The rise of the international criminal court at the Hague is a promising start. Even though none of the major powers are willing to accept its jurisdiction over themselves, they are quite happy to use it as an alternative to war to keep the lesser tyrants in line. There is also a much greater willingness for groups of nations to intervene within a country, if its ruler displays ambitions to widen his tyranny over neighbouring states, or threatens the making of profits.
     But war is still the primary means for forcing political change. Or rather, attempting to force political change. As the US failure in Iraq, the NATO failure in Afghanistan, and the failed (and ever more brutal) rebellions in central and southwest Africa show, war is less profitable than ever. Except of course for the armourers. ****

This snippet was written before the above:
     I've been reading Gwynne Dyer's book about war. He wrote it in 1982 when he made a television series on war. It's a gloomy and depressing subject, but anyone who wants to understand how the world works has to take account of war. The reasons for war vary from the laughable to the serious, the results range from no change to the status quo to the destruction of whole nations. Recorded history is about 6,000 to 7,000 years old, and over that time span the one constant has been war. The earliest records make it clear that war is older than writing, and as far as we can tell began around the time that humans invented agriculture and herding. These two inventions gave humans some control over their food supply, enabling the growth of human populations, and providing time and resources for arts and crafts. But the increased wealth came at a price. It required control over the people that tilled the land or watched the herds, and it made land itself valuable. If someone took your land, you would starve. The result was the invention of war. War is organised killing of other groups of people in order to take from them what they will not give by way of trade.
In short, in order to make agriculture efficient, we invented the state; and in order to protect ourselves from other states, we invented war. We call this state of affairs civilisation. (2010)

 

P. G. Wodehouse. The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)

     P. G. Wodehouse. The Luck of the Bodkins (1935) Wodehouse works better in short bites; at novel length you see the creakiness of his plots, especially since he repeats them over and over again. Monty Bodkins wins and loses Gertrude Butterwick many times on a trans-Atlantic voyage, while friends and others suffer variations on this theme. A Hollywood film mogul has been ordered to smuggle his wife’s pearl necklace through customs, and his misapprehension about who may be who mixes things up some more. He’s also Wodehouse’s opportunity to satirise film moguls. The steward is a variation on Jeeves, without the latter’s wit and intelligence. And so on. A pleasant enough read, when imbibed in small doses. ** (2008)

Amanda Cross. Sweet Death, Kind Death (1984)

     

Amanda Cross. Sweet Death, Kind Death (1984) Another in Cross’s series about Kate Fansler, a well-married professor of English Literature at an unnamed New York university. This time Kate must discover whether the apparent suicide of Patrice Umphelby, a prominent history professor, was in fact a murder; which it was. The setting is Clare College, a small New England women’s college, so questions of women’s place, autonomy, scholarship, freedom and so on are central, as is the issue of “gender studies”; Kate’s cover will be membership on a “task force” struck to decide whether Clare should offer women’s studies courses. The impetus for investigation comes from a couple of charming young men who’ve been selected to write Patrice’s biography.
     The plot, such as it is, is rather thin. Academic rivalry motivates the murder, and progress to the solution is more of a ramble than a search. What makes these books a pleasure to read is the level of conversation. It’s intelligent, witty, allusive, discursive, and as often as not about matters only peripherally connected to the case, such as marriage, mother-daughter relationships, love, the writing of books, the effects of aging, and so on. The epigraphs add to these pleasures.
     The characters are too good to be true; the discreet references to Kate’s marriage to Reed, her lawyer husband; suggest a relationship satisfying in every way. Every character, even the bit player who helps Kate dig up some evidence in the dead of night, is intelligent and perspicacious, though not always as self-aware as they should be. But these paragons only increase the pleasures of reading.
      One effect on me: I read some Virginia Woolf many years ago, and thought her too fey, neurasthenic, and self-centred by half. Reading the passages Cross chose for epigraphs, and the conversations about Woolf, makes me think I misestimated her. It’s not often a book makes me want to read something else entirely. For this too, I’m grateful to Cross. ***

Jack Kapica. Shocked and Appalled (1985)

     Jack Kapica. Shocked and Appalled (1985) “A Century of Letters to The Globe and Mail”, and a fun collection it is. Kapica adds the occasional biographical note, but makes no editorial comments. We are left to form our own impression of the Globe’s readership and its worries and opinions.
     Canadians early on chafed at being colonials, but the British connection remained strong well into the second half of the 20th century. Veiled and not so veiled religious and racial intolerance shows up here and there. But what impressed me most was that the letter writers often wrote more in a spirit of fun and wit. Pedantry was a game, as was politics. It’s unclear how many of the writers on scientific topics knew they misunderstood the theories of their time; I prefer to think that most of them deliberately pretended to  confusion and ignorance for the sake of humour and satire. Or maybe it’s Kapica’s taste that creates the impression of generally friendly and genial, but occasionally caustic, and always well-read readers delighting in sharing good conversation via the Editor’s pages.
     I could have marked many passages, but I’ll quote just one: J. E H. MacDonald, responding to an unkind (and apparently obtuse) criticism of his The Tangled Garden quotes Goethe: a genuine work of art usually displeases at first sight, because it suggests a deficiency in the spectator. See an image of the painting here. ***

James Burke. The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

     James Burke. The Day the Universe Changed (1985) A companion book to the BBC/PBS series of Burke’s favourite style of documentary, one that ferrets out and demonstrates how apparently unrelated events changed everything. This one is more linear, showing how human beings have thought about and imagined the way the world works. It’s a history of ideas, and as such a pretty good introduction and overview.
     Burke shows for example how our theories of the universe, of astronomy, biology, matter and energy, changed over time, and which discoveries and inventions prompted the changes. The Greek notions of astronomy were supplanted and emended by theories based on interpretations of the Bible, and when these in turn were challenged by new discoveries, what we now think of as the inevitable conflict between science and religion began. It took a while for people to realise that Kepler’s heliocentric model and Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter challenged the more simplistic readings of biblical references to the heavens. But that’s what happens when an institution claims authority over every aspect of a person’s life. The smallest demonstration of autonomous thinking becomes a rebellion.
     In his last chapter Burke takes up this theme and expands it. He argues that in every age, ideas about the world and our place in it more or less adequately explained what facts were known. Further than that, he shows that what is accepted as fact, and therefore to be explained, changes as our theories change. (Sidebar: “Theory” derives from the same Greek root as “theatre”. It’s the way we look at the world. "Idea" is the Latin version of the same root.) But we resist changing our theories. A phenomenon that doesn’t fit is often ignored or denied. For example, educated opinion refused to accept meteorites until the newly improved methods of observing the sky demonstrated their reality; and then the first attempts at explanation classified them with atmospheric phenomena, hence their name.
      In short, our theories change because new methods and instruments of observation add to the store of facts and force a rearrangement, a reclassification, of what we believe constitutes the world. Our theories always explain what we happen to think is real, and therefore they are always limited. This stance may seem paradoxical, for of course what we are pleased to call scientifically established fact is merely another stage in the ongoing changes of our thinking. But it is in fact the most scientific stance of all. It takes for granted that what we think we know, and what we believe are adequate explanations of what we think we know, will continue to change, for every new discovery or idea will change what we think we know, and so entail changes in our explanations.
     A good book, nicely illustrated, but marred by far too many typos. It is an early example of computer typesetting, and people back then hadn’t yet realised that spell checkers did not make proof-reading obsolete. An example of how long it takes for people to adapt to new technologies, new ideas, new options. ***

Proofread and edited 2023-04-22

David Remnick & Henry Finder, eds. Fierce Pajamas (2001)

     David Remnick & Henry Finder, eds. Fierce Pajamas (2001) As the subtitle describes it, this is an anthology of humour writing from The New Yorker ca 1929 to 2000. The net effect is oddly banal: so much of what may have seemed funny at the time has since become merely commonplace experience. Most of the pieces are satirical: humour is laughing with not at, and The New Yorker laughs with those who are laughing at those who lack the sophistication to be one of those that laugh at them. It occurs to me that satire is a species of science fiction, not only because so much science fiction is a form of satire, but because what annoys the satirist is almost always a development that he thinks has gone far enough. So he attacks it before it goes too far, attempting to stem the flow of history if not to reverse it. But things always go further than the satirist imagines. We can imagine how far things could go, but underestimate how far people will actually take them.
     Like all anthologies, this one exhibits the inevitable mismatch between the compilers’ and the readers’ tastes. Not that it matters: this mismatch encourages the reader to try another piece, in the hope (occasionally met) that the next piece will satisfy. **½ (2008)

Earl W. Buxton et. al. Points of View (1967)

     Earl W. Buxton et. al. Points of View (1967) A survey collection of essays for use in senior high school or junior college English courses. The selection ranges widely in time and theme, providing samples of the writing of acknowledged past masters of the form, as well as mid-20th century contemporaries, about half of whom are still relevant 50 years later. The standard is high, the biographical notes and critical hints compact but adequate. The editors’ introduction expresses high expectations of both teacher and student, assuming not only close reading, but active and personal engagement in the topics and themes. I’ve read most of these at one time or another, a few of them over the past few days. Good reading, despite the didactic purpose of the book, but it will go into the discard pile nevertheless. We can’t keep everything. *** (2008)