★★★★☆ What's important is what works for the large population, rather than only clinging to an idea. And the collective power can bring a bright future.
🔽 log 🔽 On Anarchism Noam Chomsky, 2013 128 pages Read in 2020.07
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
To think it was published in Obama era, that was actually a good old time, even though people did have different political ideas.
With Trump it's way beyond just a difference in political ideology, what he promotes is selfishness. (*I read it in his first administration)
Chomsky believes in the ideology but he is also a practical man, what's important is what works for the large population, rather than only clinging to an idea.
And the collective power can bring a bright future.
It is a difficult book to read for someone who never really studied about the various political thoughts.
Had to skip good chunk of Spanish civil war bits simply because I had zero knowledge!
★★★★★ Power is systematic. We live in a society that's governed by selfish people. But, we have democracy, it's a system that's made by us, for us and we can and should use it effectively.
🔽 log 🔽 Power Systems Conversations with David Barsamian on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire Empire. Noam Chomsky, 2013 178 pages Read 2024.4
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 A collection of conversations from 2010 to 2012. So some things are old, like the use of the Internet has changed completely, the US president has changed twice since, but fundamentally not much changed, we're stil living in the same era.
It's a lot about American politics that I wouldn't pretend to understand but his position is constant. He is empathetic to the others. He is very much against anything and anyone selfish, and the fact is we are ruled by these selfish groups of people.
He still spoke of hope, that a government is owned by the people and we should recognise it and use it.
But 10 years on, did things get better? No. What we can do, or what we can hope for, is even more limited.
★★★★☆ Classic of the classics. I knew more or less the content but was surprised how short it was. It's short, with clear messages, but have we learned? No.
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 The classic. It's more or less as I expected but much shorter.
With a very clear and obvious message, it would be easy for even younger readers to understand. This edition had a lot of explanations like a textbook, which compares the characters with the historical figures.
Do we learn? No, we don't, we keep making the same mistakes.
★★★★☆ "We must prevent this brain from working for twenty years" but even after arrested by Fascist government, he didn't stop writing. A book about his life, from poverty in Sardinia, student life in Turin, exile in Russia, prison and death.
🔽 log 🔽 Gramsci's Political Thoughts Carlos Nelson Coutinho, 2012 198 pages Read in 2024.04
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽 It follows his life from when he was a child, lost father early, poor, physical disability, scholarship to Turin, involvement in politics, forms Communist party, arrest, life in prison, non stop writing even in the prison, even with malnutrition and torture. His insistence on the power of workers.
Difficult read as I had little background to Gramsci, and naturally, it keeps referring to his Prison Notebooks, and of course no true knowledge in Marxism. He’s a back-to-basic Marxist.
“We must prevent this brain from working for twenty years” “Domination without leadership. Dictatorship without hegemony”
★★★★☆ A controversial novel where the government and leaders in France become more and more Islam, to cling to their careers. It’s not so impossible. Today Europe is tired of the emptiness that they want to bow to something big. Fascism or Islam?
🔽 log 🔽 Submission Michel Houellebecq, 2015 Soumission Read 2024.8
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
A controversial novel where the government and leaders in France become more and more Islam, to cling to their careers. It's not so impossible.
Today Europe is tired. Now moving away from Christianity and Individualism, freedom, and social justice, what they want is a big religion, a bigger than life idea to bow to, where you can ignore women's right and live only thinking about themselves. Even if that means they submit to Islam. After all which is better, certainly not Fascism. Very provocative, but not so impossible.
I must add that it makes you sick while reading this that it simplifies a religion that is complex and has deep history, whether you are a Muslim or not. And it's totally understandable that it made Muslim people angry, it's provocative yes, but a bit sick.
★★★★★ What does it mean to have black skin and live as if you were a white? Or better, live wanting to be white, eternally? Today the racism is regarded with contempt. But are we free?
🔽 log 🔽 Black skin white masks Frantz Fanon, 1952 Peau noire, masques blancs 224 pages Read in 2020.05
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
The classic on postcolonial psychology. What does it mean to have black skin and live as if you were a white? Or better, live wanting to be white, eternally?
Fanon is a psychiatrist, he deals with unconscious, that is, a suppressed desire, that is, sexual desire /fear. A black person becomes black only when he encounters the white world and the white world equals the colonisation. The black will always have to live in denial or at best reactionary. And the white will always have to live in fear of the image they collectively created - primitive black, who is always more sexually potent. Because any phobia is actually an anxious fear, he suggests that a racist person has, deep inside, a desire to be invaded.
Another interesting point was that he talks of French only, for the slaves did not win their freedom through struggles with their blood, it was given by the kind white masters.
To a certain extent it can be said to people of other ethnicity, that as long as we live in the West we are conscious of the colour of skin, and the white remains the absolute superiority. But, Japan was not colonised by the white. The colour of our skin doesn't immediately remind them of sin.
The colour black constantly appears in the white culture as evil, and it's thus collectively imagined as evil.
He concludes saying that he would refuse to be colonised by the colonisation, and the black must be free from the inferior complex and the white from the superior complex, it must be both ways.
It was written over 70 years ago. Today the inter-racial communications and relationships have become normal, and the racism is regarded with contempt. But are we free? Fanon was fully aware, that his intellectual discoveries will not make the life of 8 year old boy in cane field any easier. For there are issues in different levels, those of middle class living in the West, and those who are facing the very survival.
It's complex, we might not find a way to truly free ourselves. But we should not look down, keep questioning, and reading this book is a path.
★★★★★ A Palestinian academic in the US, prof. Said. Many admire and are inspired by his passionate humanism. The second half is about political conversations. Two state solution. Geography rather than history or myth. So we should and can coexist.
🔽 log 🔽 Power, Politics and Culture Interviews with Edward W. Said, 2001 US 512 pages Read 2024.11
🔽 Book review and notes 🔽
Collection of interviews with 2 sections, first focuses on arts and culture, about literature, music or arts, then the second is more political.
I must be honest, the first part was difficult as I have little knowledge in the field, but the second part is something very, very real to us, who doesn't see what's going on in Gaza? "They can't possibly eliminate us all" - what he and many thought impossible is happening today. Genocide of Palestinians was out of question for anyone with common sense, yet, it's happening.
He calls himself an incurable optimist. Some consider him an enemy or a terrorist. Many admire and are inspired by his passionate humanism.
He was not an advocate for Islam, and was not rejecting the right of Jews. What is clear and consistent is that he was interested in coexistence of contradictories, he detested the idea of "pure" he dismissed the myth and focused on the lives of people now. Geography rather than history or myth. Two state solution. He knows that people are more complicated than we seem, exactly as he argues in Orientalism where the Other is depicted in a simplified way, that is simply not true. No, we are human, we live, we are complicated, and we must try.
The curse of the powerful U.S. is that it hates to admit the mistakes and misunderstanding of the past. Rather than admitting their error they keep on depicting Arab as terrorist, probably as long as they physically can, because, as we all know, it brings a lot of money to a few in the US.
It's been more than 20 years since his death, since we lost the lighthouse of compassion and common sense. He said, "Israel can't keep on kicking us, they have to admit we exist, not like they can kill off all Palestinians", well, the unimaginable is happening in front of our eyes. Can't we hear the voices of calm and humane intellectuals any more? Of common sense?
Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire (American Empire Project)
赤パンの本棚 