Which Army Is Supposed to Have the Bad Guys?

 

In recent posts, I have talked about the Karate Kid series and how narratives can subtly set up good guys and bad guys. Fictional narratives are all the more effective at making people prejudiced because there is no arguing people out of it as there never was an argument in the first place. All that we have is a work of fiction. I think it worthwhile, therefore to point out how Karate Kid uses this technique against the United States military. 

It is not a major plot point and it is certainly easy to miss if you are not paying close attention but the villain John Kreese is a Vietnam War veteran. It is alluded to in the first film and provides the connection to his corrupt businessman buddy from the third film. In the TV series, we get some flashbacks to Vietnam. This would not be a big deal in of itself. Villains, like everyone else, need to come from somewhere and have some kind of backstory. 

I am hardly going to claim that all people in the American military are good or that all of America's wars have been just. That being said, Mr. Miyagi's backstory is that he was in the Imperial Japanese army during World War II. He even puts on his Japanese uniform. It is a funny scene with Miyagi getting drunk and it adds a lot to his character, indicating that, underneath his quirky personality, lies a tragedy. 

Clearly, not every Japanese soldier during World War II was a mass murderer. We have no reason to assume that Miyagi was anything other than a young man serving his country honorably and doing his duty. That being said, the Japanese army did commit war crimes almost on par with that of the Nazis. There is no way that the film could have gotten away with making Miyagi a veteran of the Wehrmacht. You could make all the personal apologies for the young German Miyagi you want but audiences would still have lost their sympathy for him. 

Obviously, no one involved in making the series is actually claiming something so absurd as Japan fighting World War II, which included invading Vietnam, was less immoral than the United States in Vietnam. That being said, a seed is planted in the audience. It is all the more powerful because no argument is being made. Keep up a steady diet of this poisonous claim from other films, combined with the failure to actually teach history, and you can produce a society of people who cannot imagine atrocities committed by anyone other than Americans or at least white Europeans. Did the Japanese army murder millions of people? No, Japanese soldiers were cute karate people like Miyagi. The United States army, by contrast, sent a bunch of Kreeses to Vietnam to oppress civilians.    

Toward a Meaningful Neo-Liberalism: A Historical Narrative

As a general rule of intellectual honesty, one should try to describe one’s opponents using their language as opposed to using loaded straw man language. This is an extension of the Ideological Turing Test. Can you describe a viewpoint you oppose without it being obvious you oppose it? For this reason, it is, in practice, counter-productive to call people racist or anti-Semitic unless they already embrace those labels for themselves. An extreme example of this problem with labeling is the term “neoliberalism.” While you can fill a library with books on neoliberalism, I know of no neoliberal thinker, someone who self-consciously embraces the label for themselves instead of using it as an epithet against others. Contrast neoliberal with neoconservative. Neoconservatism may have taken a hit with the failure of the Iraq War (which is part of the reason why I abandoned the system) but there still remain proud neoconservatives.

One of the reasons, one needs to stick to what people openly proclaim about themselves is that, without that grounding, it is all too easy to fall prey to conspiracy theories that say more about you than your opponent. Nancy Maclean is the perfect example of this. Her search for a secret agenda makes her incapable of engaging with the thought of the late James Buchanan specifically or of Public Choice in general. Instead, she falls prey to conspiratorial thinking that sounds delusional to anyone not already convinced of the existence of a Koch Brothers plot to take over the world.

This is not a unique problem for people on the left. Consider the state of conservative discourse on Marxism. In the case of Marxism, we are dealing with a concept that continues to attract open self-proclaimed, followers. Furthermore, Marxism, by its very nature, is a conspiracy. More so than any other political ideology, Marxism is not simply a set of beliefs but a methodology for seizing power. Furthermore, Marxists pursue the dishonest strategy of framing their position in terms of their noble intentions as opposed to what they may have to do to bring about those ends. Despite all this being true, it is usually counter-productive to accuse people of being part of a Marxist conspiracy. (For one thing, not all Marxists are conspirators; many are not even political.) Such anti-Marxist thinking will usually backfire on the accusor, trapping them in paranoid delusions. Personally, I think Jordan Peterson is great until he starts talking about Cultural Marxism and equating it with post-modernism. The moment he does this, he stops engaging living people but his own fears. He should stick to Jungian literary analysis and preaching personal responsibility.

I would like to suggest a means to rescue neoliberalism from being a generic conspiratorial term of abuse for those not sufficiently on the hard left. We can use neoliberalism to refer to the political consensus that arose in the 1970s in England and the United States that combined a pro-business skepticism in regard to heavy welfare spending with a warfare mentality abroad and at home.  Underlying this was a cultural Christianity even as the shifts in society made openly theocratic politics implausible.

The key thinker here was William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review, who fashioned late 20th-century conservatism as an alliance between social conservatives, neoconservatives, and limited government free marketers. Getting such different groups to cooperate was possible because all three groups had a perceived common enemy in the 1960s liberal, who wished to use an expansive state to overthrow traditional values and undermine the United States military in order to allow the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. It was this brand of conservativism that defeated the post-war liberal consensus and fashioned a neoliberal consensus in its place.

The United States and England, after the Great Depression and World War II, were dominated by a "New Deal" consensus in which it was assumed the government would take on a greatly expanded role in running the economy and offer a wider range of welfare programs. In England, national healthcare was seen as a reward to the English people for the sacrifices they underwent fighting Nazism. Even if Churchill had been able to stave off the 1945 Labor landslide, there was no way that conservatives could have resisted the popular tide to offer a major state-sponsored safety net.

This did not mean that voters in either country rejected right-wing parties. One of the marks of a political consensus is its ability to draw in even the opposition to the point where, even as they criticize particular points of policy, they accept the fundamental premises behind those policies. This serves the ironic purpose of establishing the consensus as it makes it almost impossible to think outside of it. The Republicans in the United States under Dwight Eisenhower did very well for themselves. That being said, Eisenhower helped entrench the New Deal, perhaps with a more corporate spin. In England, Conservative prime ministers like Harold Macmillan or Ted Heath could succeed by being innocuous managers of the ship of state. Neither of them were ideologues with a vision to counter that of the Labor Party. As such, whether Labor won or lost, it was still Labor's agenda that was going to dominate; the only question conservatives were left with was to what extent specific Labor policies would be implemented.

This post-war consensus in the United States and England was made possible by strong working-class support. This collapsed in the late 1960s and 70s. In the United States, we see white disillusionment with the Civil Rights movement. The parallel for England, perhaps, was the end of the British Empire, which had the ironic result of England bringing the empire home with its liberal immigration policy for those from the former imperial holdings. This undermined a sense of common ethnic identity so important for consensus building. Both the United States and England faced the problem of transitioning to a post-industrial economy. As long as both countries benefited from the post-war economic boom and the optimistic belief that things were improving it was possible to paper over the differences in society, making compromise possible. A growing tax base would be able to pay for an expanding list of programs either in the present or at least in the near future. Without the economic boom and the optimism that it usually generates, such compromise became impossible as politics was reduced to a collection of tribes fighting over the remnants of a shrinking pie, each side trying to grab their piece before it was all gone.

Into this gap left by the failed post-war consensus came neoliberalism as represented by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Unlike their Conservative and Republican predecessors, they actually had an ideology. Limiting government spending in the name of free markets served a practical purpose under the economic challenges of the 1970s. It also helped frame neoliberal policies as advancing the cause of freedom through limiting government. It is important to realize that neoliberalism was a product of a wider liberal consensus and, unlike traditional conservatism, was not about to take any kind of principled stand in favor of hierarchy.

Much as neoliberalism was not a defense of any kind of crown, it also rejected the altar of religious authority. As Victorian morality was an attempt to find a justification for religion in a world with Darwinian Evolution and Biblical Criticism, Neoliberalism was a product of the secularization of the public sphere and an acceptance of that reality. Neoliberalism still wished to fight a rearguard action to save religion as a cultural force. Beyond that, religion served to cement the 1960s liberal as the enemy trying to shove secularism down the throats of common folk. Abortion is a good example of this. Making abortion illegal was never a practical goal. Roe vs. Wade was the product of a growing wave to legalize abortion (ironically enough, helped along by then Gov. Reagan of California) even as the Supreme Court's decision counter-productively short-circuited the national conversation. The Court's ham-handed approach gifted neoliberals by allowing them to campaign less against abortion itself than against Roe. The real story of Roe became liberals trying to force their values on the rest of society as opposed to a woman's right to choose.   

From the earlier liberal post-war consensus and ultimately the Wilsonian tradition, neoliberalism inherited an activist foreign policy in the name of advancing democracy. Thatcher famously fought the Falklands War in 1982 to hold on to one of the last vestiges of the British Empire even as it served little purpose beyond taking a final stand in the name of the Empire. What was different now was that this foreign policy was meant to be pursued in defiance of the hard left who rejected the Western tradition, seeing it as the source of imperialism and racism. Neoliberalism was meant as a war to be fought at home as well as abroad. One manifestation of this was the War on Drugs, which served to establish active drug users (in practice those on the left) as the enemy and gave the police the tools to wage actual war against this enemy.

Up until now, my description of neoliberalism has simply been late 20th-century Anglo-American conservatism. Here is the twist; just as the post-war consensus did not keep conservative parties out of office as long as they were willing to play the moderate pragmatists to the dominant liberal ideology, neoliberalism offered a temptation to liberals to gain electoral victory as the moderate pragmatists, cementing neoliberalism as the reigning ideology. From this perspective, a critical part of neoliberalism was the rise of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. They were not a rejection of neoliberalism but the epitome of its power.

Both of these politicians criticized Reagan and Thatcher but from within a certain consensus. So conservatives were to be criticized for running up deficits to support tax cuts for the wealthy. Gone was the romantic notion of a welfare state that could transform society. In its place was an accountant's pragmaticism of getting the maximal utility for the taxpayer's money. Clinton was willing to fight for abortion but he did so from within a consensus that still paid religion cultural deference. Most infamously, he signed the Defence of Marriage Act. Clinton's foreign policy was a continuation of a neoliberal desire to see the United States as the global defender of freedom now being practiced without the Soviet Union as an excuse. Bush's Iraq Invasion in search of weapons of mass destruction was simply an extension of Clinton's use of the American military in a post-9/11 world. It was Blair who was Bush's most important ally in invading Iraq.

Just as the post-war consensus benefited from the post-war economic boom, which granted legitimacy to the dominant government policies, neoliberalism benefited from the computer and internet revolutions of the 1990s. How does one argue with policies that seem to work and seem to be creating a rising tide that should raise all boats? Just as the economic stagnation of the 1970s made the post-war consensus appear suddenly vulnerable, the economic crisis of 2008 made neoliberalism suddenly appear as the emperor with no clothes. The political fallout was slow in coming as the political class remained under its spell long after the general public. Barack Obama came from the same mold of pragmatic neoliberalism as the Clintons. Thus, he framed his policies in anti-Republican terms, ignoring the wider neo-liberal framework.

Donald Trump brought down Republican neoliberalism by demonstrating it lacked a real basis of ideological support. Similarly, David Cameron was brought down by Brexit, which demonstrated that his own Conservative Party base did not support the relatively free-trade and open-border policies of the European Union. Once neoliberalism fell as an ideology within conservative circles, there was no longer a reason for liberals to play pragmatic lip service to neoliberalism either. Hence the rise of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in England.

In the wake of the fall of neoliberalism, Anglo-American politics seems to be turning into a conflict between nationalists and democratic socialists. What the new dominant consensus will be remains to be seen. I suspect that it will be some version of a blatantly extractive state that attempts to bribe its voters with the right and the left simply disagreeing on who should be expropriated and for whose benefit.

From this proposed definition of neoliberalism and this history offered a few things should be clear. I discuss neoliberalism within an Anglo-American context, though I confess that I might be stretching things even to include England. How much more problematic to include other countries. I readily grant that one could draw parallels between Anglo-American neoliberalism and policies in other countries. Those who are more knowledgeable than I am regarding non-Anglo-American politics should feel free to make those comparisons as long as they show proper caution. The more you stretch a term, the greater the risk of either distorting the reality on the ground or rendering the word meaningless. One thinks of the problem of talking about "feudal" Japan. Yes, there are certain parallels to Europe but it is risky to push those comparisons too far. Similarly, I do not think it is productive to call authoritarian figures like Augusto Pinochet of Chile or Deng Xiaoping of China neoliberals. Doing so risks distorting the differences between these countries and descending into conspiratorial thinking where Anglo-American neoliberals not only become people plotting to violently undermine democratic norms but also have Elders of Zion capabilities to rule the world.

Even within Anglo-American politics, notice the number of people who should be placed outside of neoliberalism. While Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek were influential figures in the rise of neoliberalism, one should not make a direct link between neoliberalism and libertarianism. Here, the War on Drugs is important. Nor should one equate neoliberalism with neo-confederates or white nationalism. On the contrary, neoliberalism grew out of a world in which open white nationalism was no longer politically viable and its fall has opened that door once again.

Because I have limited the scope of neoliberalism in time and place it appears much less all-powerful and sinister. Neoliberalism was a political ideology espoused by specific people in a specific time and place with a variety of policy positions some of which may or may not appeal to readers. My teenage self was more supportive of this kind of neoliberalism than I am now. That being said, the fact that whatever is going to replace neoliberalism is likely to be worse, I do confess to being nostalgic for neoliberalism. 

Where Do We Go From Here? Let Us Make Government Equal Violence Again

Libertarians are a small minority in this country, without much particular influence. For all the complaints about the Koch brothers, we do not control academia. Our influence over Hollywood is so non-existent that we cannot even get a decent Atlas Shrugged filmed made. Assuming that this status quo is unlikely to change in our lifetime, our only chance of having some limited say over public policy is through an alliance with either liberals or conservatives (At this point, I am uncertain which is a better option so all can I do is urge libertarians to be charitable to whatever path other libertarians pursue, recognizing that there really are no good options.) Regardless of whether libertarians should be on the left or the right, I would hope that what unites us and what we should never lose track of is the desire to make it clear that government is a literal act of violence.

As we approach the one-hundredth anniversary of the Versailles Treaty, it is useful to note that the end of World War I marked a critical turning point in a moral revolution almost as important as the Enlightenment's turn to equality as a moral principle. World War I was made possible because people, as it was the norm throughout history, looked to war as something noble. Millions of men marched to war in 1914 on the logic that the worst that could happen was that they would die and be remembered as heroes. Most likely, the war would be over by Christmas and they would be able to go home to show off a minor injury that would mark them forever as "real men." It is important to keep in mind that women were fully culpable in pushing this logic on men by shaming them into fighting. Such a state of affairs was not something unique to 1914. It goes all the way back to at least the Iliad.

Perhaps, the finest summation of such war apologetics can be found in Shakespeare's Henry V.




Critical for understanding the play is the fact that Shakespeare does not ask us to care about medieval dynastic politics. It is irrelevant whether Henry V has a legitimate claim to the throne of France. There is no pretense that fighting for Henry will make the world safe for hereditary monarchy through the female line (the official issue at stake in the Hundred Years War). What Henry offers his men is the opportunity to be part of his "band of brothers," to be remembered as such heroes that someone would write a play about them nearly two centuries later. (This is a good example of the "post-modern" side to Shakespeare where he regularly gives his characters a certain awareness that they are actors in a play.)

This view of war as an opportunity to win personal glory died in the mud of the Western Trenches. World War II could still be fought for the ideologies of Fascism, Communism, and Democracy, but no more could intellectually series people think of war as a principled good in itself. What is critical to understand here is not that 20th-century man abandoned war nor is it likely that peace will come to the world in the 21st century (even as we continue to enjoy the long peace of no war between major powers since World War II). What can no longer be seriously contemplated, even as superhero action movies remain popular, is any discussion of war that omits the obvious fact that war involves murder and the fact that it might be carried out by men in uniform following orders from their superiors does nothing to change that. Wars may continue to be fought as inescapable tragedies, but there is no escaping their morally problematic nature.

In practice, this means that in debating war, opponents of war start with the moral high ground. For example, with the Iraq War, the Bush administration could not even simply argue that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and that the United States was legally justified in removing him, let alone that they were offering young Americans the opportunity to take part in a "glorious" adventure. They needed to argue that Saddam presented a clear and present danger to the world through his possession of weapons of mass destruction. The fact that these accusations turned out to be false fatally compromised the moral position of the United States in occupying Iraq.

The success of anti-war movements in making war morally problematic offers us a model for what libertarians might achieve in the 21st century. Even if we cannot stop the expansion of government let alone eliminate it, we can still make government morally problematic.

My model for this is the Road to Serfdom, in which Friedrich Hayek directly connected the romanticization of war as the county coming together for a single cause to the argument for continuing that same military logic in peacetime with a government-run economy. It stands to the credit of Hayek that conservatives developed a guilty conscious regarding government (distinct from actually cutting government spending). This was a valid justification for allying with conservatives in the past and it may continue to be so in the future. Clearly, this is not the case with the wider society. On the contrary, when people, particularly on the left, talk about government, there is a tendency to see it in terms of "everyone coming together for the common good." By contrast, markets are seen as manifestations of greed. This gives government action the moral high ground.

We can criticize government policies and we will win some major victories. Hardcore Marxism went down with the Cold War. Even the Chinese Communist Party accepts market control over much of the economy. Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders are not revolutionaries trying to nationalize everything. On the contrary, they largely accept the current status quo. That being said, such victories often seem hallow as we cannot escape the sense that our opponents are simply rearming, waiting for their chance to make their next big push. The reason for this is that the horrors of Communism did not discredit government in the same sense that the horrors of Nazism discredited racism. (Try claiming to be a "Democratic Nazi.") From this perspective, Communism stands as a "noble" experiment, its failures a lesson for future attempts to bring about the brotherhood of man. By contrast, those who oppose Communism on principle, stand convicted of being so selfish as to oppose human brotherhood.

My modest goal for libertarianism is to simply make it impossible, within mainstream society, to talk about government programs without acknowledging that violence is being advocated. Today, we can take it for granted that defenders of the military are not going to be able to ignore the fact that war inevitably leads to atrocities while denouncing their opponents as cowards who hate their country. Similarly, we can push the debate to a point in which defenders of government programs are not able to simply portray themselves as humanitarians and their opponents as greedy corporate shills. On the contrary, it is we who oppose government who are the true humanitarians. We are the ones who do not wish to use violence.

You wish to have public education and universal health care? Fine, just as long as you are willing to admit that you believe that it is right and laudable to murder children if that is the only way to get people to pay for these programs. We libertarians may still lose the debate if we cannot offer a better alternative, but if we lose we will still be able to hold our heads up high and claim the moral high ground as the humanitarians who dared to dream of a world without violence. If we can do that, who knows, maybe the next generation will be able to come up with a plan that really does make government services unnecessary. 

Keeping Away from the Bible: How Not to Defend Israel

Elliot Resnick is the editor of the Jewish Press (the Jewish Depressed, as I used to refer to it when discussing it with my grandfather of blessed memory). We both attended the Chabad yeshiva in Pittsburgh. Here, on the Tom Woods Show, he debates Gene Epstein over the question of Israel with Resnick taking the pro-Israel position. As someone who considers himself to be pro-Israel and an observant Jew, I think Resnick absolutely blew this debate. He lost me in the first few minutes when he decided to lead by arguing from the Bible. And this is on a libertarian show. If there is a context in which religion is going to be less relevant even among people who are serious about religion, I am hard-pressed to think of one.

There are good reasons to actively avoid even bringing up the Bible when defending Israel as it implies that there are no good secular liberal and even libertarian arguments to be made. This allows opponents of Israel to accuse us of "Israeling their juice."





In truth, even from a biblical perspective, one is on weak ground to make any political argument that Jews have a right to the land. A critical part of the larger biblical narrative is that the same God, who gave us the land and allowed us to slaughter the Canaanites also kicked us out of the land. The very circumstances under which allowed the Israelites to enter the land in the first place ultimately led to our own exile when we failed to live up to God's demands. Furthermore, we have the example of Abraham, who bought the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron from Ephron. If God's direct promise to Abraham did not get him out of having to pay money to the inhabitants, how much more so do we not have the right to take anything from non-Jews living currently living in Israel at gunpoint.

In general, it is important to keep in mind when reading the Old Testament that it is a running dialogue between ethno-supremacy and its subversion. Israel is both the honored chosen people of God and the cursed people who violated his commandments. God is both the tribal god of Israel and the God of the entire world who loves everyone equally. Just as Christianity requires its paradox in the form of Jesus being both God and man, Judaism needs its paradox of being both parochial and universalistic. To resolve the paradox may be reasonable but ultimately it would destroy the religion.

The Bible can serve a purpose in defending Israel in terms of a larger narrative. Consider the issue from the opposing perspective. The whole point of inventing a Palestinian people was to give them a narrative. As long as the Palestinians are just Arabs who lost property in 1948 and became refugees, they will get very little sympathy even from libertarians. Such Arabs can get in line behind millions of other people who were chased from their land in the aftermath of World War II. Being in favor of private property does not mean that you are going to even try to rectify historical injustices. Even today, if the Palestinians are just Arabs, what is so wrong with simply paying them off and shipping them to other Arab countries, particularly if that could solve the Arab-Israel conflict?

The moment you have a Palestinian people, everything changes. Now the Israeli War of Independence did not simply have the unfortunate side effect of uprooting some innocent civilians for which Israel should perhaps pay reparations. There was a people that were uprooted and a culture destroyed. Money cannot solve this problem. The only solution would be for this people to be reconstituted upon their land. If that means that the current Jewish residents might have to be moved out of the houses that they are currently living in, so be it. Until this happens, the world is a poorer place for the lack of this Palestinian culture. As such, all right-minded people, even those with no connection to either Arabs or Palestinians should care about this issue and work for justice for the Palestinian people.

Part of the reason why the Arabs needed to do this was to counter the fact that the Israelis already had a narrative and it behooves us to remember it. Jews were not simply Europeans who showed up in Palestine at the end of the nineteenth century. They were natives of this land going back to biblical times. Note that one does not have to be any kind of religious fundamentalist to accept the Bible as evidence that Jews lived in Israel during antiquity. While this does not give Jews the right to kick anyone off of their land, it does give a reason for the wider world to care about Zionism. You do not have to be Jewish to be inspired by this narrative of a people who kept their culture without the aid of a political state and then, after two-thousand years, re-established that state. If that state were to be abolished and those people had to leave their homes, even if they were paid off and are now living in comfort in New York and Los Angeles, that would still be a tragedy.

Even though this kind of biblical argument has some validity to it, it should only be used to counter Palestinian arguments that they are a people and that Jews are simply European colonists. One should not lead with this argument. National narratives, while they may be useful as a way to inspire people, do not offer a productive means of working toward practical solutions. Finally, there is no reason to bring it up within a libertarian context. A critical aspect of libertarianism is the rejection of national narratives as having any political relevance. The only meaningful political actor is the individual property owner with rights and the ability to enter into social contracts with other property owners.

From Conservatism to Libertarianism: My Personal Journey (Part II)

Part I

It is very dangerous to believe that one is on the right side of history. It makes one arrogant and it excuses all kinds of behaviors when you do not have to fear standing in the dock with those you persecuted on the bench. Historically, one of the advantages of conservatism over liberalism is that, if you are a conservative, it is harder to believe that history is going your way. On the contrary, one learns to accept that history is a tragedy in which you are going to lose. A good conservative should see themselves in much the same way as the Norse gods going out to Ragnarök. One thinks of the famous example of Whittaker Chambers who, when he abandoned Communism for Christianity, said: "I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side." Conservatives of a religious disposition can take comfort from the Judeo-Christian tradition of martyrdom. A life spent in choosing to be one of Foxe's Protestant martyrs as opposed to the triumphant Catholic tormentors can have meaning. 

By the time I entered college at Yeshiva University in the fall of 2001, I had already spent years believing in the twin threats of Arab/Islamic terrorism and of liberalism. It was only a matter of time before the terrorism faced daily by Israelis would reach the United States and the left would be exposed as the moral bankrupts they were. And then one morning, several weeks later and only several miles to the south, 9/11 happened to “prove” that I was right. Now it was going to be “obvious” to all reasonable people that the United States had no choice but to wage war against Arab/Islamic terrorism in much the same way that we once fought Nazi Germany. As with World War II, this would not just be a military struggle but also a moral struggle in which the United States would have to embrace a new understanding of itself as the global defender of freedom. (My teenage self was a bit obsessed with World War II. In fact, I read through Winston Churchill's six-volume memoirs on the War while in Israel, several months before 9/11.) 

I held this position for several years through the beginning of the Iraq War. Since even Bill Clinton had built a major part of his foreign policy around the assumption that Iraq had an ongoing weapons of mass destruction program, I took it as a given that the weapons were there as the Bush administration claimed. The lead up to the Iraq War seemed to play into my assumptions of a liberal collapse as the question of invasion served as a perfect wedge to split the pragmatist faction of the Democratic Party from its ideological wing. Once the weapons were found and post-war Iraq turned into post-war Germany, the ideological left would become irrelevant and go the way of Charles Lindbergh’s America Firsters. 

The difficulty with being on the right side of history is that it has a habit of throwing uncomfortable curveballs. As it turned out, Saddam did not have an operational weapons of mass destruction program. The occupation of Iraq proved to be a bloody mess. To top it all off, the Republicans proved to be a poor model of competent honest and limited government. In a similar vein, the Christian right, the power behind the Republicans, proved to be bullies rather than caretakers of a nation moving to the right and hypocritical incompetent ones at that. Not surprisingly, the ideological left, instead of slinking away into oblivion, was suddenly becoming very relevant and even someone far from the left like me could see it.

By the fall of 2006, several months before I first started writing this blog. I had stopped listening to talk radio. Part of it was the change in my life. I left Yeshiva University for Ohio State to work on my Ph.D. and my daily schedule was different. The biggest thing, though, was that I had gotten bored of the genre. I had been waiting for years for the collapse of liberalism and it seemed even less likely to happen now. Furthermore, neither Limbaugh nor Hannity seemed to be reacting to this fact. It was as if they were in some kind of time warp in which it still was September 2001 or even March 2003. (I am reminded of the German movie Goodbye Lenin, in which the hero shows his mother old East German news clips to hide the fact that the Berlin Wall had come down and Communism was defeated. The fact that the clips are old does not matter as East German news tended to be the same thing every day anyway.)

Did this make me more liberal? It was also in my first year at OSU that I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and became involved with the autism community. I had been aware of Asperger syndrome since my father had brought it to my attention in high school. I had long since accepted that I was on the spectrum but I did not do anything about it. As I started work on my doctorate and pursued dating, I was forced to confront the fact that if I wanted to get a job or get married I would need to radically rework my people skills. This led me to seek out psychiatric help and a diagnosis. Much like my Judaism, being on the autism spectrum served to make me an outsider to established society. While this may have made me more open to alternative lifestyles in general, it did not make me more liberal politically. On the contrary, it simply fed my alienation from the left as I became conscious of the fact that my group was not on the left's list of special groups to be protected. 

This had implications for how I related to the gay rights movement. Like many Americans in the mid-2000s, I was conscious of the issue of gay marriage and was growing, at a personal level, to accept homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. It probably helped that I had a number of friends who identified as LGBT (a number of them in my autism group). That being said, I was bitterly opposed to the gay rights movement as I saw it as privileging homosexuals over people on the autism spectrum. For example, when I visited the health department and saw the various pro-LGBT stickers on offices, what I noticed was the lack of autism-friendly stickers (and no Autism Speaks puzzle stickers would not have counted). For me, this meant that the people who put up those stickers had either consciously decided that we were not important enough to put up stickers or, even worse, had not taken us into account in the first place. Hence, I came to take gay rights advocacy as a personal insult that hypocritically used the claim of tolerance to deny my very humanity.   

Most conservatives reacted to the failures of the Bush administration with cognitive dissonance and doubled down on their hatred of the left. This would eventually enable the rise of Trump as you had a generation of conservatives who lost all of their conservativism except for a desire to “stick” it to liberals. As for me, perhaps because I was no longer operating within the bubble of conservative media, instead of focusing my anger at liberals, I started losing patience with the Republican Party. Liberals, however much I might dislike them, were who they were. Republicans were supposed to be something better and they had failed. 

Instead of going into an apocalyptic panic mode and saying that we must stop liberalism at all costs, I made my peace with the fact that, whether I liked it or not, the left would dominate our society and our politics (even when Republicans won elections). If it was going to be my opponents and people that did not share my values who were going to dominate society, then my only chance of survival would be to make sure that political power was limited as to stop anyone from actually being able to interfere with my decidedly illiberal life-style. (In a sense, I had stumbled on Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option in starting from the premise that I was going to be on the losing side both socially and politically. The fact that, as a Jew, I accepted it as a given that my religion would never dominate American society likely helped.)

As I lost the conservative movement as a base, I lost the ability to consistently focus my hate on the left. I did not spend eight years fuming at Obama and 2016 was not some kind of flight 93 election in which Hillary Clinton needed to be stopped at all costs. The Democrats were who they were, a fact of life living in America. Until the men and resources could be placed for mass civil disobedience with the goal of bringing radical constitutional changes, they were to be endured. 

Rabbinic messianism made the Messiah irrelevant in practice by exiling him to the daily prayers and the claims of the supernatural. A mere political leader, who could restore Jewish self-rule was no longer enough and therefore there was no reason to work toward it. Similarly, I lost interest in fighting the left through electoral politics as that would not be enough. I was waiting for the revolution (likely not in my lifetime) and while I was waiting I was not going to disgrace myself by exchanging that hope for a mere Republican victory. 

How the Mighty European Military State has Fallen: Jeff Sheehan – Where Have All the Soldiers Gone: The Transformation of Modern Europe

Ohio State's eHistory website has just put up my review of Jeff Sheehan's Where Have All the Soldiers Gone: The Transformation of Modern Europe. This is the second review I have done for them. Previously I reviewed Aryan Jesus on the site. Once again I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Steven Conn for giving me the opportunity to review the book and for being such a helpful editor. This one went through a long process. I read this book and wrote the first draft of the review last spring. Dr. Conn, correctly, pointed out that my review veered too much toward being an editorial and asked me to do a rewrite. I did not get back to him with a second version until after the summer, setting a rotten example for any of my students who may be reading this, one that they should most certainly not follow. You can follow the link above for the final version or you can continue reading below for my unedited slightly longer version.



Historical questions are often dictated by present-day concerns. For Jeff Sheehan of Stanford University and his two-hundred page tour of twentieth-century European history that question is how did it come to pass that Europeans would differ so strongly from Americans in regards to the War in Iraq and the question of Islamic terrorism. Modern questions are often a trap that professional historians are rightfully wary of. So it is to Sheehan's credit that what starts off as a modern question is allowed to flower into a judicious and unpolemical account of modern European history. Sheehan describes the evolution of European attitudes toward standing armies and to warfare, without coming down on side or the other. After a pleasurable afternoon of reading this book, I honestly have no idea if Sheehan supported the Iraq War or not. Thus Sheehan has provided what should be an enjoyable and enlightening read for those on the left and on the right.

American liberals, who opposed the war in Iraq, will rightfully object to Sheehan's generalized categorization of Americans as being pro-war and Europeans as anti-war. President Bush's low approval ratings and Senator John McCain's defeat by Barack Obama should demonstrate to anyone that there is more to American public opinion than simple war enthusiasm. (That is unless one accepts conservative rhetoric about there being "real Americans" as opposed to other people who just happen to live in the United State.) To be fair to Sheehan, I do not believe that he intended to make any categorical judgments about Americans. The question he is trying to come to terms with might be formulated as why was it that a neo-conservative movement flourished within American culture to such an extent that it could push publish policy into going to war but not in Europe.

It is against this backdrop that Sheehan offers this overview of modern European political history with a twist. Instead of focusing on World War I, World War II, the Cold War and how the political situations deteriorated in each case into these conflicts, Sheehan examines European attitudes toward the military and to warfare outside of the context of these conflicts. Thus the major conflicts of the twentieth century become the outliers, not what defines European society. From my perspective as a non-military historian, this is just delightfully subversive. I particularly admired the chapter dealing with peace efforts, most notably one by Czar Nicholas II, in the years leading up to the First World War. It serves as a useful counter to the traditional portrayal of bumbling superpowers with their ironclad systems of alliances crashing toward an unforeseen but inevitable war. I owe Sheehan a debt of thanks in that I will now have one good thing to say about Czar Nicholas II to tell my students to balance out the anti-Semitism and truly tragic incompetence.

Instead of a narrative of war, Sheehan offers a narrative of conflicting ideologies. On one side stands a proudly nationalist worldview, in which statehood was understood in terms of its military. Sheehan sees this worldview as a product of the desire by nineteenth-century states to create national identities. The military and making people serve in a national draft as a means of bringing the state into the lives of people living in provincial areas, who beforehand may have been outside of the authority of the centralized state. This was simply was the logical continuation of state-run school systems and other social services. In essence, for Sheehan, the liberal revolutionary tradition coming out of the French Revolution, with its secular state, led directly to European militarism. This militarist perspective comes to be increasingly challenged by a worldview skeptical of state power and the nationalist and militarist ideology needed to support it. In the end, according to Sheehan, World War II effectively eliminated the former view in the minds of the vast majority of Europeans, leaving the field to the later.

One point of Sheehan's that I think is particularly noteworthy is the idea that Americans and Europeans speak very different languages when it comes to the issue of terrorism. When Americans, i.e. the American right, speak about terrorism they use the language of World War II. Islamic terrorists are Nazis and September 11 was Pearl Harbor. (Yes it was the Japanese who attacked us at Pearl Harbor; analogies do not have to be perfect.) I would point to the popularity of the term "Islamo-Fascism" within right-wing circles as a very good example of this. The implications of this should be fairly clear. If the task of the "greatest generation" that fought World War II was to stop a Nazi conquest of the world then the task of this present generation must be to do battle with the forces of radical Islam and stop them from taking over the world. In pursuit of the cause, one becomes justified in all sorts of actions. A trillion dollars fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is not too high a cost to save the world. Four thousand dead in Iraq is nothing to lament when we lost more on Iwo Jima in one day. The dominant European culture views terrorism not as this Manichean struggle with the fate of the world at stake but as a simple policing problem, one that they have been facing for decades now. Such an attitude lends itself to a different set of conclusions. Rather than war the solution becomes better police protection and, at most, some international diplomacy through the European Union and the United Nations.

Sheehan does not discuss it, but this difference in thinking about terrorism also applies to Israel and its differences with the European community. If anything Israel, particularly the Israeli right, is even more entrenched in the language of World War II than even the United States. For Israel, their Islamic opponents are Nazis determined to finish off what Hitler started. In this narrative, the Oslo accords of 1993 become the Munich agreement of 1938 with Israel's security being sold out for a worthless promise, broken before the ink was even dry. From this perspective statements like Nasser's "drive Israel into the sea" or Ahmadinejad's "wipe Israel off the map" are not the blustering of politicians but literal plans of action to be carried out. I am not certain what Sheehan's views are in regards to the Mid-East conflict. He does refer to Yasser Arafat in passing as the "future leader of the Palestinian resistance to Israel" (pg. 169) and juxtaposes him with Nelson Mandela. This might be simple carelessness or a sign that Sheehan shares the European perspective on this, to look at this conflict through the lens of Colonialism.

If history means, in some sense, to apologize for the past, for those ideologies that have left the world stage, then Sheehan has offered an apology for late nineteenth and early twentieth-century nationalist ideologies and their implicit militarism. He connects them to the nineteenth liberal tradition and offers us an understanding as to why reasonable people believed that it would work. In the end, Sheehan raises some very provocative questions about the role of warfare in the making of a state. If states have traditionally defined themselves in terms of their militaries than what does it mean to be a demilitarized state? Can the European Union ever hope to compete with the United States as a global power if it defines itself as the non-military power?

My Tisha B’Av Speech to the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation

Today is the fast day of Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av) when traditional Jews mourn the destruction of the two Temples and the many subsequent tragedies of Jewish history. In honor of the event, every year the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation, a Haredi organization, sponsors a video presentation shown to thousands of Jews across the world. The video usually features prominent Haredi speakers such as Rabbi Paysach Krohn (apparently he is not on for this year), Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, Rabbi Yissocher Frand and Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon. (For some strange reason when I played the ad for the event on their website they had music playing in the background. Music is certainly not something permitted today.) Usually, when I try to go, I find that the combination of my empty stomach and the rancid theology on screen proves too much for me and I end up having to walk out before the end. For all those with similar theological-gastronomical dispositions, I offer you the speech that I am confident you will not be hearing this year from the Chofetz Chaim Foundation; it is, though, what I would say if I were given the chance to speak as part of their lineup.

A good churban to all of you gathered here today from across the globe. The fact that all of you are here in the afternoon on a fast day is remarkable. I say this because I do not wish to come across as completely negative in my comments, as someone who ignores the good in our community. Now that we have gotten past that I would like to move on to business. I am not much of a storyteller nor am I the sort who likes throwing around little vertlach on midrashim, with no purpose other than to entertain and offer pithy moral value statements. I am afraid that if you are looking for someone to make you feel good about yourself you have come to the wrong speaker. By my nature, I possess a skeptical view of human virtue along the lines of Augustine and John Calvin. (You can look those people up later.)

By training, I am a historian and a contemplator of human politics and society. From this, I have become a strong believer in the importance of a bottom-up understanding of human affairs. Major changes happen in society because the vast majority of society agreed to go along with them. As Leo Tolstoy (You can look him up later as well.) understood, those at the top, those supposed “great men,” are not the ones controlling events but are being controlled by them. For example, in the case of Nazi Germany, if you ask me who was responsible for the murder of six million Jews I would not say Hitler or those who ran the camps. Every society has its insane murderous people; they should be mercifully placed in mental hospitals, protected from harm or from harming others. The people really responsible were those regular sane German people who allowed Hitler to come to power and go to war. Without millions of regular Germans agreeing to serve in the German army and run German factories there is no World War II and no Holocaust. These were sane rational people who came to the sane and rational conclusion that the removal of Jews and other undesirables and the expropriation of their property would benefit them. Going along with the Lebensraum policy, had the sanity and rationality necessary for an act of first-degree murder. If it were up to me, I would have put the entire German population above the age of eighteen on trial at Nuremberg and those who could not prove that they actively tried to stop Hitler would have received a sentence of death. (Whether or not it would have been feasible to carry out such a sentence is another issue. Most probably this death sentence would have needed to remain something symbolic.)

Similarly, with the problem of Islamic terrorism, the people responsible for Islamic terrorism are not the terrorists, such as suicide bombers and the hijackers of September 11. The real people responsible are those Muslim and liberals who act as apologists for Islamic terrorism, blaming the West and Israel for bringing trouble upon themselves. I see such people on a regular basis on the college campus where I work. These people get to pursue their vendetta against the West and they hypocritically Pontius Pilate their hands of the affair. (Look it up.) They correctly claim to not be terrorists and make a big show of taking offense at any implication that they are. In truth, they are something worse, moral scoundrels, who lack the courage to pay the true price of their beliefs.

The past few weeks have seen numerous scandals erupt from our community; whether it is youngsters from our community burning trash cans and smashing traffic lights or the arrest of rabbanim in New Jersey. The common refrain is that these are the sins of just a small minority and have nothing to do with the overwhelming majority of us who are good righteous people. My response is that these are precisely the sins not of the few but of all of us in the community for they happen because we, as a community, are making the sane rational, and immoral choices that allow for it. And let us not play innocent here, we benefit from these things. The least we can do is have the decency to openly endorse what was done.

Why do we have a population of youngsters with time on their hands and a lack of any concern for secular authority to riot? Should young men in their teens and early twenties not be in school, learning a useful trade, or in the workplace practicing a trade? No, because we created a system in Israel in which young men must sit and study Gemara and are discouraged from pursuing any other option. Most people, including people with high levels of intelligence and talent as it pertains to other fields, are not suited for Gemara. Such people might be well suited for other fields of endeavor, but they are trapped by the system they are in; the system we have created. People in such a situation might be tempted to leave the community to pursue other options, but refrain from doing so, in large part, because we have taught them to hate, fear and despise the outside world. Make no mistake about it, we did it with intent; we taught them this precisely because we knew that by doing so we could stop them from leaving, joining the ranks of the off the derech and becoming an embarrassing statistic. So we reap what we have sown in the riots. We can no more say that we did not want or endorse the riots than Arabs can denounce the state of Israel as a Nazi occupier and not support the terrorism used to destroy it.

Jewish life is expensive with tuition and large families. It does not help matters if you are less than enthusiastic about advanced secular education. (A necessary platform for many of the sorts of jobs that allow one to pay for such a lifestyle.) We can try giving tuition breaks to needy families, but that simply spreads the cost somewhere else. At the end of the day we, as a community, have to be able to come up with the funds to support ourselves. You are shocked and horrified that members of our community, even leaders in our community, turned to defrauding people of their kidneys? I am talking to the real criminals right now. No one here can play innocent. We just thought it would be best to look the other way and hoped that if we did not notice no one else would. And some Germans innocently thought that the Jews could all just be shipped off to the East and everyone would be the better for it.

For all of you so-called “Modern Orthodox” Jews sitting in this audience, feeling pretty good about yourselves right now; I mean you too. You have allowed yourselves the luxury of using systems built by others. Why are you sitting here listening to this lineup of speakers; why do you not have your own speakers, who actually believe in the sorts of things you claim to believe in? It is sheer laziness. You abandon the running of Torah-true Judaism to people who support an ideology you oppose. Do you think it actually matters that, when this ideology fails, you can claim that you did not support it; for all intents and purposes you did support it.

In conclusion, let us resolve ourselves to taking some moral responsibility for what goes on in our world. There is a churban going on right now. If you are one of those people who looked at articles in the press about Haredi rioting and complained that we are being picked on then you are responsible for our churban. If you are one of those people making comments on websites like the one run by Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, telling him that he needs to stop talking about what is wrong with our community and do more to tell us how wonderful we are, then you are part of the churban. My bracha to you all is that, if we take it upon ourselves to clean up our own mess, Hashem should bless us so that next year we will have the luxury of only having to mourn the burning of a building in the year 70 C. E.

Inquisitor Teddy Bears, Walking with C. S. Lewis and an English German Church Service

For Sunday I was planning on spending the day in London. I ended up changing those plans when I was invited to help out at a Teddy Bear carnival. This project is the brainchild of a local shop owner named Erica, who runs the Bead Games store.

The idea is that people donate old Teddy Bears, ranging from pocket-size to gigantic, and she hosts an outdoor tea-party where she sells the bears and the proceeds go to charity.

It was great fun stringing the bears up and tying them up to the pyramids. I thought of it as sentencing them to be hung and burned alive at an auto-da-fe. For the horrible crimes you have committed against law and order, you bear are to hang by the neck until death. May God have mercy on your soul. And you bear are charged with heresy on three counts - heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action (oh four counts).

In the afternoon I toured Magdalene College, where C. S. Lewis taught. Behind the campus, there is a beautiful path called Addison’s walk, which Lewis frequented. (Anyone who has read Lewis understands the important role of nature walks in his thinking.) There is a plaque in memory of Lewis along the way. It is hard to see the writing from more than a few feet away so I actually had quite a difficult time finding it.

On the plaque is a poem of Lewis’:

What the Bird Said Early in the Year

I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear:

This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees

This year nor want of rain destroy the peas.
This year time’s nature will no more defeat you.

Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
This time they will not lead you round and back

To Autumn, one year older, by the well worn track.
This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell

We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
Often deceived, yet open once again your heart

Quick, quick, quick, quick! – the gates are drawn apart.

After spending some time with Lewis, I went over to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, a magnificent Cathedral right next door to the Bodleian library. Seeing that a service was in progress in one of the side chapels, I went in and sat down, hoping to experience a traditional English church service. There was an old lady sitting next to me and she kindly showed me where they were up to in her hymnal. I looked down at the page and then perked my ears to the singing; they were singing a German hymn. As it turns out this was not an exercise in multiculturalism. This was a German Lutheran congregation and the entire service, with the exception of a few points where they stopped to translate, was in German. At Magdalene, I had just walked past the commemoration wall where they had the names of students who died during World War I and World War II. Lewis himself fought in France during World War I and did a famous series of broadcasts, which became the basis for his Mere Christianity, during World War II. I am sure some of my Haredi relatives are reading this and are hoping that I pick up on a Nazi connection here take this as a message from above that I should not be in a church anymore than I should be at a Nazi rally. I was strongly reminded of the book Aryan Jesus, which dealt with Christianity in Germany under the Nazis. There is a part of the book that deals with efforts to change church hymns to better fit Nazi ideology.

I went over to the pastor, a blonde haired woman in formal clerical garb, afterwards and asked her about this congregation; I figured there had to be a good story behind this. It turns out that this congregation was founded right before the start of World War II by German refugees. So I guess this German church service in middle of England does work well with World War II. The congregation today is mostly made up of Germans, living in Oxford. I pointed out to her that if we go even further back we see Martin Bucer, a member of Martin Luther’s circle, coming over to England to help with the English Reformation.

Despite the fact that this is a German congregation, they gathered afterwards for tea. I guess certain aspects of English culture are inescapable. Interestingly enough, when I told this whole story over to one of the people staying along with me at Yarnton, who is German, he told me that in Berlin there is an Anglican congregation that holds services in English. I wonder about these Anglicans. After services, do they gather around for beer and knockwurst?

The view on top of St. Mary’s is just breathtaking.

To reach the top one has to go up this really narrow winding staircase. Climbing up took enough effort to have me contemplating what a useful answer this tower would serve for that most foundational question in democracy: "where would you place a machine gun?" As an American, the version I traditionally use ends with "in case King George III comes marching down the street." I guess that would not work in England. Since this is an Anglican church, maybe it can be "in case the Pope comes down the street."

On the way down I noticed that they had a sign up for John Henry Newman’s office. (At this point I should point out how grateful I am to Rabbi Shalom Carmy for introducing me to the writings of this nineteenth-century Christian thinker.) I wonder whether the sign is for the pre-Catholic Anglican Newman or for after he converted to Catholicism and became Cardinal John Henry Newman. I find his reasoning for converting quite relevant to contemporary religious thought. He argued that, in a growingly secular environment, the Church would increasingly find itself under pressure to make compromises to make itself presentable to modern society. The only thing that could stand in the way of this was a strong church structure and hierarchy. As Newman saw it, the Catholic Church was the only Church that could do that. I assume the sign is for the Anglican Newman, who used to preach here. I greatly admire those who kept the sign. If these were Haredim there would be a full denial that someone like Newman, who converted out of the faith, ever was associated with this place.

If a movie is ever made of Asael, this church would be great for staging a fight scene. I am thinking something for the later books, once you get characters that are immune to standard weapons running at each other with sharp pointed objects that are not of this world. (Paleface, from the prologue, being one of these people) They can go up the stairway, to the ledge and crash over the ledge to the rooftops of the lower buildings.

My Flight to England or How British Airways Lost my Suit Bag

After a hearty goodbye from Dallas Blumenfield, I headed off to JFK airport to catch my flight to England on British Airways. Upon boarding the plane I found myself seated in the middle between a secular Israeli girl in a tube top on one side and a Yeshiva student in a hat and jacket on the other side. Sounds like a good set up for a comedy sketch. I am not sure how three Jews ended up seated together, maybe someone at the airlines had a sense of humor. The girl was going back to Israel after spending a year in the States, studying theater. The guy was studying the Talmudic tractate of Sukkah. I think it says something to my credit that I was capable of engaging both of them in an intelligent conversation on their field of choice.

The special kosher dinner was quite good. I had chicken and rice with my favorite vegetable, eggplant, and chocolate mousse for desert. There was also humus, but I do not eat that so I left it to the side. The economy seat I was in, I am sure, does not compare to the first class seats I drooled over on my way through the plane, but were comfortable enough for this devotee of self imposed poverty. Most importantly there was a decent collection of movies to watch to distract me from my usual claustrophobia.

The first film I watched was Gran Torino. I must say there is something to Clint Eastwood at almost eighty years old beating the tar out of guys young enough to be his great grandchildren and it being believable. Eastwood seems to have a knack for making films that seem to be simple feel good films until the end where they take a disturbing turn, leaving a film that is truly provocative, with no easy answers. Million Dollar Baby, for example, was Rocky meets My Fair Lady up until the last half hour where it got really dark and interesting. Grano Torino on the surface seems to be about a bigoted old man learning to tolerate his Hmong neighbors. Fortunately it is actually much more interesting than that.

I was not so fortunate with the other two films I watched. Taken was Twenty-Four Season One with Liam Nielson in the starring role. Nielson’s character, like Jack Bauer, has several hours to save his kidnapped daughter and single mindedly pursues this goal without even a break to eat, sleep or use the restroom. Coincidently the film had Xander Berkeley, who played George Mason on Twenty-Four. Unfortunately Taken lacks that addictive quality that made Twenty-Four so much more than fun stupidity, leaving us with simple stupidity.

The final film I watched was Valkyrie, which was about the plot by members of the German army to assassinate Hitler in June 1944. As someone who teaches the events of the film, I had been meaning to see the film. The film crashes on Tom Cruise being very American surrounded by a cast of distinctively British actors or German actors who come across as very British. For a story whose plot centers on the psychological motivations of World War II German army officers, this is a problem. If you want to see a truly brilliant film about Hitler, see the German film Downfall. Coincidently Valkyrie had two actors who appeared in Downfall, Thomas Kretschmann and Christian Berkel.

Upon arriving at Heathrow airport, I was held up at immigration. I would have taken this as a badge of honor if it had been because I was transporting a WMD or if someone had read my blog and decided that I was a national security risk or at least a basic level hate monger like Michael Savage. The problem was that the last time I had used my passport, back when I traveled to Israel in 2000-01, I overstayed my three months without bothering to get my passport stamped again. If my memory serves me correctly, my yeshiva was supposed to send all the passports in to get them stamped, but there was a problem at the time with the government office being on strike (that happens a lot in Israel). So in the end it was never done and when I left the country I got lectured by the lady checking my passport. I never thought that my teenage laziness and unconcern for bureaucracy in one country would come back to trouble me nearly a decade later in another one. The people at immigration eventually asked me to produce evidence that I had a ticket out of England in three weeks time like I said. I was given leave to enter for six months with “no work or recourse to public funds.” This is a good example why we need libertarian governments around the world. A libertarian government would have no need to worry about immigration and border control, beyond checking for WMDs; a libertarian government would have no government services for illegal immigrants to take advantage of. Anyone, therefore, would be allowed to just come and compete for jobs on an open market and after a few years, if they did not break any laws, they could apply for citizenship.

This holdup at immigration for over an hour had further repercussions beyond wasting my time. By the time I reached baggage reclamation, my suit bag had gone missing. I had to wait around several more hours (keep in mind that I had not slept the previous night) while the people at baggage decided that my bag was really missing and sent me on my way. I was debating whether I would want them to find the bag or not. On the balance was my dream of being able to go shopping to replace my two suits and almost all of my good shirts on their pound with my nightmare of going clothes shopping and of making my way through the inevitable paperwork. In the end British Airways found the suit bag a day later and sent it to me. I was hoping that they would give me something for my trouble like an upgrade to those first class suits I was drooling over, but no such luck.

Syllabus for History 112 Spring 2009

This coming quarter I am going to be doing History 112 again, though this time I am going to be teaching as an SSL. This will be completely my class with a curriculum completely under my discretion. Here is my proposed syllabus. I decided to go with Norman Davies' Europe: a History as my textbook though I have included two chapters from Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence. I would like to thank Dr. Breyfogle for allowing me to plagiarize off of his syllabus. This is still something I am tinkering around with. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Ohio State has a system known as Carmen where teachers can photocopy material and place it online where students in the class can read it. This is a great way to get around copyright issues. The university also puts out a publication known as Exploring the European Past (ETEP). It has various modules, collections of primary and secondary source materials on specific topics. Teachers can select modules of interest, which will then be collected into customized booklets for the class. ETEP is expensive, I admit, but it is a great way to introduce students to source material and the scholarly process.


History 112
European History:
The Sixteenth Century to the Present

Spring 2009

Lectures: MW 5:30 – 7:18 Mendenhall Laboratory (ML) 0191


SSL: Benzion N. Chinn
Office hours: M 3-5, and by appointment
Office: 009 Dulles Hall. Phone: 240 994 184
E-mail: chinn.26@osu.edu
Blog: www.izgad.blogspot.com



General Information

Welcome to the wonderful world of Modern European history!

In this course, we will study fundamental events and processes in European politics, war, economics, intellectual thought, culture, and society from the sixteenth century to the present. We will attempt to explain the origins of the contemporary world; the rise of modern secularism in its various manifestations and the rise of the modern liberal state. As we shall see there is more to this story than man all of a sudden becoming rational. We will strive to understand how Europeans lived and gave meaning to their lives in the “early modern” and “modern” eras.

The course is both topically and chronologically organized and emphasizes the common characteristics of European civilization as a whole rather than specific national histories. It traces threads of continuity while also examining the vast changes experienced by European society in these 400 years. In a course that spans several centuries and covers a large geographical area, the majority of peoples and events cannot be studied in detail. We will focus on particular cases that illustrate important patterns of change and conflict that have shaped the European world as we know it now. Hopefully this course will serve as a gateway for further explorations.

Throughout the course, students will learn skills that will be necessary for them both as history students and in most of life’s endeavors: critical and analytical thinking, writing, reading, listening, note taking, working in groups, and public speaking.



Objectives/Learning Outcomes

By completing the requirements for this Historical survey, students will:

1. Acquire a perspective on history and an understanding of the factors that shape human activity. This knowledge will furnish students insights into the origins and nature of contemporary issues and a foundation for future comparative understanding of civilizations.
2. Develop critical thinking through the study of diverse interpretations of historical events.
3. Apply critical thinking through historical analysis of primary and secondary sources.
4. Develop communications skills in exams, papers, discussions.
5. Develop an understanding of the patterns of European history, and how they inform present-day European society, politics, and relations with the rest of the world.


Important Information

Students are very welcome to come and talk with me about any aspect of the course and the wonders of history. My office hours and location are listed above. I can also be reached by e-mail (chinn.26@osu.edu).

In accordance with departmental policy, all students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter. No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time. Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student.

Disability Services: Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office for Disability Services will be appropriately accommodated, and should inform the instructor as soon as possible of their needs. The Office for Disability Services is located in 150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Ave; Tel: 292-3307, TDD 292-0901; http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/.

This is a GEC course. This course fulfills the second half of the GEC Category 5. Arts and Humanities A. Historical Survey. It also fulfills the GEC category “International issues western (non-United States) course.”

Attendance
I am not grading for attendance. My philosophy is that the real work of this class goes on outside of my classroom. My lectures serve to help you understand the material you are reading and to equip you with the tools to get the most out of what you read. In theory one should be able to simply do the readings, not come to class, do all the assignments (one would have to come to class for the in class assignments) and do fine. Of course any student who could do that would have no need for my class to begin with. While one does not have to come to class one still has to participate. All students most e-mail me at least one question or serious comment about the reading by noon on class days. I use these questions as the basis for the class. My lectures are, in essence, my response to your questions.

Readings

All books have been put on two-hour reserve at Sullivant library.

All books are available for purchase at SBX and other area bookstores
**[Be sure to bring a copy of the readings to each discussion section as you will refer to the readings regularly during discussion]**
Required Books:
Norman Davies – Europe: a History
Deborah Lipstadt – History on Trial
ETEP Reader (Make sure to get the one assigned to this specific class. It will have my name on it.)

Grades will be computed on the following standard scale:

A: 92.6% and above B+: 87.6% to 89.5% C+: 77.6% to 79.5% D+: 67.6% to 69.5%
A-: 89.6% to 92.5% B: 82.6% to 87.5% C: 72.6% to 77.5% D: 62% to 67.5%
B-: 79.6% to 82.5% C-: 69.6% to 72.5% E: below 62%


Two special comments:
1) Since the University does not record D- grades, a student earning a course average below 62 will receive an E in this course.
2) In order to pass the course, you must pass the Final Exam with at least a 62.

Breakdown of Assignments
Class Participation – 15%
Maps and Quizzes – 15%
Paper #1 - 20%
Paper #2 - 20%
Final – 30%

Map Assignments and Quizzes

The “quizzes” component of your discussion section grade (15% of your total grade) includes two map exercises (one take-home and one in-class) and three in-class quizzes.

· Quizzes: Each quiz will comprise 3-4 short questions based on the materials in the reading assignments and lectures.
Map assignments:
Map assignment #1: European towns and physical geography (take home)
Map assignment #2: Contemporary Europe, political (in-class).
On take-home map assignment, students will be able to use published atlases (the best option) and/or good web maps (I recommend maps from National Geographic, the CIA, and the UN).
In-class map assignment (#2): Students will be required to know the locations of the countries of Europe today. In class, they will be given a map of today’s Europe with the borders marked and asked to fill in the names of the countries from a list provided. (usually approximately 30 countries)
Grading Your Exams and Papers:
I furnish below brief descriptions of how you will earn your essay grades:
· "C” essays will include: an introductory paragraph that contains your thesis; a body of several paragraphs in which you offer evidence from the readings, lectures, and discussions to support your thesis; and a conclusion that reiterates your basic argument. That being said this paper will have serious methodological problems.
· "B” essays will include: all of the above requirements for a “C” essay. It will demonstrate basic competence and understanding of the required assignment.
· "A” essays will include: all of the above requirements for a “B” essay plus more data and some indication of independent or extended thought. To get an “A” you are going to have to impress me by doing something that exceeds my expectations of 112 students.
· As for “D” and “E” essays: usually, these essays do not include a viable thesis and/or they do not include very much information from the course.


Late Paper Assignments and Make-Up Exams

Students must take the final exam at the scheduled times. Students will be allowed to take a make-up exam only for urgent reasons, such as medical or legal emergency. In such instances, students should, if possible, contact the instructor at least one day in advance. The student will be expected to present written proof of the emergency, such as an official statement from the University Medical Center. Without a valid excuse, students may be permitted (at the discretion of the instructor) to take a make-up exam. However, their grade will be reduced by a full letter (e.g., an A will be dropped to a B) for each week that passes after the scheduled exam time.
Extensions for the paper are granted at the discretion of the instructor to those students presenting valid and verifiable excuses (again you will be expected to provide written documentation). Students who are unable to fulfill assignments as scheduled for family, religious, or medical reasons must contact the instructor before the due date of the assignment. Papers that are received late without just cause or without a previously approved excuse will be graded down by a full letter per day late.

The pressures of other course work, employment, and extra-curricular activities do not constitute valid excuses for late assignments. Note due dates on the syllabus and plan ahead. If the instructor is not available to approve excuses, leave a message on his/her e-mail or office voice mail (failing that, you may leave a message for the instructor on his e-mail or voice mail). There is no provision in this course for additional papers for extra credit or to substitute for requirements.


Submission of Assignments
All assignments are mandatory. If you do not submit one assignment, your final grade will be reduced by one full letter grade in addition to giving you zero for that assignment. If you do not submit two or more assignments, you will automatically fail the course.


Grade Reconsideration
A student who wishes reconsideration of his/her grade on an examination or paper should resubmit the assignment in its entirety to the instructor. The exam/paper should be accompanied by a written exposition explaining why the grade is not an accurate appraisal of the work. Appeals must be initiated within ten days after the paper/exams were returned to the class. In reviewing a paper or exam on appeal, the instructor reserves the right to raise, confirm, or lower the grade.


Plagiarism, Cheating, and Academic Misconduct
Plagiarism, cheating, or other academic misconduct will not be tolerated and will be reported to the Committee on Academic Misconduct. It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate or establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic misconduct. Faculty Rules (3335-5-487) require that instructors report all instances of academic misconduct to the committee. Be forewarned that I will pursue cases of academic misconduct to the appropriate University committee. For additional information, see the Code of Student Conduct at http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/resource_csc.asp .
Plagiarism is theft. Please read the attached definition of plagiarism (Appendix B from University Survey: A Guidebook and Readings for New Students), see the websites: http://cstw.osu.edu/ and http://cstw.osu.edu/writing_center/handouts/index.htm. If you do not understand what plagiarism entails as it is described in this excerpt from the student handbook and/or websites, you should see the instructor before beginning any of these assignments.

Paper Assignments:
Over the course of this quarter you will be assigned two papers to write. While you have to do both of these assignments, you can choose the order that you do them in.

Paper Assignment #1: You will write a 3-5 page paper reviewing a work of historical fiction (either from the list below or approved by the teacher). In particular you will analyze the work in question from a historical perspective. How does the author view the period being dealt with? How accurate is the book; what sort of liberties does the author take?
Paper Assignment #2: You will write a 3-5 page paper reviewing a scholarly work of non-fiction (either from the list below or approved by the teacher). What argument does the author make about his subject matter? Is the author’s argument convincing? How does the work contribute to our understanding of the period?
Both of these assignment will require that you formulate a thesis and that you devote body of your essay to defending that thesis.

Works of Historical Fiction
Libba Bray: A Great and Terrible Beauty (Victorianism, Women)
Tracy Chevalier: Girl with a Pearl Earring (Early Modern Society, Women)
Bernard Cornwell: Richard Sharpe series (Napoleonic Wars)
Charles Dickens: Tale of Two Cities (French Revolution)
Umberto Eco: Eternal Flame of Queen Loana (Fascism, Historical Method)
Emile Guillaumin: The Life of a Simple Man (Nineteenth century French peasantry)
Thomas Keneally: Schindler’s List (Holocaust)
Katharine Mcmahon: The Alchemist’s Daughter (Scientific Revolution, Early Enlightenment, Women)
James A. Michener: The Drifters (Cultural Revolution)
Patrick O’Brian: Aubrey/Maturin series (Napoleonic Wars)
Erich Maria Remarque: All Quite on the Western Front (World War I)
Conrad Richter - The Light in the Forest (Enlightenment, Rousseau)
Baroness Emma Orczy: The Scarlet Pimpernel (French Revolution)
Arturo Perez-Reverte: Captain Alatriste series (Early Seventeenth Century Spain)
Elizabeth Peters: Amelia Peabody series (Victorianism, Egypt, Women)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: August 1914 (World War I)
Art Spiegelman: Maus (Holocaust)
For more suggestions see http://www.historicalnovels.info/index.html

Non-Fiction:
Gene Brucker - Giovanni and Lusanna: Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (Renaissance, Women)
B.S Capp - The Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study of Seventeenth-century English Millenarianism (English Civil War, Apocalypticism)
Elisheva Carlebach - Divided Souls (Jews, Early Modern Identity)
Natalie Zemon Davis - The Return of Martin Guerre (Women, Early Modern Society)
Elizabeth Eisenstein - The Printing Revolution in Modern Europe (Renaissance, Scientific Revolution)
Leon Festinger - When Prophecy Fails (Apocalypticism)
Jeffery Friedman - The Poisoned Chalice (Enlightenment)
Christine Garwood - Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea (Victorianism)
Carlo Ginzburg - The Cheese and the Worm (Early Modern Society)
Night Battles (Witch Trials, Early Modern Society)
Ecstasies (Witch Witch Trials)
Matt Goldish - Sabbatean Prophets (Jews, Early Modern Society)
Christopher Hill - Antichrist in Seventeenth-Century England (Apocalypticism, English Civil War)
Susannah Heschel - The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Nazism)
Richard Kagan - Lucrecia’s Dreams (Inquisition, Women)
Thomas Laqueur - Making Sex
Solitary Sex[1]
Phyllis Mack - Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Women, English Civil War)
Richard Popkin - Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium (Apocalypticism)
Dava Sobel - Galileo’s Daughter (Scientific Revolution)
Pieter Spierenburg - The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression: From a Preindustrial Metropolis to the European Experience (Early Modern Society)
Barbara Tuchman - Guns of August (World War I)
D. P. Walker - The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (Early Modern Religion)
Frances Yates - Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Renaissance, Scientific Revolution)
Perez Zagorin - How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West (Wars of Religion)

Movies: At several points during the quarter I will be showing films related to the material. While I think these films are useful and will be worth your while to watch, I am not about to invest an entire class period in showing them. I will though introduce the film and start it during the last half hour of class. Students are free to stay and watch or leave at their leisure. I have penciled in two tentative films, but I am open to alternatives.
Class Schedule and Assignments

1. March 30. Introduction: The Historical Method
Highly recommended: Herbert Butterfield – The Whig Interpretation of History

2. April 1. Renaissance and Reformation
Davies 469-507.
Luther’s 95 Theses (http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html)
Papal Condemnation of Luther (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo10/l10exdom.htm)

3. April 6. Religion Wars and European Society
Davies 526-39, 563-69.
Carmen: Magdalena and Balthasar, Edmund Williamson
Move: The Return of Martin Guerre

4. April 8. Scientific Revolution
Carmen: Barzun - “the Invisible College”
Video – Galileo’s “Dialogue” (http://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b5743543~S3)[2]
Quiz #1

5. April 13. Rise of Absolutism
Davies 615-28.
Carmen: Barzun – “The Monarch’s Revolution”
James I, Charles I, Thomas Hobbes, Louis XIV

6. April 15. The English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution (Passover No Class. You are still responsible for your reading and for the material I post.)
Davies pg. 545-53, 628-38.
ETEP – The English Revolution
Carmen: John Locke (From the Second Treatise on Government)

7. April 20. Enlightenment I
Davies 577-614.
Carmen: John Locke (Justification for the Glorious Revolution), Voltaire, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft.
Map # 1 Due

8. April 22. Enlightenment II
Candide(http://www.literature.org/authors/voltaire/candide/index.html),
Kant – “What is Enlightenment?” (http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html)
Quiz #2

9. April 27. French Revolution I
Davies 675-757

10. April 29. French Revolution II
Carmen: French Revolution
ETEP – The Napoleonic Empire in Europe: Liberation or Exploitation?

11. May 4. Industrial Revolution
Carmen: Industrial Revolution I & II.
Paper #1 Due

12. May 6. Marxism
Davies pg. 835-41.
Communist Manifesto (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html)

13. May 11. Imperialism and the European City
Davies pg. 848-54.
Carmen: Orwell, Belgian Congo, Vienna and Paris I & II

14. May 13. World War I and its Aftermath.
Davies 875-96, 901-38.
Carmen: Palmer, Kern

15. May 18. The Russian Revolution and Stalinism
Davies pg. 959-65.
Reading: ETEP – The Russian Revolution
Carmen: Behind the Urals

16. May 20. Nazi Germany
Davies pg. 965-98.
Quiz #3

17. May 25. Memorial Day. (No Class)

18. May 27. World War II
Davies pg. 998-1055.
Movie: Downfall

19. June 1. Cold War
Davies pg. 1058-1136.
Map Assignment #2 (In Class)

20. June 3. Cultural Revolutions
Reading: ETEP – The End of Consensus: The Student Revolts of the 1960s.
In class presentations on European countries.

21. Conclusion
Lipstadt - History on Trial
Paper #2 Due

22. June 8. Final Exam

[1] For those who might be put off (or attracted) by Laqueur’s racy titles, these are serious works of scholarship dealing with changes in notions of sexuality during pre modern times. Once you get past the book title one is going hard pressed to find much to titillate or take offense at. One way or another I do strongly recommend them.
[2] This documentary is part of your reading assignment. You are to have watched it before coming to class.