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Books 2012: the honourable vs. the useful
Feb. 19th, 2012 01:07 amBooks 2012: 20-21
nonfiction
20. Bertrand Russell, Power. With a new preface by Samuel Brittain. Routledge, Oxford, 2004. First edition 1938.
Power sets out to describe the types and workings of various sorts of power. In some cases, Russell states the obvious; in others, he has sharp insight; in yet more, I remain unconvinced by his argument. Reading him now, it is astonishing to see in how many ways he is still radical and thought-provoking. And then again, he's a man who can use terms like "savages" and "primitive man" without second thought.
This is very much a book of the thirties, the age between the wars. But much that was true in the thirties about the nature of power remains true today - though Russell did not see the way in which the state's monopoly on many kinds of force has been usurped and co-opted by transnational corporations.
21. Cicero, On Obligations. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008. First edition 2000. Translated by PG Walsh.
Reading Cicero's De officiis back to back with Russell's Power is illuminating. Cicero's argument here has to do with the duties of human beings, and for Cicero, what is honourable is always to be sought over what is expedient. It's interesting to see how he defines both - though he has the wealthy man's obsession, of course, with the sanctity of private property.
My review of T.C. McCarthy's Germline is live over at Strange Horizons.
nonfiction
20. Bertrand Russell, Power. With a new preface by Samuel Brittain. Routledge, Oxford, 2004. First edition 1938.
Power sets out to describe the types and workings of various sorts of power. In some cases, Russell states the obvious; in others, he has sharp insight; in yet more, I remain unconvinced by his argument. Reading him now, it is astonishing to see in how many ways he is still radical and thought-provoking. And then again, he's a man who can use terms like "savages" and "primitive man" without second thought.
This is very much a book of the thirties, the age between the wars. But much that was true in the thirties about the nature of power remains true today - though Russell did not see the way in which the state's monopoly on many kinds of force has been usurped and co-opted by transnational corporations.
21. Cicero, On Obligations. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008. First edition 2000. Translated by PG Walsh.
Reading Cicero's De officiis back to back with Russell's Power is illuminating. Cicero's argument here has to do with the duties of human beings, and for Cicero, what is honourable is always to be sought over what is expedient. It's interesting to see how he defines both - though he has the wealthy man's obsession, of course, with the sanctity of private property.
My review of T.C. McCarthy's Germline is live over at Strange Horizons.
