Book Review: Arthur Herman's "1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder

I enjoyed having my framing of the modern world reset by Arthur Herman’s1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder. Herman makes a strong case that the common aspects of Vladimir Lenin and Woodrow Wilson’s leadership style changed the stage on which modern politics plays out. These two men rejected traditional leadership focused on realpolitik and national interest; instead, they promoted a new world order built on principled visions to which they demanded allegiance. Wilson spearheaded “the emergence of the United States as a global hegemonic power” that he believed was the best source for an “... end to violence in international and human affairs.” Lenin “triggered the emergence of a world revolutionary movement that would be come to be known as communism” (p. 11) They both were driven by “…a sense of the utter rightness of their vision and ideas… [that] made opposition virtually an immoral act of betrayal.” (p. 65) Note "immortal;" this marrying of politics with an almost religious fervor led to both an inability to compromise and a dehumanizing of the opposition. Of course, discounting intellectual diversity leads to blind spots and, for these leaders, ultimately their greatest failures: for Wilson, the US rejection of the League of Nations; in Lenin’s, the disintegration of the Bolshevik revolution into a terror state led by Stalin.

Herman's entertaining narrative is convincing. I appreciated how the story isn't dominated by background but yet provides the information you need to understand the implications of Lenin and Wilson's actions. Chapters alternate between the two leaders so you can see both the similarities of their leadership styles and the differences in their approaches. My biggest takeaway was that the success of their approach, despite their “shared dogmatic belief in the rightness of his own mission, which brooked no opposition or even criticism” (p. 14) became a model that many future visionaries used to impose their principles on people. The power of ideas, regardless of their implications. Herman's easier on Wilson because of his relatively peaceful actions and, honestly, his goal of setting up and sustaining a (white) power structure led by elites. Lenin is savaged for his violent tactics aimed at fostering a revolution to permanently change global power dynamics, noting it's a template used by many modern terrorist organizations. But the similarities outweigh their differences, and Herman concludes that despite their divergent aims, their uncompromising leadership is the genesis of many of our modern global dilemmas.

Book Review: Margaret Atwood's "The Heart Goes Last"

Margaret Atwood has great ideas, including the premise of The Heart Goes Last: people desperately struggle to survive in a depressed society so much that they’ll voluntarily join Positron – a society where they are free to live in luxury. But there’s a catch. You live in comfort for six months of the year, but for the other six months you labor in prison. You share a house with other people you never see but you know are there (their belongings are stored in lockers in the garage). Of course, things get complicated rather quickly - it’s a tale of the dystopia behind a utopia. This being Atwood, we also get these powerful internal monologs that so deftly reveal the dramatic mental narratives and mythologies that we all build up in our heads.

The best part of the book was how she painted the slow evolution of the stories and self-deceptions of Stan and Charmaine, a Positron couple. Atwood shows how they are their own worst enemy. Given a ticket into what they think is a perfect world, Stan and Charmaine immediately start to subvert it, allowing the boredom and lust of their inner narratives to drive them to betray not only their socially confined borders – but also each other. The first half of the book Atwood masterfully shows us the deep power of social norms and how sexual fetishes – fuel for excitingly illicit transgressions – can be used for both freedom and entrapment. (Ying and Yang!) A scarily vivid picture emerges of a totalitarian world where the couple, isolated from each other, become pawns in shadowy conspiracies that are stranger than they ever could have imagined.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last. About halfway through, the plot devolves into absurdity, with (even more) convoluted conspiracies, brainwashing, and inexplicable coincidences. Once Stan [spoiler alert!] escaped Positron disguised as Elvis, I decided the book had become a parody and blissfully enjoyed it as such. That’s Atwood’s prerogative, although I found myself wanting a more serious engagement with bionic sex fetishes, Pavolian sexual conditioning, and economic desperation used as a profit machine. She started THGL as a short story, and perhaps it should have stayed as such, for while the start of the novel is riveting, and I enjoyed it overall, the entire experience wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been.

Miles Drawing

Check out a few pictures I drew for Miles in the last year or so:

Miles' Xmas Present 2018

Miles at 5 years old

Metablogging: I recently realized that I don't have a place where I can show people my drawings. So i'm created a new tag for when I occasionally get inspired to post something i've done: TGMArt.

“To the Reader: The Language of the Cloud” by Chase Twichell

“To the Reader: The Language of the Cloud” by Chase Twichell

Come with me to a private room.
I have a secret to show you.
Sometimes I like to stand outside it

with a stranger because I haven’t
come at it from that vantage in so long—

see? There I am beside him, still joined,
still kissing. Isn’t it dreamlike,
the way the bed drifts in its dishevelment?

Bereft of their clothes, two humans
lie entangled in its cloud.

Their bodies are saying the after-grace,
still dreaming in the language of the cloud.
Look at them, neither two nor one.

I want them to tell me what they know
before the amnesia takes them.

From Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been (2010)