"The Player of Games", a review. Sort of.

Affiliate link here. This review is spoiler-free.

When science fiction author Iain Banks announced his terminal cancer a month ago the internet responded with an outpouring of concern and praise. I'd never read his books, or even heard of the man, so I belatedly picked up "The Player of Games" while travelling.

I study history to learn about human society. I often think about the essential or optional characteristics of a sustainable society where most people can live a good life. My gold-standard test for all political philosophy consists of two questions: 1) can a society built on these principles last? And, 2) does it allow for human flourishing?

For the modern liberal American consensus, I lean towards a "no" for the first question and a qualified "yes" for the second. This makes me a partial politico-cultural dissident and drives my interest in exploring alternative forms of society.

For the same reason that I enjoy history I also enjoy fiction that provides a culture shock. Science Fiction is a rich genre for cultural experimentation as authors are given the freedom to imagine ways of life far outside the normal boundaries. However, sociological evidence from fictional cultures must be treated more cautiously than evidence from historical ones. The apparent desirability of fictional societies are left in the hands of the author who always has an ideological axe to grind. Fiction can give us hypotheses about new ways to live, enriching our social palette, but it cannot give us evidence about the desirability of a particular way of life due to the author's inherent conflict of interest.

Iain Banks delivers a provocative vision of a future society in "The Player of Games". It is one of several books that take place in "The Culture", an advanced human society. The Culture is a place of great wealth where production is automated by technology including artificial intelligence. There is no need for work so instead people pursue their recreational and artistic interests. The Culture novels offer relevant food for thought in an America currently experiencing high unemployment rates and anxiety about automation technology displacing workers.

The theme is common in science fiction - what would life be like if we lived forever and had no need for work? Would life be enjoyable, meaningful, and fulfilling? The Culture books answer with a resounding "yes!", with just enough nuance to add believability without much weakening the conclusion.

And indeed the Culture is a pleasant place to live. Everybody is genetically engineered to be intelligent, beautiful, and healthy so they make good use of their wealth of leisure (we also have regions in our world where few people work, but they are not pleasant places to live). The political order is a kind of anarcho-communism. There is no property since there is no want. The abundance of friendly robot drones makes it near impossible to be killed or to harm another human, eliminating the need for a justice system. The culture has few rules and no politics. Rules are most often enforced by social sanction and norms of politeness. In the worst cases robotic drones prevent humans from repeatedly bothering others.

If communism is ever to work, if it is ever to be the paradise Marx promised instead of the bloody butchery it became, then it will exist in a society that is already extremely wealthy like the Culture. It differs significantly from the theoretical communism where workers control the means of production, instead it is a society where production is too plentiful to worry about control.

Banks explores some of the potential flaws in his vision, but only briefly. One character upon returning home after several years worries that someone else will be using the house that he lived in for decades. Since there is no property rights in the Culture he does not have claim to the home he is not using and the Culture's norms of politeness allow someone else to make use of it. I suspect Banks underestimates people's attachment to things and places, and I suspect that concepts of property will always arise in a society that tries to get rid of it.

I respect Banks as an author with a sharp and honest mind. He never tries to sell us on a utopian vision without pointing out its flaws and dependencies. He's clever enough to see that his novel political order depends on novel technology and he avoids the mistake of selling a social order which would be falsified, or even falsifiable, by historical evidence.

The main character is the eponymous player of games named Gurgeh, the best game-player in all the Culture. People gather to watch his games and children study his strategies in school. In a world where medicine grants infinite life, could one be consumed by studying games for all eternity? Maybe. It is  Gurgeh's boredom with his life as the Culture's biggest gamer celebrity is the catalyst that kicks off the plot.

During the course of the novel we come into contact with a hierarchical, traditional alien empire that is compared unfavorably to the Culture. In terms of the Star Trek universe, think of it as the Federation vs. the Klingons or the Romulans. The book preaches the moral superiority of the Culture too much for my taste.

But Banks briefly points out some of the ways that life in the Empire is preferable to the Culture. The citizens of the empire feel more purpose in life. They are emotionally tougher than the decadent Culture and there is much to admire about them. It is a competent though biased meditation on the costs and benefits of a restrictive tradition versus an individualistic worldview that offers greater freedom and equality but that often leaves people feeling lost and adrift.

"The Player of Games" is worth your time. Banks' Culture is an appealing ideal form of the "enlightened" liberal worldview. Since I so often find myself in opposition to that worldview in present day politics, I enjoy being challenged with the best it has to offer. The Culture would indeed be a pleasant place to live if it were possible.

Les Miserables - The Nobility of Jean Valjean

Les Miserables is a movie that is carried by the strength of the plot. At the center of that plot is the story of Jean Valjean (pronounced "jon valjon") set during the time period of the French Revolution.

Jean might be my favorite protagonist in all of fiction. Ayn Rand admired Victor Hugo (the original author of Les Miz) because he wrote about mankind as it ought to be rather than as it is. The heroes of Hugo's works present a better version of man, an ideal to strive towards. In Les Miserables Hugo's ideal is represented by Jean Valjean.

Jean is a hero, but he represents a different version of heroism than we are used to from Hollywood movies. Jean doesn't have superpowers or gadgets that help him fight evil. He doesn't get the girl at the end, or fame or riches. He doesn't save the world.

What makes Jean stand out is that he does the right thing even when it's hard. In a world of cynical  opportunism he deals fairly with his fellow man and protects the weak. This ultimately costs him everything he has, but these costs do not enter into his decision making. The human-scale of Jean's struggles and abilities makes his story relatable and his heroism all the more remarkable.

The story opens with Jean being released from prison after serving a 19 year sentence for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving nephew. We don't hear about what happened to his nephew but he probably died while Jean was in prison.

Jean leaves prison to find a world that rejects him. As an ex-convict he cannot find work and no inn keeper will give him shelter. Angry emotions storm inside him as he sleeps outside in the cold.

At the end of his resources, Jean attempts to rob the home of a priest and there he finds the sympathetic help he needs to break out of his downward spiral. The priest forgives his attempted robbery and gives Jean enough money to start a new life. He makes clear that the gift is not for Jean's benefit alone - he is purchasing Jean's soul to do the work of God.

This act of kindness moves Jean. He breaks his parole and makes a new life with a new name in a different town. Jean grows into a pillar of the community. He becomes a prosperous businessman and is even appointed mayor.

If Jean's story ended there we would already consider it a success story. He overcame his rough start in life  to become a respected person in a position of authority.

It is the subsequent choices that Jean makes that reveal the true nobility of his soul. Some poor wretch is arrested by police inspector Javert under the mistaken assumption that he is the parole-breaker Jean Valjean. The real Jean is tormented by this news. If he speaks, he will be condemned to return to prison. If he stays silent an innocent man will go to prison in his name and he will be free from the law's pursuit. But Jean cannot bear to let that happen. He confesses his true identity to the court and thereby forfeits his new life.

While Jean waits for the police to arrest him, he stops by the hospital to say goodbye to a dying woman, Fantine, who worked in the factory he owns. She asks him to take responsibility for the care of her daughter and he accepts. Knowing that Fantine's child will die too if he goes to prison, Jean flees town with inspector Javert on his heels.

Here his stark life is warmed by the love of the Fantine's daughter Cosette whom he informally adopts. Providing for Cosette becomes the center point of his life. They live together as fugitives, fleeing the pursuit of the merciless inspector Javert.

There are three systems of morality at odds in Les Miserables. The conflict between the visions of justice represented by Valjean and Javert is clear. But that conflict plays out against a backdrop of a world dominated by nihilistic opportunism. People live on the edge of survival and they are perfectly willing to pull down others to get a little bit ahead. This ethic is represented by the crooked inn-keepers, the Thenardiers, and several minor characters.

Against this backdrop the heartless, legalistic justice of Javert is cast in a better light. We understand his desire to impose the order of the law on a chaotic world. We understand the purpose that Javert serves in society and we might prefer Javert's world to that of the Thenardiers. But Javert's inflexibility is his undoing. He lacks the moral sensibility of Valjean that enables him to distinguish between what is right and what is merely the law.

Valjean's morality is Christian humanism. His motivating principle is not order, but compassion. He values outcome over process. Valjean forgives his former jailer Javert, echoing Jesus's forgiveness of the Roman soldiers who served as his executioners (Luke 23:34). But his primary focus is his fatherly duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

This movie is "uplifting" in that it shows the very best side of humanity. It is a story of grit and courage, redemption, and heroic compassion. Evil is represented not by a cartoonish villain, but by the inhumanity of the economic, legal, and social systems surrounding the characters. For love to triumph in the face of such an inchoate, all-consuming evil is hard. But Jean's determination is up to the task.

In many ways Les Miserables is conservative, even reactionary in its philosophy. It feels odd to see religion unironically portrayed in a Hollywood movie in this age. The Catholic priest is not even a killer, a pedophile, or a demon in disguise! Jean takes his duty to God seriously. And at the end, his immortal soul joins Fantine in heavenly paradise. Underlying everything is the wholesome theme of fatherly love. It is a strange time we live in when a sympathetic movie about the French Revolution could be considered a conservative work. 

The film is not perfect. I liked the music, but I didn't love it. Musical theatre often suffers in translation to film - the energy of live performers can sweep an audience up in a way that film musicals can't. At times the pace of the film drags along. It is a moving film, it is a meaningful film, but it is not a consistently entertaining film - giving some reviewers good cause to dislike it.

The director makes some questionable choices of cinematography. During musical solos the camera lingers overlong on awkward close-up shots showing the top quarter of the singer's body. More  exploitation of the advantages of the film medium could have made this a more enjoyable cinema experience.

The bottom line is that you should see this film. It will make you cringe, cry, and smile. Professional reviewers call the film "moving" - I found out that is industry code for "I was openly weeping like a child at the end of the film". I found Les Miserables to be "moving" as well.

"The Name of the Rose" review

I have an enduring affection for the TV show "Rome", made by HBO. The Romans in "Rome" are real Romans. Many writers lack the imagination to pull off such a feat. Too often distant aliens and ancient tribal chieftains are presented as 21st century Americans disguised in period costume. They may look exotic but their opinions on love, freedom, and democracy would not sound out of place in 2012 New York City.

But "Rome" lets the Roman era speak for itself without interpreting it through a modern lens. We are confronted by the strange minds of the pre-christian ancient world. Life is cheap. Slavery is ubiquitous, normal, and not worth commenting on. Suicide is preferable to the dishonor of defeat. Pragmatism rules in place of morality. The bad guys are obvious, but the good guys are hard to recognize.

When a writer succeeds in capturing the minds of a different time period he offers the gift of perspective. It allows us to escape our modern cultural marinade through the understanding that it is possible to think otherwise than we do today, and in fact people have done so for centuries. There is nothing more healthy for the thinking human than trying on an alien mind for a short time. It inoculates against the overpowering intellectual fashions of the moment.

And it is a delightful pastime.

In "The Name of the Rose", the monks are genuine 14th century monks. They speak like monks and they are concerned by the concerns of monks. They argue fiercely over whether or not Jesus laughed, and whether or not Jesus owned any property. They have earnest faith and they experience ecstatic delight in the beauty of the divine. Like all real faith, their faith is tested by the realities of a brutal world.

The author, Umberto Eco, is trained as a medievalist. He spent years researching the political and intellectual atmosphere of the era and embeds his plot right in the thick of conflicts that tore at the political and religious unity of Europe in those days. The protagonist William has views that correspond closely to the real William of Occam.

Wrapped up in Eco's detailed world is a mystery yarn and a political thriller. As William and Adso investigate strange deaths inside the labyrinthine abbey, they uncover old conflicts lurking behind the facade of the pious fraternity.

It is not a satisfying book, but a provoking one. We see faith too fervent lead to corruption, and faith too tempered lead to doubt. We dwell on permanence and impermanence. Surrounded by a world in turmoil people despair, cling fiercely to the old ways, or adapt.

William and Adso live contemporaneously with the beginnings of modern science. William is a disciple of that other William, of Occam, and Roger Bacon - a Franciscan monk who was an early proponent of empirical inquiry. The birth of science gives people a jubilant hope that man's reason might be able to know nature completely and tame it. At first, the book looks to be a celebration of science, with William as its avatar. His powerful mind is able to hone in on the truth from the tiniest scraps of evidence. But when his rational  investigation is frustrated, his faith in the orderliness of the universe is shaken.

Maybe the critics of science are right. The early scientists viewed their work as an act of worship - tracing the orderly mind of God at work in a universe governed by laws. But the opponents of science viewed it as an act of vanity and pride rather than one of piety. The story does not tell us who to believe.

By itself the plot of the book is an entertaining mystery story. But the most delight comes from peering out the windows of the abbey into an alien world. It inflamed my curiosity. I have half a dozen tabs open to Wikipedia on related topics right now. It is a curiously dense book, best enjoyed by savoring its rich taste.

"Troy" movie review

Achilles lives with the ease of someone that knows his place in the world, and his place is at the side of death. He is history's greatest warrior. In the Iliad, Homer frequently decorates Achilles' name with an honorific - "godlike Achilles" or "brilliant Achilles". The epithets become part of his name. 

Achilles is the virtuoso of warfare, its Michael Jordan, Shakespeare, and Beethoven. Like any young virtuoso, Achilles is self-centered and petulant. He shuns duty and discipline. But he does have fierce love for his comrades, mistresses, and friends. It is hard to love him or to hate him.

I had low expectations before watching "Troy" - Hollywoods high-budget attempt to adapt the Iliad to the big screen. Indeed, the purists will be frustrated. Major themes from the Iliad are completely missing. Deathless Greek heros of legend are killed off. 

But where the movie shines is in Brad Pitt's portrayal of Achilles. The audience is privileged with plenty of face time with literature's first and greatest bad boy. In the portrayal of Achilles and his clash with authority, represented by a burly King Agamemnon, the charm of the Iliad shines through. This is not a replacement for the Iliad, but it is delicious accompaniment. 

By condensing the epic of the Iliad to a smaller, more human narrative following Achilles, Troy succeeds where unlimited ambition may have failed. 

The special effects look notably dated in a post-300, post-Immortals world. I was dissapointed by the lack of the Gods - the Gods look so amazing in Immortals. I suspect they were left out for the practical reasons of budget and execution risk. Again, by staying modest in scope, Troy is able to execute well. 

I give it four stars. 

The Odyssey of the West

I'm listening to the wonderful audiobook series The Odyssey of the West. The first installment deals with the three ancient civilizations with the biggest influence on the West: the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans. I'm about 2/3rds done - I have yet to listen to the lectures on the Romans. 

From the Hebrews we get the Hebrew bible, and later Christianity. It is the basis of much of our moral ideas - compassion for the poor and elderly, empathy through the Golden Rule, and personal moderation. It comes to us with a radical egalitarian worldview. Beggars, women, slaves, rich men, and public officials are equal in the eyes of the Christian god. When the son of god comes to earth, he lives in poverty. It is easy to see how the roots of classical liberalism grew from the Christian gospel.

From the Greeks, we get the idea of excellence, or Arete (a - rit- tay). Any American is familiar with the concept. During a football game when a quarterback whips the ball through a narrow gap between two defenders and into the waiting hands of his teammate for a score and the crowd roars in approval - that is Arete. Americans worship Arete almost as intensely as the Greeks. 

At first Arete was a marshall concept, excellence in warfare, but it grew to include all aspects of society. First the Greeks invented theatre, and then hosted playwriting contests that produced some of the most profound theatre of all time. That is Arete. Arete is embodied in the Olympic games, in sculpture, in philosophy, in mathematics, and in rhetoric. To the Greeks, anything worth doing was worth doing well. Personal excellence was an end in itself. 

Concern for individual liberty and democracy also comes to us from the Greeks. The high water marke for Greek civilization was their defeat of the vastly superior army of the Persian empire. Herodotus (the world's first historian, a Greek) believed the Greeks won because their soldiers were free men while the Persians were nominally slaves to their king. Americans used similar propaganda during the wars of the 20th century.

And from Rome, we get Romanitas. Marshall vigor, hard work, honesty, duty and patriotism are values of the Romans as outlined by Cicero in the waning days of the Republic. The Republican Roman ideal of the citizen/soldier/farmer had deep influence over the early American psyche. As in the period of the Roman empire, these ideals have faded. But it would be a mistake to draw too close of a parallel between Rome and ourselves for the purpose of weaving a narrative of decline. The American mind is similar, but also quite different from that of the Romans. One huge difference is that we are a commercial nation, descendants of island British traders, and Rome was not. Commerce, combined with Christianity, has a profound leveling effect on society. We like to complain about economic inequality today, but in Rome it was truly breathtaking on a scale that is hard for us to imagine.

I've also listened to some of the later lectures in this series. They work well out of order. The material is not well-organized. You never know if a lecture will be a review of a Shakespeare play or an overview of 50 years of history. But they do go in chronological order, and each lecture is interesting and high-quality throughout. 

My Book List - 2012

What I've read so far this year. I rated each book according to the standards of its own genre. 5/5 means that everyone who enjoys the genre should read this. 3/5 has flaws, balanced by virtues. 1s and 2s aren't worth your time, but 2s have some redeeming qualities.

1. Confidence Men - Ron Suskind (4/5). A behind the scenes look at the first two years of the Obama White House. Caused major revision of my idea of the working of a presidential administration. 
2. A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin (5/5). The best fantasy novel I can remember. Martin creates a dense, dark, compelling world drawing heavy inspiration from historical sources. 
3. A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin (4/5)
4. A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin (4/5)
5. The Great Divorce - C.S. Lewis (4/5). A man travels to the after life, and C.S. Lewis uses the story to highlight some of the more beautiful concepts of Christian theology. 
6. The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis (3/5). Some good points and nice phrases, but ultimately the essay is limited by its structure as a critique and rebuttal of an absent textbook. 
7. Paradise Lost - John Milton. Only a fool would rate one of the great classics of English literature on a 5 point scale. A dense, epic narration of the story of the fall of man characterized by unforgettable imagery and immortal lines. A tough read for a modern with limited attention span. 
8. Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely (3/5). A gentle introduction to Behavioral Economics. The book could use a bit more of a backbone. Most of it is recitation of experimental results in a pleasing informal style. It is at its most interesting in the rare moments when Ariely dares to wax philosophical about the implications of BE.  
9. How the Irish saved civilization - Thomas Cahill (5/5). A surprising delight. My favorite book of the year so far. Anyone interested in Roman, Medieval, Irish, or church history should pick this up
10. The Peace War - Vernor Vinge (3/5)
11. Marooned in Real Time - Vernor Vinge (4/5). These two Vinge books form a series. The second is a murder mystery set 50 million years in the future that grapples with Vinge's theories surrounding the exponential increase of prosperity and the resultant singularity. The first is a decent setup for the second. 
12. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (4/5). Twilight meets Enders Game. The most brutal Young Adult novel I know of. 
13. Girl on Fire - Suzanne Collins (2/5). Book 2 in the Hunger Games trilogy. The quality falls off, but  you can keep on reading if you loved the first one.  
14. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins (2/5). Book 3 of the Hunger Games trilogy.

Actively in process:

1. The Bible - New International Version. I've never read it all the way through. It's fascinating to read it and realize how different the ancient values and worldview of the Israelites are from our own.  
2. The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris.
3. Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Blake
4. Confessions - St. Augustine 
5. Ecce Homo - Friedrich Nietzsche
6. The Innovator's Dilema -  Clayton Christensen

The Hunger Games - Book Review

I started and finished “The Hunger Games” trilogy this weekend. It has the gritty teenage violence that fans of “Ender’s Game” will love and an improbable love triangle that “Twilight” fans will obsess over. It is written in a breezy style that nobody should find challenging. In other words, it was engineered to be a blockbuster. And popular it is - a big-budget movie adaptation is hitting screens less than four years after the first volume was published.

From the perspective of a young male reader, the action too often halts for a rehashing of the love triangle. When we embark on yet another trip around the hamster wheel which is Katniss Everdeen’s brain running in circles over boys my eyes automatically shift into skim mode. But the author’s sense of pacing saves the day. When my patience starts to wear out, Katniss snaps out of her romantic stupor long enough to put an arrow through somebody’s throat. Suzanne Collins is mindful of serving her bimodal audience consisting of action-craving boys and boy-crazed girls.

The books are incredibly gory. Contestants in the games are killed by an endless array of explosion, electrocution, trident, arrow, axe, sword, bee sting, poison, fire, drowning, acid, beast, and too many other ways to remember. It's fun and disturbing to cheer on the shy Katniss as she grows into a killer. The movie budget must have a eye-popping line item devoted to buckets of blood and rancid flesh. And it is a relentlessly bleak story. Katniss is repeatedly disillusioned and abused. All her supports prove to be ephemeral as her friends betray her with a hidden dark side or otherwise are killed without ceremony. By the end of the series, I was forced to like the protagonist out of sheer pity. The Hunger Games contain the most abuse of a main character since Elie Wiesel's “Night”.

Politics and culture in The Hunger Games is shallow. The political system underlying the world of the Hunger Games is self-evidently evil and designed to be so. When she’s not in the world of kill-or-be-killed that is the eponymous games, the system that created and supports the hunger games is Katniss’s major enemy. There is little nuance or food for thought in the political realm but this is dystopia, after all. The most provocative scenes show ordinary citizens of the capitol who are fans of the bloody games without being conscious the moral evil they are supporting. People in many historical nations have been  complicit in similar evils, and it is easy to do so today if we are not careful.

The first book is clearly the best of the three - it most purely captures the creative vision behind The Hunger Games. But the series doesn’t die to sequel syndrome as it could. The second and third books wander for a bit, but they ultimately culminate in a satisfying ending.

Fans of dystopian sci-fi should pick up “The Hunger Games” to read on a long plane flight. It is a mass-market book and it shows, but it has many redeeming qualities.

Oh, and count me on team Peeta!