Exploring the Yogasutra is not for the novice. Daniel Raveh's exploration mainly addresses the psychology and epistemology underlying Pantanjali's Yogasutra; but he also discusses the difficulties of translation, particularly translating an ancient text in a dead language of a foreign culture into a modern idiom. One can hardly expect that the original meanings of the words will be replicated simply and concisely in a modern language; however, one might hope that if the ideas under discussion are eternal and universal truths that any relatively well-developed language would provide some way of expressing those ideas. Since there clearly are difficulties in translating the Yogasutra, one is led to conclude either that it does not reach what is eternal and universal in human experience or that our manner of understanding human experience is variable and requires a more or less significant reframing of how we understand experience. Anyone remotely sympathetic to comparative religion will opt for the latter explanation and seek help in reframing experience. Raveh's book attempts to illuminate the assumptions about the structure of mind that are required for this reframing in order to appreciate yogic processes and yogic knowledge.
The most significant assumption is that mental activity is associated with two concepts: prakriti and purusa. Raveh defines prakriti as "the manifest and nonmanifest dimensions of the world and worldly existence." In contrast, purusa is the metaphysical core of the self. Typically, Western psychology would associate mental activity with the latter and see the former as the external cause of mental phenomena; however, the Yogasutra and likely the entire yogic tradition, understands mental activity to be part of, or operating within, prakriti. Consequently, a higher yogic truth (or "truth-bearing yogic insight") can only be revealed when the yogi brings about a cessation of mental activity.
Raveh makes an important contribution to the epistemology of yoga when he compares two sutras of the Yogasutra. His observation helps us understand the nature of yogic knowledge that is made possible when mental activity ceases. Raveh translates Yoga Sutra 1.7 as "valid knowledge is based on sense perception, inference and reliable testimony." Here, Raveh notes that "valid knowledge" is based on mental activity that lies within prakriti. It is conventional knowledge. He then translates Yoga Sutra 1.49 as "(ritam-bhara prajna or truth-bearing yogic insight) is essentially different from knowledge based on reliable testimony and inference as it touches on particulars." Notably, truth-bearing yogic insight is not said to be essentially different from sense perception. Raveh concludes that truth-bearing yogic insight is like sense perception as they both "touch on particulars," but it is different in that it does not operate within the realm of prakriti. Together, these two sutras provide us with an understanding of the form of knowledge that the yogi seeks: a direct perception of particulars that are not of the manifest or nonmanifest dimensions of the world or worldly existence.
To achieve yogic knowledge, Pantanjali recommends a path composed of "eight limbs." The eight limbs are yama (ethical restraints), niyama (personal discipline), asana (yogic postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal from the sense world), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (total meditative absorption). According to Pantanjali, by following this path -- particularly by practicing the final three stages of meditation -- the yogi can achieve a final and irreversible escape from the delusion and suffering that is this world.
The final chapter of Exploring the Yogasutra is not written by Raveh, but by Daya Krishna (1924-2007), author of Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective. Raveh is deeply impressed with Daya Krishna's treatment of Pantanjali's Yogasutra. It is Daya Krishna's approach to the Yogasutra which motivates Raveh's work. The most important insight that Daya Krishna provides is that samadhi cannot be the ultimate goal of the yogi. Samadhi is commonly understood as an ultimate, unworldly state that is irreversible. Following Daya Krishna, Raveh points out that entering a state in which one cannot return is a limitation on the freedom of the yogi, and that perfect freedom requires that the yogi be capable of both entering and returning from samadhi (or the meditative state that is samadhi, save its irreversibility.)
This view prompts two observations, the first of which Raveh does not seem to take seriously. First, samadhi should be understood as a meditative state which cannot be achieved perfectly in practice; second, the motivation to return from samadhi appears to be similar to the motivations of the Buddhist bodhisattva. The first two states of meditation, dharana and dhyana, clearly seem to admit of degrees of achievement. One can concentrate on external objects more or less effectively and one can more or less focus on one's mental processes. If one accepts that samadhi is a state in which one becomes more or less unaware of the distinction between the subject and the object of meditation, then irreversible samadhi is merely the limit that the yogi may approach, but not fully achieve, in the final stage of meditation (samadhi). On this account, samadhi is both an irreversible state that one does not achieve and a meditative state beyond dhyana that yogis can experience. The goal remains irreversible samadhi or total meditative absorption, but pursuing this goal does not preclude the return of actual yogis from the state of samadhi.
The second obvious observation is that Daya Krishna (and Raveh) appear to be reprising the reformation that took place in the Buddhist tradition when Mahayana Buddhism broke from Buddhism's early form. The yogi who exercises freedom by returning from the state of samadhi is like the bodhisattva, who renounces perfect enlightenment to bring salvation to all sentient beings. Raveh recognizes that the Yogasutra stands as evidence that Patanjali himself must have recognized the value of returning to enlighten others. The Yogasutra is, after all, a guidebook to yogic knowledge.
Exploring the Yogasutra is not easy reading. This is due mostly to Raveh's frequent use of Sanskrit terms without providing the necessary context for understanding them. It is a curious feature in that Raveh is acutely aware of the difficulties in translation. It is almost as though he is writing for an extremely erudite audience or he has simply given up on the difficult work of translation. Perhaps a little of both is true.
Finally, Raveh provide us with a highly readable translation of the Yogasutra, presented without interpolated commentary. Despite its textual difficulties, Exploring the Yogasutra is a work well worth reading.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Friday, March 8, 2013
The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans / Mark Lynas -- London: Fourth Estate, 2011.
In 2007, Mark Lynas published a brilliant book entitled Six Degrees (reviewed in this blog). In it, he presented in a clear and readable format, the consequences of a warming planet. Each chapter described the scientific research that predicted the effects of an additional centigrade degree of global warming, up to a six degree warming. Currently, there is a debate in the scientific community about whether we can prevent the planet from warming more than two degrees centigrade. It is likely that we will not be able to keep the increase below two degrees and four degrees is frighteningly possible. Lynas's book provides a clear picture of what is at stake. While we may have to suffer a two degree increase, a concerted effort to curb our greenhouse gas emissions can prevent a four degree increase which will make a huge difference to the well-being of future generations.
Based on the strength of Lynas's Six Degrees, I had high hopes for his 2011 book, The God Species. I also understood that he had joined a faction of environmentalists that has parted ways with the mainstream opinion among environmentalists. So I hoped his work would offer constructive challenges to how I thought about the strategies for mitigating our unfolding environmental crises. To a limited extent, I was not disappointed, but Lynas's main thesis is not generally well-established. Lynas attempts to argue that because our species has fundamentally changed the planet's ecology, we must now accept responsibility for "our new task of consciously managing the planet." This involves a number of traditional conservation measures, but more to his point, it involves embracing a number of technological solutions to environmental threats or "geo-engineering." It also endorses a strategy of continued economic growth which Lynas believes is important both to developing the necessary mitigating technologies and to persuading a growth-hungry public to support mitigating efforts.
The work is organized around nine "planetary boundaries," a term coined by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center. The boundaries are natural limits which we must not cross, lest we push the planet into a state which will not support life. Specifically, they are (1) the biodiversity boundary, (2) the climate change boundary, (3) the nitrogen boundary, (4) the land use boundary, (5) the fresh water boundary, (6) the toxics boundary, (7) the aerosols boundary, (8) the ocean acidification boundary, and (9) the ozone layer boundary. According to Lynas's research, we have already passed the first three boundaries and must find ways to quickly return to within these boundaries. Two of the boundaries -- the toxics boundary and the aerosols boundary -- cannot be sufficiently quantified at this point to know whether we have crossed them. Encouragingly, Lynas believes that we have not yet crossed the others, but that we are in danger of doing so.
To better understand the notion of a planetary boundary, consider the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Currently there are approximately 390 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is now well-understood that we must reduce this figure to at least 350 parts per million if we are to avoid a change to the ecosystem that will spell disaster for human civilization and possibly life on the planet. 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is the planetary climate change boundary.
Each of Lynas's descriptions of the nine boundaries are replete with sobering scientific research, emphasizing what is at stake. In that respect, The God Species is a lot like Six Degrees, but Lynas's main purpose in writing this book is not so much to alert us to these dangers, but to suggest what we might do to remain on the safe side of the boundaries, and as I a mentioned earlier, the solutions involve embracing technological advances. He discusses four at some length: nuclear power, genetically modifying crops, injecting sulfates into the upper stratosphere, and pouring alkaline substances into the ocean.
Lynas stongly and repeatedly promotes making a quick transition to nuclear power. He argues that the "Greens" opposition to nuclear power is unjustified and is as misguided and anti-scientific as the attitudes of climate change deniers. This is perhaps the most useful contribution he makes in The God Species. While his arguments may not be completely convincing, they are strong enough to unsettle settled opinion on the topic of nuclear energy. Given the enormous and growing threat of carbon pollution, it may be wise to re-examine the role of nuclear power in the planet's energy future. Certainly many responsible scientists and environmentalists are coming around to this opinion, most notably James Hansen and George Monbiot, but also James Lovelock, Barry Brook, Gwyneth Cravens, and Patrick Moore.
His advocacy of genetically modified crops (and genetic engineering generally) is less persuasive. Lynas believes genetic engineering will help solve the problem of feeding our growing human population, while not contaminating the planet's water with excess nitrogen. Unfortunately, the track record of genetically modified crops is not long enough to really understand its dangers, and while significant dangers might not have become apparent yet, the very notion of making drastic and quick changes in the genes of long-evolved organisms (or creating new organisms from scratch) invites disaster from the law of unintended consequences. The same is true for Lynas's two other geo-engineering fixes. Lynas is correct in noting that we have already been engaged in accidental geo-engineering with the massive release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Indeed, the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution threaten to ruin us, but it borders on the reckless to suggest that we understand the complexities of Earth systems sufficiently to avoid equally or even more disastrous unintended consequences that might result from an intentional and concerted effort to change Earth systems.
To a large extent, Lynas's prescription for mitigation is in line with the views of Bjorn Lomborg who has advocated continued, even accelerated, economic growth on the theory that a richer future society will be better equipped to solve environmental (particularly climate change) problems. His argument depends on the claims that economic growth will increase faster than our emerging environmental problems. This seems highly dubious. First, it disregards the likely phenomenon of "tipping points" that would quickly launch the Earth into a new and drastically different physical state -- one to which we or our civilization will not be adapted. Second, it relies upon continuing economic growth that is similar to what we have seen in the past. Given that we are reaching the limits of our natural resources and given that we will be seeing increased economic disruption due to resource scarcity and climate change, the likelihood that economic growth will continue as it has is doubtful. All that is necessary is for the climate change to slightly out pace economic growth for our current crisis to become soon unsolvable. Lomborg misunderstands that "growth" must be replaced by "sustainability" as the supreme economic value as we approach planetary boundaries.
Lynas appears to follow Lomborg on this score. He is an unapologetic booster of expensive technological fixes and he emphasizes the importance of economic growth in finding solutions. Lynas is a critic of socialism and endorses "market solutions." Most of all, he believes that pretty much any mitigation strategy that requires social or cultural transformations will fail. He appears to believe that certain market forces act, in effect, like laws of nature, and that we must recognize this in our mitigation plans.
So for example, to remain on the safe side of the water boundary, Lynas recommends privatizing water resources. He claims that public water systems are corrupt and inefficient, and that private systems provide water to populations more effectively. He provides little support for these claims. Corruption in the public sector is, of course, problematic. Many public officials will use their position for personal gain, but the use of resources for private gain is the very essence of the private sector. Simply because the legal system accords private actors the license to personally gain from the distribution of resources does not make it morally legitimate, particularly when these resources are essential for human survival. Private sector business as usual is effectively the legitimization of public corruption. See post-soviet Russia as an undisguised exmple of this.
Regarding the inefficiency of public utilities, one must look into the goals of the utility. Fred Pearce reiterates a well-established point in his excellent book When Rivers Run Dry (reviewed in this blog), when he notes that "water flows uphill to money." That is, in an unregulated market, water resources will be trucked, flown, sailed, and piped to the whatever wealthy market will purchase them, leaving the poor without. If the point of the water utility is to deliver water resources to those who can best cover the cost of delivery, then a private system is more efficient. If the point is to ensure water-sufficiency to all sectors of a population, then a regulated system is necessary.
Lynas's enthusiasm for technological fixes is born of his appreciation for science. His desire to make sure that mitigation strategies are firmly rooted in the best science available is extremely laudable. Indeed sound science is essential to successful mitigation strategies. No serious observer would disagree. Where Lynas goes astray is in limiting the options for mitigation strategies to those which he believes the public will accept. Once he has done that -- once he has assumed that cultural and social norms are like laws of nature -- he is driven to seek drastic and potentially very dangerous technological solutions. To make his case, he must downplay their risks
Nothing makes this point more clearly than his dismissal of vegetarianism. In a ten page section entitled, "Meat and Energy," Lynas devotes less than a single paragraph to reducing our meat consumption. He writes, "campaigners are on to a loser if they try to convince people...to convert en masse to vegetarianism....People's desire to eat more meat as they grow more wealthy is so deeply embedded in most cultures...that it is not something that is amendable to outside influence." Lynas's appreciation for science doesn't seem to extend to the social sciences. Changes to cultural and social norms and to social, political, and economic institutions are commonplace. Lynas is perhaps too young to remember the days when vegetarianism was so unheard of in the U.S. and Europe that virtually no restaurant offered a vegetarian entree. Today, it is rare to find such restaurants and many wholly vegetarian restaurants are flourishing. Just a couple decades ago, catered business lunches and conferences would not include a vegetarian entree and airlines would offer only meat on their flights. Now, vegetarians are accommodated. These changes have taken place despite significant government subsides for the meat industry and vigorous marketing efforts by that industry. No similar support has ever existed for vegetarianism and yet vegetarianism is becoming more and more common in the U.S. and Europe.
Just as there are tipping points in the progress of natural phenomena, there are tipping points in social, economic, and political phenomena -- perhaps even more so. Consider, for example, the French and Russian revolutions, the Arab Spring, the reaction to the Tet Offensive in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and fads and fashions of all sorts. If the 100 most prominent environmentalist (including Lynas) came out forcefully in favor of vegetarianism and made clear the extent to which meat consumption is pushing us toward trespassing the biodiversity, climate change, nitrogen, water, land use, and toxics boundaries, it could easily make vegetarianism a de rigueur practice among environmentalists. This might well push us over a cultural tipping point that would dramatically reduce meat consumption; but given the significant impact that meat eating has on the environment, it would not take an "en masse" conversion of the population to yield important benefits. Furthermore, our diet is central to our daily lives. So becoming vegetarian for the sake of environmental concerns will transform many people's self-image and the importance they place on othr environmentally beneficial actions.
Government support for vegetarianism would also be made easier to institute. For many years (particularly beginning with policy put in place by Richard Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz), the federal Farm Bill has privileged big agribusiness. Butz's mantra was "get big or get out." The result of this was a huge expansion of land devoted to animal feed crop, making meat production artificially inexpensive. Increased recognition of the damage that meat eating does will make removing these feed production subsidies and instituting financial disincentives much easier, resulting in rising meat prices and a further shift toward vegetarianism. Given what's at stake, it's hard to understand why Lynas does not advocate this. In contrast, he does advocate a law banning palm oil biofuels that are produced on Malaysian and Indonesian plantations that wer formerly rain forests. Why such laws should protect Malaysia and Indonesia and not Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska is left unexplained.
Vegetarianism is not the only opportunity that Lynas misses. He is surprisingly dismissive of efforts to control our population, claiming that the only measures that have successfully curbed population growth are economic progress and authoritarian prohibitions. None of this is clear. There is certainly a correlation between economic progress and birth rate reductions in Europe and North America, but many other factors might be involved in the trend. Ready availability to birth control, the presence of a social safety net, and the education and liberation of women come immediately to mind. Only the social safety net depends in part on economic development, but even there, with a more egalitarian, less plutocratic society, a basic social safety net can be established. Lynas asserts that the number of children that one chooses to have is "an intensely personal" matter. This may well be true, but so too is the habitability of one's planet intensely personal.
Lynas's The God Species is an important work in that it publicizes important "planetary boundaries" that we have either crossed or appear to be about to cross. While each of these boundaries has been describe in greater detail in other works, bringing them all together in a single volume ensures that we do not get too fixated on one and neglect the others. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of understanding their interrelationships. Lynas's advocacy of mitigating strategies that have been more or less taboo among environmentalists is also a welcome addition to the debate. Unfortunately, his views are much too limited. He fails to recognize the flexibility of cultural and social norms and the role that they can and must play in addressing the our environmental challenges. Consequently, he reaches for a number of potentially dangerous technical "solutions" to our crises. Geo-engineering programs may well be something we will need to implement, but we need to understand that some are certainly harmless, while others are desparate throws of the dice. Much can and must be done before we toss those dice.
Based on the strength of Lynas's Six Degrees, I had high hopes for his 2011 book, The God Species. I also understood that he had joined a faction of environmentalists that has parted ways with the mainstream opinion among environmentalists. So I hoped his work would offer constructive challenges to how I thought about the strategies for mitigating our unfolding environmental crises. To a limited extent, I was not disappointed, but Lynas's main thesis is not generally well-established. Lynas attempts to argue that because our species has fundamentally changed the planet's ecology, we must now accept responsibility for "our new task of consciously managing the planet." This involves a number of traditional conservation measures, but more to his point, it involves embracing a number of technological solutions to environmental threats or "geo-engineering." It also endorses a strategy of continued economic growth which Lynas believes is important both to developing the necessary mitigating technologies and to persuading a growth-hungry public to support mitigating efforts.
The work is organized around nine "planetary boundaries," a term coined by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center. The boundaries are natural limits which we must not cross, lest we push the planet into a state which will not support life. Specifically, they are (1) the biodiversity boundary, (2) the climate change boundary, (3) the nitrogen boundary, (4) the land use boundary, (5) the fresh water boundary, (6) the toxics boundary, (7) the aerosols boundary, (8) the ocean acidification boundary, and (9) the ozone layer boundary. According to Lynas's research, we have already passed the first three boundaries and must find ways to quickly return to within these boundaries. Two of the boundaries -- the toxics boundary and the aerosols boundary -- cannot be sufficiently quantified at this point to know whether we have crossed them. Encouragingly, Lynas believes that we have not yet crossed the others, but that we are in danger of doing so.
To better understand the notion of a planetary boundary, consider the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Currently there are approximately 390 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is now well-understood that we must reduce this figure to at least 350 parts per million if we are to avoid a change to the ecosystem that will spell disaster for human civilization and possibly life on the planet. 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is the planetary climate change boundary.
Each of Lynas's descriptions of the nine boundaries are replete with sobering scientific research, emphasizing what is at stake. In that respect, The God Species is a lot like Six Degrees, but Lynas's main purpose in writing this book is not so much to alert us to these dangers, but to suggest what we might do to remain on the safe side of the boundaries, and as I a mentioned earlier, the solutions involve embracing technological advances. He discusses four at some length: nuclear power, genetically modifying crops, injecting sulfates into the upper stratosphere, and pouring alkaline substances into the ocean.
Lynas stongly and repeatedly promotes making a quick transition to nuclear power. He argues that the "Greens" opposition to nuclear power is unjustified and is as misguided and anti-scientific as the attitudes of climate change deniers. This is perhaps the most useful contribution he makes in The God Species. While his arguments may not be completely convincing, they are strong enough to unsettle settled opinion on the topic of nuclear energy. Given the enormous and growing threat of carbon pollution, it may be wise to re-examine the role of nuclear power in the planet's energy future. Certainly many responsible scientists and environmentalists are coming around to this opinion, most notably James Hansen and George Monbiot, but also James Lovelock, Barry Brook, Gwyneth Cravens, and Patrick Moore.
His advocacy of genetically modified crops (and genetic engineering generally) is less persuasive. Lynas believes genetic engineering will help solve the problem of feeding our growing human population, while not contaminating the planet's water with excess nitrogen. Unfortunately, the track record of genetically modified crops is not long enough to really understand its dangers, and while significant dangers might not have become apparent yet, the very notion of making drastic and quick changes in the genes of long-evolved organisms (or creating new organisms from scratch) invites disaster from the law of unintended consequences. The same is true for Lynas's two other geo-engineering fixes. Lynas is correct in noting that we have already been engaged in accidental geo-engineering with the massive release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Indeed, the unintended consequences of the industrial revolution threaten to ruin us, but it borders on the reckless to suggest that we understand the complexities of Earth systems sufficiently to avoid equally or even more disastrous unintended consequences that might result from an intentional and concerted effort to change Earth systems.
To a large extent, Lynas's prescription for mitigation is in line with the views of Bjorn Lomborg who has advocated continued, even accelerated, economic growth on the theory that a richer future society will be better equipped to solve environmental (particularly climate change) problems. His argument depends on the claims that economic growth will increase faster than our emerging environmental problems. This seems highly dubious. First, it disregards the likely phenomenon of "tipping points" that would quickly launch the Earth into a new and drastically different physical state -- one to which we or our civilization will not be adapted. Second, it relies upon continuing economic growth that is similar to what we have seen in the past. Given that we are reaching the limits of our natural resources and given that we will be seeing increased economic disruption due to resource scarcity and climate change, the likelihood that economic growth will continue as it has is doubtful. All that is necessary is for the climate change to slightly out pace economic growth for our current crisis to become soon unsolvable. Lomborg misunderstands that "growth" must be replaced by "sustainability" as the supreme economic value as we approach planetary boundaries.
Lynas appears to follow Lomborg on this score. He is an unapologetic booster of expensive technological fixes and he emphasizes the importance of economic growth in finding solutions. Lynas is a critic of socialism and endorses "market solutions." Most of all, he believes that pretty much any mitigation strategy that requires social or cultural transformations will fail. He appears to believe that certain market forces act, in effect, like laws of nature, and that we must recognize this in our mitigation plans.
So for example, to remain on the safe side of the water boundary, Lynas recommends privatizing water resources. He claims that public water systems are corrupt and inefficient, and that private systems provide water to populations more effectively. He provides little support for these claims. Corruption in the public sector is, of course, problematic. Many public officials will use their position for personal gain, but the use of resources for private gain is the very essence of the private sector. Simply because the legal system accords private actors the license to personally gain from the distribution of resources does not make it morally legitimate, particularly when these resources are essential for human survival. Private sector business as usual is effectively the legitimization of public corruption. See post-soviet Russia as an undisguised exmple of this.
Regarding the inefficiency of public utilities, one must look into the goals of the utility. Fred Pearce reiterates a well-established point in his excellent book When Rivers Run Dry (reviewed in this blog), when he notes that "water flows uphill to money." That is, in an unregulated market, water resources will be trucked, flown, sailed, and piped to the whatever wealthy market will purchase them, leaving the poor without. If the point of the water utility is to deliver water resources to those who can best cover the cost of delivery, then a private system is more efficient. If the point is to ensure water-sufficiency to all sectors of a population, then a regulated system is necessary.
Lynas's enthusiasm for technological fixes is born of his appreciation for science. His desire to make sure that mitigation strategies are firmly rooted in the best science available is extremely laudable. Indeed sound science is essential to successful mitigation strategies. No serious observer would disagree. Where Lynas goes astray is in limiting the options for mitigation strategies to those which he believes the public will accept. Once he has done that -- once he has assumed that cultural and social norms are like laws of nature -- he is driven to seek drastic and potentially very dangerous technological solutions. To make his case, he must downplay their risks
Nothing makes this point more clearly than his dismissal of vegetarianism. In a ten page section entitled, "Meat and Energy," Lynas devotes less than a single paragraph to reducing our meat consumption. He writes, "campaigners are on to a loser if they try to convince people...to convert en masse to vegetarianism....People's desire to eat more meat as they grow more wealthy is so deeply embedded in most cultures...that it is not something that is amendable to outside influence." Lynas's appreciation for science doesn't seem to extend to the social sciences. Changes to cultural and social norms and to social, political, and economic institutions are commonplace. Lynas is perhaps too young to remember the days when vegetarianism was so unheard of in the U.S. and Europe that virtually no restaurant offered a vegetarian entree. Today, it is rare to find such restaurants and many wholly vegetarian restaurants are flourishing. Just a couple decades ago, catered business lunches and conferences would not include a vegetarian entree and airlines would offer only meat on their flights. Now, vegetarians are accommodated. These changes have taken place despite significant government subsides for the meat industry and vigorous marketing efforts by that industry. No similar support has ever existed for vegetarianism and yet vegetarianism is becoming more and more common in the U.S. and Europe.
Just as there are tipping points in the progress of natural phenomena, there are tipping points in social, economic, and political phenomena -- perhaps even more so. Consider, for example, the French and Russian revolutions, the Arab Spring, the reaction to the Tet Offensive in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and fads and fashions of all sorts. If the 100 most prominent environmentalist (including Lynas) came out forcefully in favor of vegetarianism and made clear the extent to which meat consumption is pushing us toward trespassing the biodiversity, climate change, nitrogen, water, land use, and toxics boundaries, it could easily make vegetarianism a de rigueur practice among environmentalists. This might well push us over a cultural tipping point that would dramatically reduce meat consumption; but given the significant impact that meat eating has on the environment, it would not take an "en masse" conversion of the population to yield important benefits. Furthermore, our diet is central to our daily lives. So becoming vegetarian for the sake of environmental concerns will transform many people's self-image and the importance they place on othr environmentally beneficial actions.
Government support for vegetarianism would also be made easier to institute. For many years (particularly beginning with policy put in place by Richard Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz), the federal Farm Bill has privileged big agribusiness. Butz's mantra was "get big or get out." The result of this was a huge expansion of land devoted to animal feed crop, making meat production artificially inexpensive. Increased recognition of the damage that meat eating does will make removing these feed production subsidies and instituting financial disincentives much easier, resulting in rising meat prices and a further shift toward vegetarianism. Given what's at stake, it's hard to understand why Lynas does not advocate this. In contrast, he does advocate a law banning palm oil biofuels that are produced on Malaysian and Indonesian plantations that wer formerly rain forests. Why such laws should protect Malaysia and Indonesia and not Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska is left unexplained.
Vegetarianism is not the only opportunity that Lynas misses. He is surprisingly dismissive of efforts to control our population, claiming that the only measures that have successfully curbed population growth are economic progress and authoritarian prohibitions. None of this is clear. There is certainly a correlation between economic progress and birth rate reductions in Europe and North America, but many other factors might be involved in the trend. Ready availability to birth control, the presence of a social safety net, and the education and liberation of women come immediately to mind. Only the social safety net depends in part on economic development, but even there, with a more egalitarian, less plutocratic society, a basic social safety net can be established. Lynas asserts that the number of children that one chooses to have is "an intensely personal" matter. This may well be true, but so too is the habitability of one's planet intensely personal.
Lynas's The God Species is an important work in that it publicizes important "planetary boundaries" that we have either crossed or appear to be about to cross. While each of these boundaries has been describe in greater detail in other works, bringing them all together in a single volume ensures that we do not get too fixated on one and neglect the others. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of understanding their interrelationships. Lynas's advocacy of mitigating strategies that have been more or less taboo among environmentalists is also a welcome addition to the debate. Unfortunately, his views are much too limited. He fails to recognize the flexibility of cultural and social norms and the role that they can and must play in addressing the our environmental challenges. Consequently, he reaches for a number of potentially dangerous technical "solutions" to our crises. Geo-engineering programs may well be something we will need to implement, but we need to understand that some are certainly harmless, while others are desparate throws of the dice. Much can and must be done before we toss those dice.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters / Susan Wolf with commentary by John Koethe, Robert M. Adams, Nomy Arpaly, and Jonathan Haidt -- Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010
"What is the meaning of life" is one of the most cliched philosophical questions, but upon reflection it seems to be rather ill-formed. Picking out a single word and inquiring into its meaning would, of course, be intelligible, as in "what is the meaning of 'life?'" but to suggest that something so broad as living could have a meaning is more troublesome. At very least, it suggests that one might be able to gain a transcendent perspective on life -- to know "why we are here" or "what God's plan is for us." Despite popular impressions, serious philosophical inquiry tends to reject this sort of speculation; however, Susan Wolf's book, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, brings meaning to the question by examining what it is to live a life that is worthwhile. In essence, she asks, "what is it to live a meaningful life?"
The answer she gives is not, in the main, prescriptive. Instead she sketches the form in which a life might be judged meaningful. Perhaps the most interesting contribution she makes to the question is identifying a reason for action that is almost always missed by philosophers when we ask about human motivations. Typically, philosophers have understood people to act either purely out of self-interest (or self-gratification) or out of both self-interest and moral impulses. This has led philosophers to conclude that a meaningful life is either one that makes the individual happy or one which fulfills our moral obligations or perhaps some combination of the two. Wolf points out that many of our actions do not neatly fit into one or the other of these categories. Many of our actions are done "out of love." She presents a perfect example of this by describing the night in which she stayed up late to sew the wings onto her daughter's butterfly costume. She very much would have preferred to be in bed and she did not feel a moral obligation to make the costume, but because of her love for her daughter she sewed the costume.
For Wolf, a meaningful life is one that must include acting out of love. She writes, "meaning arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way." Upon analysing this formula, Wolf observes that it contains a subjective element and an objective element. The subjective element is relatively unproblematic. Living a meaningful life will generate a sense of satisfaction. It is the objective element that presents questions. Wolf illustrates this by considering the life of a woman who is so attached to her goldfish that she spends all of her time and energy caring for it and interacting with it. She claims that the fish is the only being that understands her. While she gains genuine satisfaction from her goldfish, Wolf judges her life not to be meaningful, because a goldfish is not the sort of thing that is worthy of this sort of attention. Wolf recognizes that she is in danger of advancing an elitist conception of meaning, but believes that we have a sufficient understanding of what is and what is not objectively worthy to recognize the attribute.
Wolf's initial presentation of her views encompasses the first 63 pages of the volume. It is then followed by brief comments from four writers: John Koethe, Robert M. Adams, Nomy Arpaly, and Jonathan Haidt. Koethe and Adams largely accept Wolf's account. Koethe probes details related to the objective portion of Wolf's view. He asks, however, if it is necessary that a meaningful life objectively succeed in its endeavors. Is a valiant failure a meaningful life? Conversely, Adams probes the details related to the subjective aspect, suggesting that feelings of satisfaction may be irrelevant to a meaningful life. In contrast to these more friendly questions, Arpaly and Haidt find her treatment of objectivity wanting. They suggest that objectivity may not be necessary. Arpaly argues that if an individual finds subjective fulfillment in his or her life, that is enough to call it meaningful. She points out that Wolf's examples of people who find their lives satisfied by trivial pursuits are in fact non-existent and if there are such people, they in all likelihood have cognitive or emotional limitations that preclude them from being bored by trivial pursuits. Finally, Haidt emphasizes the idea of vital engagement, characterized by the experience of "flow." According to Haidt, vital engagement is what is essential to living a meaningful life and any requirement that the activity be "objectively worthy" opens the door to elitism much too wide.
Wolf's exposition of her views are interesting. More importantly, they open up a topic that very much deserves attention. Furthermore, they are founded on a significant, though often overlooked, insight about human behavior. The initial exposition, however, does not develop her ideas very far. Fortunately, the volume concludes with her twenty page response to her critics. This is philosophical dialog at its best. Wolf takes her critics seriously. Most of all, she gives the idea of objective value a thoughtful and sophisticated analysis. While she insists that we can be wrong about what is or is not objectively valuable, Wolf rejects the views of G.E. More and Plato that objective value is simply a natural property. Instead, it can arise out of human interest. "The value of an activity or object in an individual life will vary depending on the relationship that the individual has to it and role it plays in her life." This treatment embeds objective value, in part, in the subject without allowing it to be completely subsumed by the subject. Wolf hopes this clarification will satisfy Arpaly and Haidt.
Over the course of the work, the discussion of meaningfulness in life becomes increasingly, though slowly, deeper. By the end one must wrestle with the nature of objectivity, subjectivity, human motivation, and social context to really come to any reasonable perspective on meaningfulness in life. For my part, I was driven to consider meaningfulness not simply as an attribution of value, but in a semantic sense, while recognizing that this may employ a spurious connotation of the term. Words have meaning not simply and in and of themselves, but have meaning for the speaker, for the hearer, in a context social context, and as part of an evolving language. What I might mean by an utterance may not be what you understand it to mean and neither of us is a final authority of the meaning of the words I use. Meaning in life is similarly complicated. I might find meaning in my life which you do not, or conversely you find meaning in my life which I do not; however, that there are a variety of individual judgements that might be made about a life's meaningfulness, does not establish that there is not a broader fact of the matter about the meaningfulness of a life within a social context. That fact will depend, of course, on the social context and the values that are extant in the society.
The lesson here, is that asking simply if a life is meaningful is too ill-defined. It is nearly as ill-defined as asking, "what is the meaning of life?" We must make clear what we are asking. In some instances we might want to know if the person finds his or her own life meaningful. In other instances we might want to know if their family thinks so or if the person's life is meaningful by our standard. We may even be asking if the life has contributed to the preservation or advancement of objectively identifiable social values or cultural development. Wolf is correct in that meaningfulness is essentially dependent upon both subjectivities and objectivity. What seems unclear from her exposition is that subjectivity and objectivity are also interdependent. Consequently, dividing them for the purpose of explaining the concept of meaningfulness leads us astray. Her reply to Arpaly and Haidt opens the way to seeing this, but it threatens the analytical distinction that she makes which might require she assume an entirely different approach to answering the question.
The answer she gives is not, in the main, prescriptive. Instead she sketches the form in which a life might be judged meaningful. Perhaps the most interesting contribution she makes to the question is identifying a reason for action that is almost always missed by philosophers when we ask about human motivations. Typically, philosophers have understood people to act either purely out of self-interest (or self-gratification) or out of both self-interest and moral impulses. This has led philosophers to conclude that a meaningful life is either one that makes the individual happy or one which fulfills our moral obligations or perhaps some combination of the two. Wolf points out that many of our actions do not neatly fit into one or the other of these categories. Many of our actions are done "out of love." She presents a perfect example of this by describing the night in which she stayed up late to sew the wings onto her daughter's butterfly costume. She very much would have preferred to be in bed and she did not feel a moral obligation to make the costume, but because of her love for her daughter she sewed the costume.
For Wolf, a meaningful life is one that must include acting out of love. She writes, "meaning arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way." Upon analysing this formula, Wolf observes that it contains a subjective element and an objective element. The subjective element is relatively unproblematic. Living a meaningful life will generate a sense of satisfaction. It is the objective element that presents questions. Wolf illustrates this by considering the life of a woman who is so attached to her goldfish that she spends all of her time and energy caring for it and interacting with it. She claims that the fish is the only being that understands her. While she gains genuine satisfaction from her goldfish, Wolf judges her life not to be meaningful, because a goldfish is not the sort of thing that is worthy of this sort of attention. Wolf recognizes that she is in danger of advancing an elitist conception of meaning, but believes that we have a sufficient understanding of what is and what is not objectively worthy to recognize the attribute.
Wolf's initial presentation of her views encompasses the first 63 pages of the volume. It is then followed by brief comments from four writers: John Koethe, Robert M. Adams, Nomy Arpaly, and Jonathan Haidt. Koethe and Adams largely accept Wolf's account. Koethe probes details related to the objective portion of Wolf's view. He asks, however, if it is necessary that a meaningful life objectively succeed in its endeavors. Is a valiant failure a meaningful life? Conversely, Adams probes the details related to the subjective aspect, suggesting that feelings of satisfaction may be irrelevant to a meaningful life. In contrast to these more friendly questions, Arpaly and Haidt find her treatment of objectivity wanting. They suggest that objectivity may not be necessary. Arpaly argues that if an individual finds subjective fulfillment in his or her life, that is enough to call it meaningful. She points out that Wolf's examples of people who find their lives satisfied by trivial pursuits are in fact non-existent and if there are such people, they in all likelihood have cognitive or emotional limitations that preclude them from being bored by trivial pursuits. Finally, Haidt emphasizes the idea of vital engagement, characterized by the experience of "flow." According to Haidt, vital engagement is what is essential to living a meaningful life and any requirement that the activity be "objectively worthy" opens the door to elitism much too wide.
Wolf's exposition of her views are interesting. More importantly, they open up a topic that very much deserves attention. Furthermore, they are founded on a significant, though often overlooked, insight about human behavior. The initial exposition, however, does not develop her ideas very far. Fortunately, the volume concludes with her twenty page response to her critics. This is philosophical dialog at its best. Wolf takes her critics seriously. Most of all, she gives the idea of objective value a thoughtful and sophisticated analysis. While she insists that we can be wrong about what is or is not objectively valuable, Wolf rejects the views of G.E. More and Plato that objective value is simply a natural property. Instead, it can arise out of human interest. "The value of an activity or object in an individual life will vary depending on the relationship that the individual has to it and role it plays in her life." This treatment embeds objective value, in part, in the subject without allowing it to be completely subsumed by the subject. Wolf hopes this clarification will satisfy Arpaly and Haidt.
Over the course of the work, the discussion of meaningfulness in life becomes increasingly, though slowly, deeper. By the end one must wrestle with the nature of objectivity, subjectivity, human motivation, and social context to really come to any reasonable perspective on meaningfulness in life. For my part, I was driven to consider meaningfulness not simply as an attribution of value, but in a semantic sense, while recognizing that this may employ a spurious connotation of the term. Words have meaning not simply and in and of themselves, but have meaning for the speaker, for the hearer, in a context social context, and as part of an evolving language. What I might mean by an utterance may not be what you understand it to mean and neither of us is a final authority of the meaning of the words I use. Meaning in life is similarly complicated. I might find meaning in my life which you do not, or conversely you find meaning in my life which I do not; however, that there are a variety of individual judgements that might be made about a life's meaningfulness, does not establish that there is not a broader fact of the matter about the meaningfulness of a life within a social context. That fact will depend, of course, on the social context and the values that are extant in the society.
The lesson here, is that asking simply if a life is meaningful is too ill-defined. It is nearly as ill-defined as asking, "what is the meaning of life?" We must make clear what we are asking. In some instances we might want to know if the person finds his or her own life meaningful. In other instances we might want to know if their family thinks so or if the person's life is meaningful by our standard. We may even be asking if the life has contributed to the preservation or advancement of objectively identifiable social values or cultural development. Wolf is correct in that meaningfulness is essentially dependent upon both subjectivities and objectivity. What seems unclear from her exposition is that subjectivity and objectivity are also interdependent. Consequently, dividing them for the purpose of explaining the concept of meaningfulness leads us astray. Her reply to Arpaly and Haidt opens the way to seeing this, but it threatens the analytical distinction that she makes which might require she assume an entirely different approach to answering the question.
The White House: An Historical Guide / Mrs. John N. Pearce [a.k.a. Lorraine Waxman Pearce] and William V. Elder III -- Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 1963
Over the years, the White House has undergone numerous changes. Perhaps most dramatically was the complete gutting of the interior and subsequent steel reinforcement of the structure that took place duringTruman's administration. It has also accumulated a significant collection of furnishings, some of which are unquestionably outstanding historical pieces. The portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart and the President's desk, built from the timber of the H.M.S. Resolute come immediately to mind; but there are numerous more interesting and beautiful objects in the White House's collection. At the direction of Jacqueline Kennedy, the White House Historical Association took on the task of creating a guide to the history of the White House and its furnishings. Originally intended for children, it was quickly understood that the treasury of artifacts was too important not to address the work to adults. The result was a clear introduction to the history of the White House, illustrated by photographs of some of its most important possessions.
The extent to which the building's interior was remodelled is somewhat surprising. One might, however, justify the expense by claiming that the President's house should, for the benefit of visitors and foreign dignitaries, remain relatively stylish and contemporary. On the other hand, a degree of classical dignity might also be appropriate. Upon reading The White House, one is left with a sense that a reasonably good balance has been met over the years up to 1963. Many of the features of the original structure remain, of course, but with any building that sees regular use, repairs and replacements are required now and then. These present opportunities to update the interior decorating styles. At the same time, pieces art and furniture have been retained and can be brought out of storage according to the taste of the current occupant. What is among the more satisfying consequences of these additions and changes, is that each occupant will leave behind something of their taste and time, making the building and its contents a reflection of the history of the country and the presidency.
The extent to which the building's interior was remodelled is somewhat surprising. One might, however, justify the expense by claiming that the President's house should, for the benefit of visitors and foreign dignitaries, remain relatively stylish and contemporary. On the other hand, a degree of classical dignity might also be appropriate. Upon reading The White House, one is left with a sense that a reasonably good balance has been met over the years up to 1963. Many of the features of the original structure remain, of course, but with any building that sees regular use, repairs and replacements are required now and then. These present opportunities to update the interior decorating styles. At the same time, pieces art and furniture have been retained and can be brought out of storage according to the taste of the current occupant. What is among the more satisfying consequences of these additions and changes, is that each occupant will leave behind something of their taste and time, making the building and its contents a reflection of the history of the country and the presidency.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma / Leon Hurvitz, tr. -- N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1976
The Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, also known simply as The Lotus Sutra is among the most important mahayana Buddhist sutras. It is particularly important to Buddhism as it is practiced in East Asia. This may have something to do with the fact that the original Sanskrit version of the sutra has been lost and that the versions that have been in existence for the longest are Chinese translations. This particular English translation was based on the Chinese translation attributed to Kumarajiva, a fourth century Indo-Iranian figure who was responsible for managing a school of translators who were in turn responsible for the translation of many sutras into Chinese.
Like many mahayana sutras, The Lotus Sutra asserts the superiority of the path of the bodhisattva over other paths to enlightenment. What is most interesting about The Lotus Sutra is that it does so in parables. It also presents parables that explain how the bodhisattva tailors his (or her) message to the requirements of the listener -- as might any good teacher. Both of these points are made in the first parable that appears in the work. A man finds that his house is on fire, but that his children are inside enthralled by their toys. To induce them to leave the house, he tells them that he has three carts outside for them: drawn respectively by a deer, a goat, and an ox. Delighted, the children leave the burning house only to find that the ox cart is the only vehicle outside. The bodhisattva explains that the man is justified in lying to the children in order to get them out of the house, and that only the ox cart -- which stands for the path of the bodhisattva -- is real.
In a second parable, a very rich man's son leaves his household and remains estranged for many years. In the son's wanderings he comes upon a house that his father has founded. Not knowing that it is his father's house, he becomes employed there, diligently working in the stables. In time, the rich man, who knows his son's identity, rewards the son. Eventually, when the son has become accustomed to being part of the household, the man reveals that he is the son's father and declares him his heir.
In a third parable, a guide was leading a group of travellers to a buried treasure. The travellers grew tired and wanted to give up the journey. So the guide caused an apparition of a beautiful city to appear, where the travellers rested. When they regained their strength, the guide cause the city to vanish and led them on to the buried treasure.
Among the more unique parables is the story of "the dragon girl." The Buddha asks the bodhisattva Manjusri to tell an assembled multitude if anyone hearing his teaching speedily gained enlightenment. Manjusri described a girl of eight who had quickly gained enlightenement. The bodhisattvas Prajnakuta expressed skepticism, whereupon the girl appeared before them and testified to her own enlightenment. The bodhisattva Sariputra then expressed disbelieve, claiming that a woman could not achieve unexcelled enlightenment. Whereupon the girl turned into a man.
Much of the sutra is a panegyric to the Buddha and various bodhisattvas. The Buddha is frequently associated with a rain of flower petals or fine garments, jewels, and fragrances. Great expanses of time and space and hosts of auditors (Buddha, bodhisattvas, gods, humans, demons, non-humans, hungry ghosts, and beings in hell) are frequently described. At times this can become a bit tedious, but when one tries to reflect these incalculable numbers, one's mind can be directed to a transcendental experience:
Like many mahayana sutras, The Lotus Sutra asserts the superiority of the path of the bodhisattva over other paths to enlightenment. What is most interesting about The Lotus Sutra is that it does so in parables. It also presents parables that explain how the bodhisattva tailors his (or her) message to the requirements of the listener -- as might any good teacher. Both of these points are made in the first parable that appears in the work. A man finds that his house is on fire, but that his children are inside enthralled by their toys. To induce them to leave the house, he tells them that he has three carts outside for them: drawn respectively by a deer, a goat, and an ox. Delighted, the children leave the burning house only to find that the ox cart is the only vehicle outside. The bodhisattva explains that the man is justified in lying to the children in order to get them out of the house, and that only the ox cart -- which stands for the path of the bodhisattva -- is real.
In a second parable, a very rich man's son leaves his household and remains estranged for many years. In the son's wanderings he comes upon a house that his father has founded. Not knowing that it is his father's house, he becomes employed there, diligently working in the stables. In time, the rich man, who knows his son's identity, rewards the son. Eventually, when the son has become accustomed to being part of the household, the man reveals that he is the son's father and declares him his heir.
In a third parable, a guide was leading a group of travellers to a buried treasure. The travellers grew tired and wanted to give up the journey. So the guide caused an apparition of a beautiful city to appear, where the travellers rested. When they regained their strength, the guide cause the city to vanish and led them on to the buried treasure.
Among the more unique parables is the story of "the dragon girl." The Buddha asks the bodhisattva Manjusri to tell an assembled multitude if anyone hearing his teaching speedily gained enlightenment. Manjusri described a girl of eight who had quickly gained enlightenement. The bodhisattvas Prajnakuta expressed skepticism, whereupon the girl appeared before them and testified to her own enlightenment. The bodhisattva Sariputra then expressed disbelieve, claiming that a woman could not achieve unexcelled enlightenment. Whereupon the girl turned into a man.
Much of the sutra is a panegyric to the Buddha and various bodhisattvas. The Buddha is frequently associated with a rain of flower petals or fine garments, jewels, and fragrances. Great expanses of time and space and hosts of auditors (Buddha, bodhisattvas, gods, humans, demons, non-humans, hungry ghosts, and beings in hell) are frequently described. At times this can become a bit tedious, but when one tries to reflect these incalculable numbers, one's mind can be directed to a transcendental experience:
I now tell you plainly: the merit gained by this man for giving all manner of playthings to living beings of the six destinies in four hundred myriads of millions of asamkhyeyas of world-spheres, and also enabling them to obtain the fruit of the arhant, does not equal one-hundredth, not one-thousandths, not one-hundred-thousand-myriad-millionth part of the merit of that fiftieth person for appropriately rejoicing at hearing a single gatha of the Scripture of the Dharma Blossom for it is something that cannot be known through number or parable.For the most part, the sutra only briefly makes mention of the central doctrines of mahayana Buddhism. For these, I would recommend The Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom.
Friday, February 15, 2013
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains / Nicholas Carr -- a second look
I don't normally read books twice. There simply are too many unread books worth reading to return to one I have already read, especially now that I am recording my thoughts about the books I read here on this blog. I did, however, happily agree to re-read Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows when it was proposed by a member of my book club. I was curious to see if I would take away something new from it on a second reading. I suspect not, but my original review by no means covered all of the interesting ideas in this insightful work. You can read my original review by searching on "Shallows" on this blog. What stands out for me on this second reading is what Carr writes about the formation of memory and the relationship that is developing between people and our machines.
In my earlier review, I wrote about Carr's observation that the constant distractions that are presented on the internet are having a detrimental effect on our abilities to transfer working memories into long-term memories. What I did not emphasize, but what is of great significance is the consequences that this has for our abilities to understand the world. A broad and deep understanding of the world is only formulated when a wide variety of experiences are assembled in a coherent set of relationships that generate practical theories about future experience. We need not be conscious of these theories, but they are necessary to navigate the world. For most purposes, our daily, routine experiences are sufficient to allows us to navigate the day, but understanding more subtle relationships among phenomena and their significance requires more careful reflection. It requires the patient, probing, and in depth examination of experience which cannot be accomplished without stable, long-term memories as fodder for thought. If Carr's thesis is true, that the internet impedes the development of stable memories, then it must also be true that it impedes the development of a broad and deep understanding of the world. Over exposure to the internet would have the consequence of making us shallow and superficial.
It is an extremely provocative conclusion, though Carr does not quantify the extent to which the internet has this dulling effect. One could dismiss the concern by asserting that our capacities to understand the world in a deep and meaningful way are only marginally diminished by the internet and that the intellectual capacities that the internet fosters more than make up for the loss; however, our ability to objectively reach this conclusion after long exposure to the internet would be undermined if the thesis is true. Moreover, a simple addiction to the glamour of the internet would also prejudice one's assessment. Having spent countless work hours connected to the internet and countless off-work hours reading, I am inclined argue that I feel significantly more "human" after a three hour stretch of reading as opposed to a three hour stretch of work on the internet and I suspect this is due to the fact that the activities involved in finding meaning in the world are of a much higher intellectual, indeed spiritual, order than the activities involved in the kind of rapid and ever-changing information observation that comes with working on the internet.
A second and more stunning observation that came out of my second reading of The Shallows is Carr's observation that as our cognitive capacities are changed by the internet, they are changed in a manner that makes us more like the digital tools that we are using. Computers access and process information, storing it in a manner that makes it entirely inaccessible until specifically recalled in another processing event. Without the growing store of long-term memories produced by thoughtful reflection, our mental activity becomes more like this information processing, affected only by the immediate inputs of the present cognitive transaction and unaffected by a repository of long-term memories connected in a sophisticated worldview. Certainly our minds must work in the context of some sort of worldview, but in comparison to a pre-internet world view, it is impoverished. What stands out about our mental activity is the immediate information transaction and as we are increasingly communicating (receiving and sending) information on the internet in social networks, we are becoming very sophisticated chips arranged in a network. The only question is, for whose benefit is the network doing its computing?
Certainly, these observations stretch Carr's concerns beyond what one might reasonably have, but there is little doubt that the concerns are significant lead us in the right direction in thinking about the internet and its affect on our selves and society.
In my earlier review, I wrote about Carr's observation that the constant distractions that are presented on the internet are having a detrimental effect on our abilities to transfer working memories into long-term memories. What I did not emphasize, but what is of great significance is the consequences that this has for our abilities to understand the world. A broad and deep understanding of the world is only formulated when a wide variety of experiences are assembled in a coherent set of relationships that generate practical theories about future experience. We need not be conscious of these theories, but they are necessary to navigate the world. For most purposes, our daily, routine experiences are sufficient to allows us to navigate the day, but understanding more subtle relationships among phenomena and their significance requires more careful reflection. It requires the patient, probing, and in depth examination of experience which cannot be accomplished without stable, long-term memories as fodder for thought. If Carr's thesis is true, that the internet impedes the development of stable memories, then it must also be true that it impedes the development of a broad and deep understanding of the world. Over exposure to the internet would have the consequence of making us shallow and superficial.
It is an extremely provocative conclusion, though Carr does not quantify the extent to which the internet has this dulling effect. One could dismiss the concern by asserting that our capacities to understand the world in a deep and meaningful way are only marginally diminished by the internet and that the intellectual capacities that the internet fosters more than make up for the loss; however, our ability to objectively reach this conclusion after long exposure to the internet would be undermined if the thesis is true. Moreover, a simple addiction to the glamour of the internet would also prejudice one's assessment. Having spent countless work hours connected to the internet and countless off-work hours reading, I am inclined argue that I feel significantly more "human" after a three hour stretch of reading as opposed to a three hour stretch of work on the internet and I suspect this is due to the fact that the activities involved in finding meaning in the world are of a much higher intellectual, indeed spiritual, order than the activities involved in the kind of rapid and ever-changing information observation that comes with working on the internet.
A second and more stunning observation that came out of my second reading of The Shallows is Carr's observation that as our cognitive capacities are changed by the internet, they are changed in a manner that makes us more like the digital tools that we are using. Computers access and process information, storing it in a manner that makes it entirely inaccessible until specifically recalled in another processing event. Without the growing store of long-term memories produced by thoughtful reflection, our mental activity becomes more like this information processing, affected only by the immediate inputs of the present cognitive transaction and unaffected by a repository of long-term memories connected in a sophisticated worldview. Certainly our minds must work in the context of some sort of worldview, but in comparison to a pre-internet world view, it is impoverished. What stands out about our mental activity is the immediate information transaction and as we are increasingly communicating (receiving and sending) information on the internet in social networks, we are becoming very sophisticated chips arranged in a network. The only question is, for whose benefit is the network doing its computing?
Certainly, these observations stretch Carr's concerns beyond what one might reasonably have, but there is little doubt that the concerns are significant lead us in the right direction in thinking about the internet and its affect on our selves and society.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream / Neil Young -- N.Y.: Blue Rider Press, 2012
I'll never forget the first time I heard Neil Young. It was 1972. I was riding in the back of our family car and his song "Heart of Gold" came on the radio. At the time, I thought it was the most heartfelt, soulful song I'd ever heard. I found more of the same on "Harvest" -- the album that contained "Heart of Gold." Upon receiving CSNY's "Four Way Street" as a Christmas present, I became an undying fan. I snatched up every album I could find by him. Over the years, I have continued to follow his career, but by no means religiously. I finally saw him in concert in 1988 when he toured with "The Blue Notes."
For me, the single most apt description of his music is that it is honest. Young is certainly in the music business, but he seems to treat it more as means to distribute his music to whatever audience might appreciate it. The music comes first, and if there is no audience, then that's unfortunate, but not a disaster. Disaster comes when he betrays his muse which I don't suspect he has done very often. There is also an appealing innocence and vulnerability in his voice that comes through even in his most angry and aggressive songs of which there are more than a few. Of all the recording artists of his generation, Neil Young seems to have remained true to the best elements of the contercultural sensibility. Once upon a time, that sensibility tore the mask of hypocrisy from the face of a complacent and degenerate society.
Given my admiration for Young, I picked up his book Waging Heavy Peace with trepidation. Somewhere in the course of its 497 pages, I knew I'd find a few reasons to be disappointed in him. Fortunately, the disappointments were minor and few. Moreover, they paled in the presence of his characteristic honesty. Waging Heavy Peace is a random compilation of Young's memories of family, friends, and events. It is as though Young is spontaneously conjuring the roots of his past and bringing them to mind in whatever order they happen to appear. He jumps from stories about his days with Buffalo Springfield to days just one year ago, back to his childhood in Canada, and then to his days with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Some passages are about the very present situation in which he is writing. The chronological disorder is at first disorienting. He is rather like Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim who became "unstuck in time," but eventually one comes to understand that Young's past (like everyone's) is always present if we care to remember. When an event ocurred is less important than the effect it had on us and its significance in its own time. The seemingly random order of Young's stories underscores that who we were in our teens is not merely a prelude to who we will become, but it is we ourselves in a unique time and place.
Waging Heavy Peace is a meditation on a life, seemingly written more for the author's benefit than for ours. In that way, it is a lot like Young's music. Young obviously is cherishing his memories and the people who have been part of his life. At one point he writes, "Old memories are wonderful things and should be held on to as long as possible, shared with others, and embellished if need be." The passage says a lot about what is behind his writing. It is loaded with small recollections of events that are not likely to be of much interest to a fan of his music (though many of his recollections certainly are). Instead, his recollections appear to be written as a letter to the friends who appear in the story. Young is sharing his memories with the people who were with him over the years and sometimes with people who crossed his path only briefly. It is as though he is telling them, "I may be a big star now, but I still remember you and I remember you very fondly."
Young seldom has a bad word to say about anyone and he usually has a torrent of good words. At another point he writes, "I don't want to write some damning thing here about someone and have to live with that for the rest of time. I don't think that would be a very good idea." While the observation seems like he's protecting himself from guilt or remorse, there is enough in Waging Heavy Peace to understand that his real concern is for the feelings of the people he's writing about. In the rare instance when he does criticize someone, he is careful not to name them. They are merely "the two AP reporters" or "the record company executive."
His language is simple and direct. It is sometimes confessional and sometimes it sounds like he's paying off a debt or making amends, but it always rings true. A cynic might say that it is all for effect, but that's hard to square with his lifetime of artistic authenticity and his more or less unchanging stage persona that appears to be no different from what can be seen of his private life.
By the end of the book, Young becomes remarkably self-revealing. For example, he writes,
Some might find all of this a little self-indulgent and maybe it is, but no one is compelled to read his book, just as no one is compelled to listen to his music. For my part, it was an enjoyable bit of voyeurism. Waging Heavy Peace gave me the feeling that one of my musical heroes took the time to write me a long letter, telling me about his most memorable experiences and confiding some of his most personal thoughts. I'm certain I know Neil Young better for having read his letter and I appreciate him all the more. Long may he run.
For me, the single most apt description of his music is that it is honest. Young is certainly in the music business, but he seems to treat it more as means to distribute his music to whatever audience might appreciate it. The music comes first, and if there is no audience, then that's unfortunate, but not a disaster. Disaster comes when he betrays his muse which I don't suspect he has done very often. There is also an appealing innocence and vulnerability in his voice that comes through even in his most angry and aggressive songs of which there are more than a few. Of all the recording artists of his generation, Neil Young seems to have remained true to the best elements of the contercultural sensibility. Once upon a time, that sensibility tore the mask of hypocrisy from the face of a complacent and degenerate society.
Given my admiration for Young, I picked up his book Waging Heavy Peace with trepidation. Somewhere in the course of its 497 pages, I knew I'd find a few reasons to be disappointed in him. Fortunately, the disappointments were minor and few. Moreover, they paled in the presence of his characteristic honesty. Waging Heavy Peace is a random compilation of Young's memories of family, friends, and events. It is as though Young is spontaneously conjuring the roots of his past and bringing them to mind in whatever order they happen to appear. He jumps from stories about his days with Buffalo Springfield to days just one year ago, back to his childhood in Canada, and then to his days with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Some passages are about the very present situation in which he is writing. The chronological disorder is at first disorienting. He is rather like Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim who became "unstuck in time," but eventually one comes to understand that Young's past (like everyone's) is always present if we care to remember. When an event ocurred is less important than the effect it had on us and its significance in its own time. The seemingly random order of Young's stories underscores that who we were in our teens is not merely a prelude to who we will become, but it is we ourselves in a unique time and place.
Waging Heavy Peace is a meditation on a life, seemingly written more for the author's benefit than for ours. In that way, it is a lot like Young's music. Young obviously is cherishing his memories and the people who have been part of his life. At one point he writes, "Old memories are wonderful things and should be held on to as long as possible, shared with others, and embellished if need be." The passage says a lot about what is behind his writing. It is loaded with small recollections of events that are not likely to be of much interest to a fan of his music (though many of his recollections certainly are). Instead, his recollections appear to be written as a letter to the friends who appear in the story. Young is sharing his memories with the people who were with him over the years and sometimes with people who crossed his path only briefly. It is as though he is telling them, "I may be a big star now, but I still remember you and I remember you very fondly."
Young seldom has a bad word to say about anyone and he usually has a torrent of good words. At another point he writes, "I don't want to write some damning thing here about someone and have to live with that for the rest of time. I don't think that would be a very good idea." While the observation seems like he's protecting himself from guilt or remorse, there is enough in Waging Heavy Peace to understand that his real concern is for the feelings of the people he's writing about. In the rare instance when he does criticize someone, he is careful not to name them. They are merely "the two AP reporters" or "the record company executive."
His language is simple and direct. It is sometimes confessional and sometimes it sounds like he's paying off a debt or making amends, but it always rings true. A cynic might say that it is all for effect, but that's hard to square with his lifetime of artistic authenticity and his more or less unchanging stage persona that appears to be no different from what can be seen of his private life.
By the end of the book, Young becomes remarkably self-revealing. For example, he writes,
Changing the person one has evolved into is not a simple process, to be sure, but I know with Pegi's love and suppport [Pegi is his wife] and my family close, I will be able to reach out and learn to live life in a more caring and conscious way. Maybe I've never been good at that, and that's why it's so hard to find it in myself. It may never have been really there. I may be starting from scratch. I've always been told that what I'm doing is right. Maybe it isn't. Maybe just some of it is. I need to dig deep and discover some things along the way.
How do I avoid being short with those I love and respect? How do I try to make people feel good about what they are doing for and with me? How can I respect others' tastes while retaining my own? This is the knowledge I'm searching for. I can remember so many times in my life when I hurt others and hurt myself. I really need to find a way to change those patterns for good.One is left with the sense that Young is a deeply introspective man whose search for a heart of gold is really about finding the strength to be compassionate and now that he really is getting old, his search has become more urgent.
Some might find all of this a little self-indulgent and maybe it is, but no one is compelled to read his book, just as no one is compelled to listen to his music. For my part, it was an enjoyable bit of voyeurism. Waging Heavy Peace gave me the feeling that one of my musical heroes took the time to write me a long letter, telling me about his most memorable experiences and confiding some of his most personal thoughts. I'm certain I know Neil Young better for having read his letter and I appreciate him all the more. Long may he run.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Buddhism: A Modern Perspective / Charles S. Prebish, ed. -- University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1975
Buddhism, edited by Charles Prebish is a cross between a introductory survey and an brief, one volume encyclopedia of Buddhism. It is composed of 45 chapters, averaging five and a half pages. Each chapter explores a significant topic in the history and philosophy of Buddhism. The First Part deals with "Indian Buddhism," beginning with a history of early Buddhism. Chapter Six begins the treatment of the central ideas of Buddhism: the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Marks of Existence, the Five Aggregates, Dependent Origination, and the Stages of Sanctification. The rest of Part One provides and account of the major schools, important literature, and advanced ideas. Remarkably, the authors of each of chapter manage to convey the important concepts clearly and concisely, quickly presenting the essence of the topic at hand.
Part Two deals with "Buddhism Outside of India." Unfortunately, it is here where the work begins to falter. There is simply too much information about the development of Buddhism in Ceylon, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and the West to pack into the brief chapters allotted to these regions, some of which have been home to Buddhism for nearly two millennia. Nonetheless, even Part Two can serve as a worthwhile reference source for names of political and religious leaders and monastic communities. They also provide a thumbnail sketch of the history of Buddhism in the region
A short bibliography of "suggested reading" follows each chapter. The work also includes a brief directory of Buddhist communities in the United States and an extensive glossary, general bibliography, and index.
Buddhism: A Modern Perspective will be more valuable for the beginner, but more experienced scholars are bound to find an number of chapters quite useful.
Part Two deals with "Buddhism Outside of India." Unfortunately, it is here where the work begins to falter. There is simply too much information about the development of Buddhism in Ceylon, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and the West to pack into the brief chapters allotted to these regions, some of which have been home to Buddhism for nearly two millennia. Nonetheless, even Part Two can serve as a worthwhile reference source for names of political and religious leaders and monastic communities. They also provide a thumbnail sketch of the history of Buddhism in the region
A short bibliography of "suggested reading" follows each chapter. The work also includes a brief directory of Buddhist communities in the United States and an extensive glossary, general bibliography, and index.
Buddhism: A Modern Perspective will be more valuable for the beginner, but more experienced scholars are bound to find an number of chapters quite useful.
Monday, January 7, 2013
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World / Eric Weiner -- N.Y.: Twelve, 2008
The Geography of Bliss is built on a couple interesting questions: what are the happiest countries in the world like and why are they so happy? Of course, one might begin by wondering how is happiness to be defined and how can it be measured? The work's author, Eric Weiner, relies on research compiled by the World Database of Happiness. The research is being produced by the budding field of happiness studies. Much of the work in this field relies on surveys in which people are simply asked, "On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you?" As pedestrian (an problematic) as this seems, it's hard to image a more valid method to get at answers to the question. The results of these data are then compared with other social, political, and economic facts to try to determine what makes people happy.
Based on a ranking developed by the World Database of Happiness, Weiner travels to ten countries (including the U.S.). Most rank high on the happiness scale, but one at least does not: Moldova. Indeed, Moldova ranks last among all countries. Unfortunately, Weiner's investigation generates nothing of importance to the study of happiness and provide the reader with little insight into the research and tentative conclusions drawn by the psychologists and anthropologists seriously examining the topic. Even as a frivolous beach-reading book, The Geography of Bliss could have afforded one chapter giving the reader a systematic review of happiness research.
Weiner's work is, instead, a simple journal of his travels and his conversations with people he meets along the way. Some are citizens of the country he is visiting, but about as many are ex-patriots. He meets most of them through sheer happenstance, and very few have any special insight into the culture or the concept of happiness. Consequently, The Geography of Bliss is little more than an idiosyncratic and quite superficial travelogue written by someone frequenting cafes and bars around the world. It has little more substance than the postings of a compulsive blogger. On the plus side, Weiner's writing style is polished and often entertaining.
Based on a ranking developed by the World Database of Happiness, Weiner travels to ten countries (including the U.S.). Most rank high on the happiness scale, but one at least does not: Moldova. Indeed, Moldova ranks last among all countries. Unfortunately, Weiner's investigation generates nothing of importance to the study of happiness and provide the reader with little insight into the research and tentative conclusions drawn by the psychologists and anthropologists seriously examining the topic. Even as a frivolous beach-reading book, The Geography of Bliss could have afforded one chapter giving the reader a systematic review of happiness research.
Weiner's work is, instead, a simple journal of his travels and his conversations with people he meets along the way. Some are citizens of the country he is visiting, but about as many are ex-patriots. He meets most of them through sheer happenstance, and very few have any special insight into the culture or the concept of happiness. Consequently, The Geography of Bliss is little more than an idiosyncratic and quite superficial travelogue written by someone frequenting cafes and bars around the world. It has little more substance than the postings of a compulsive blogger. On the plus side, Weiner's writing style is polished and often entertaining.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: a film directed by Peter Jackson (2012)
I first read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit 42 years ago and immediately went on to read and re-read everything by Tolkien that I could get my hands on. Around the year 2000, I was excited to hear that a movie version of The Fellowship of the Rings would be premiering soon. I was not disappointed. Certainly, there was much to criticize in Peter Jackson's cinematic treatment of Tolkien's epic story. The battle scenes loomed far too large in the movies, orcs looked dangerous, but fell like grass before a reaper, and the screen play included, from time to time, some rather juvenile dialogue. Perhaps most disturbing, though was the characterization of Frodo. In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Frodo starts out as a rather feisty character, an aggressive leader of the band of hobbits making their way to Rivendell. Only after he is stabbed by the morgul blade on Weathertop does he becomes progressively more passive, even pacific. In contrast, Elijah Wood's Frodo is timid and frightened from the beginning.
Jackson misses one of Tolkien's most significant sensibilities: that violence and war, though necessary at times, are extreme horrors and that the wisest among us will not glorify them. For a revealing treatment of this, see The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son in The Tolkien Reader. For these, and many other reasons, Tolkien purists have dismissed Jackson's films. In the words of Tolkien's son Christopher, "There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away," but the lush cinematography and the chance to see the story unfolding on a film screen led me to look past the deficiencies of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and simply enjoy the films for what they were.
It is more difficult to adopt this tolerant attitude toward Jackson's new film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. In contrast to The Lord of Rings, The Hobbit is a small story -- a children's story -- but presumably in an effort to make it accord with the style of his previous films, Jackson tries to turn it into another epic. Worse, he loads it with grand, action-film violence that is uncharacteristic of the early chapters of Tolkien's The Hobbit. As before, our heroes face and defeat hundreds of foes as though they were cutting their way through a light back-country brush. This leaves the battle scenes devoid of any tension or sense of danger and is an insult to the fearsome race of orcs and goblins. Characters that were only briefly mentioned in passing play significant roles in Jackson's film. Azog the Goblin who Tolkien only mentions having killed Thorin Oakenshield's grandfather, becomes "the White Orc" and is "hunting" Thorin and company. Unfortunately, we can expect to see the White Orc in the subsequent hobbit movies, but hopefully not until the Battle of the Five Armies. Radagast the Brown, who also is mentioned only briefly in The Hobbit, is featured in an extended sequence in the film. He is aptly used to depict the decline of Greenwood into Mirkwood, but his main role is to divert attacking wargs from Thorin and company by driving a sled drawn by rabbits. This is completely Jackson's invention and is simply silly.
Even more than the film version of Frodo, the film version of Bilbo is unrecognizable. In the early stages of his adventure, Tolkien's Bilbo is an extremely reluctant member of the expedition, quaking at every danger and frequently wishing he was home in Hobbiton. Jackson's Bilbo does start out this way, but much too quickly becomes a clever and courageous member of the party. In the encounter with the trolls, it is not Tolkien's Gandalf who defeats them, it is Jackson's Bilbo; and when the party is treed by wolves (wargs in the film), Bilbo leaps to rescue Thorin from the White Orc's minions, standing over his fallen leader. By this time in Tolkien's story, Bilbo had gained only the slightest confidence and did nothing so rash. The overly quick development of Bilbo's character robs the story of one of its most interesting features: Bilbo's transformation from a quiet homebody into a resourceful hero. We seldom see the mixture of anxiety and excitement that would come to a comfortable, middle aged, middle class man suddenly thrown into a life and death adventure, full of great historical figures.
Tolkien himself had mixed feelings about The Hobbit. He was pleased, of course, that it was a literary (and financial) success, but he was more attached to his grander work that became The Silmarillion. (The Lord of the Rings occupies a middle ground between these poles.) Jackson seeks to integrate the story of The Hobbit into the larger epic. Unfortunately, Jackson is not Tolkien and has done a ham-handed job of transforming The Hobbit. A more cynical analysis would hold that he has intentionally turned the story into a Hollywood action film extravaganza to please a popular audience -- an audience that has no real appreciation for Tolkien's oeuvre, but simply enjoys modern special effects and video game-like violence.
Still, there are some very good aspects of the film. The New Zealand scenery is as striking and beautiful as ever. The sets, particularly Bilbo's home -- Bag End -- and Elrond's Rivendell are still faithful to a Tolkien sensibility, at least as interpreted by Alan Lee, and Bilbo's opening encounter with the dwarves is consistent with Tolkien's own whimsical tone. I take Jackson at his word that he tells us that he has serious respect for Tolkien, loves the stories, and does not wish to do them any harm. At the same time, he is a film artist himself, feeling justified in bringing his own vision of the story to the screen. I cannot fault him for this, but I do question the evolution of his artistic judgement. Tolkien's stories certainly could have fallen into worse hands, but I can't help wishing that Jackson had made a more mature film -- one which captured the deeper themes of Tolkien's visions and which presented Middle Earth in Tolkien's mysterious, enchanting light. Jackson appears to have set his eyes less on faerie and more on making a Hollywood blockbuster.
Jackson misses one of Tolkien's most significant sensibilities: that violence and war, though necessary at times, are extreme horrors and that the wisest among us will not glorify them. For a revealing treatment of this, see The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son in The Tolkien Reader. For these, and many other reasons, Tolkien purists have dismissed Jackson's films. In the words of Tolkien's son Christopher, "There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away," but the lush cinematography and the chance to see the story unfolding on a film screen led me to look past the deficiencies of Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and simply enjoy the films for what they were.
It is more difficult to adopt this tolerant attitude toward Jackson's new film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. In contrast to The Lord of Rings, The Hobbit is a small story -- a children's story -- but presumably in an effort to make it accord with the style of his previous films, Jackson tries to turn it into another epic. Worse, he loads it with grand, action-film violence that is uncharacteristic of the early chapters of Tolkien's The Hobbit. As before, our heroes face and defeat hundreds of foes as though they were cutting their way through a light back-country brush. This leaves the battle scenes devoid of any tension or sense of danger and is an insult to the fearsome race of orcs and goblins. Characters that were only briefly mentioned in passing play significant roles in Jackson's film. Azog the Goblin who Tolkien only mentions having killed Thorin Oakenshield's grandfather, becomes "the White Orc" and is "hunting" Thorin and company. Unfortunately, we can expect to see the White Orc in the subsequent hobbit movies, but hopefully not until the Battle of the Five Armies. Radagast the Brown, who also is mentioned only briefly in The Hobbit, is featured in an extended sequence in the film. He is aptly used to depict the decline of Greenwood into Mirkwood, but his main role is to divert attacking wargs from Thorin and company by driving a sled drawn by rabbits. This is completely Jackson's invention and is simply silly.
Even more than the film version of Frodo, the film version of Bilbo is unrecognizable. In the early stages of his adventure, Tolkien's Bilbo is an extremely reluctant member of the expedition, quaking at every danger and frequently wishing he was home in Hobbiton. Jackson's Bilbo does start out this way, but much too quickly becomes a clever and courageous member of the party. In the encounter with the trolls, it is not Tolkien's Gandalf who defeats them, it is Jackson's Bilbo; and when the party is treed by wolves (wargs in the film), Bilbo leaps to rescue Thorin from the White Orc's minions, standing over his fallen leader. By this time in Tolkien's story, Bilbo had gained only the slightest confidence and did nothing so rash. The overly quick development of Bilbo's character robs the story of one of its most interesting features: Bilbo's transformation from a quiet homebody into a resourceful hero. We seldom see the mixture of anxiety and excitement that would come to a comfortable, middle aged, middle class man suddenly thrown into a life and death adventure, full of great historical figures.
Tolkien himself had mixed feelings about The Hobbit. He was pleased, of course, that it was a literary (and financial) success, but he was more attached to his grander work that became The Silmarillion. (The Lord of the Rings occupies a middle ground between these poles.) Jackson seeks to integrate the story of The Hobbit into the larger epic. Unfortunately, Jackson is not Tolkien and has done a ham-handed job of transforming The Hobbit. A more cynical analysis would hold that he has intentionally turned the story into a Hollywood action film extravaganza to please a popular audience -- an audience that has no real appreciation for Tolkien's oeuvre, but simply enjoys modern special effects and video game-like violence.
Still, there are some very good aspects of the film. The New Zealand scenery is as striking and beautiful as ever. The sets, particularly Bilbo's home -- Bag End -- and Elrond's Rivendell are still faithful to a Tolkien sensibility, at least as interpreted by Alan Lee, and Bilbo's opening encounter with the dwarves is consistent with Tolkien's own whimsical tone. I take Jackson at his word that he tells us that he has serious respect for Tolkien, loves the stories, and does not wish to do them any harm. At the same time, he is a film artist himself, feeling justified in bringing his own vision of the story to the screen. I cannot fault him for this, but I do question the evolution of his artistic judgement. Tolkien's stories certainly could have fallen into worse hands, but I can't help wishing that Jackson had made a more mature film -- one which captured the deeper themes of Tolkien's visions and which presented Middle Earth in Tolkien's mysterious, enchanting light. Jackson appears to have set his eyes less on faerie and more on making a Hollywood blockbuster.
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