The Path of Freedom (Vimuttimagga) / Upatissa Thera -- Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1961.

The Vimuttimagga is among the more important early Buddhist texts.  Written in the 1st or 2nd century and attributed to the Theravadan monk Upatisssa, it is a foundational manual for meditation.  As with so many early Buddhist works, much of it is rather opaque and requires a strong background in Buddhism to be profitably read.  Still, a number of points easily rise to the surface.  The first six chapters (roughly 20% of the whole) cover a range of subjects preliminary to meditating, e.g., virtue, the setting for effective meditation, and the conditions for effective concentration.  

The remaining six chapters take up the actual practice of meditation, beginning with an account of the 38 subjects of meditation.  These include colors (red, blue-green, white, and yellow), earth, air, water, and fire, various "putrescences" (e.g., bloatedness, discoloration, dismembered bodies), and death, along with more uplifting subjects (e.g., loving-kindness, compassion, the Buddha, the dharma, and the community of monks).  Upatissa explains how and why one might meditate on these subjects and who might benefit from them most.  

He provides a very readable account of the stages of meditation.  Each stage provides an increasingly refined and enlightened state of consciousness.  Stage one involves the sustained application of thought.  Ordinarily, our thought process jumps from idea to idea, subject to subject, seemingly of its own accord.  It is what Buddhist frequently call the "monkey mind," jumping from branch to branch. In the first stage of mediation, we calm the mind and gain control over our attention.  This is best achieved in a quite and secluded place.  As we achieve mastery of our thoughts, we enter the second stage of meditation that is characterized by joy.  This second stage is more refined than the first stage in which we must make an effort to sustain our attention to subject of meditation.  To further refine our meditation and enter the third stage, we must transcend joy.  Doing so, we experience bliss which in turn must be transcended to reach equanimity in stage four.  

Upon perfecting stage four we transcend the realm of form and enter the realm of formlessness.  Here, we pass through additional states of consciousness: the sphere of infinite space, the sphere of infinite consciousness, the sphere of nothingness, and finally the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception.  Each of these states are more refined than their coarser predecessors. 

Throughout the work, Upatissa weaves in accounts of numerous fundamental ideas in the Buddhist tradition such as the "ill" (unsatisfactoriness) of life, the impermanence of all things, and the non-existence of the self.  He provides a fine account of two of the most important Buddhist doctrines: dependent arising and the Four Noble Truths. 

Few works in the Buddhist canon provide such an accessible, practical, and sweeping account of both Buddhist concepts and the crucial Buddhist practice of meditation.  Still, it is by no means an introductory work.  A reader should only attempt it when they have a robust understanding of Buddhism.

The Jewish State / Theodore Herzl -- N.Y.: Dover Publications, 1988

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I read scores of books about the Arab-Zionist conflict.  In the course of that, I compiled a chronology of violence and other events in the history of the conflict.  The chronology grew to nearly 200 pages before other projects brought that research to a halt.  Recently, I dusted off that chronology and found it curious that I had never read the seminal Zionist work The Jewish State by Theodore Herzl.  This was because I was mainly looking to chronical the history of the conflict and not its ideological origins.  So my reading it now was long overdue.

In the 19th century, Europe underwent significant political changes due to the rise of nationalism.  It was then that Germany and Italy both became unified countries.  Other nationalist, independence movements appeared elsewhere in Europe, including Hungary, Greece, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Serbia, and elsewhere.  It was in this context that the right of self-determination of peoples gathered international support.  What counted as "a people" was, however, a matter of debate.  It was in this context the Herzl proposed in the last decade of the 19th century that Jews should be considered "a people" with the same right to self-determination as any other people.  That they were scattered across Europe (and elsewhere) simply posed a logistical problem that could be solved by concentrating the population in a specific geographic area and creating a majority population capable of enforcing their right to self-determination.

I had no preconceived notions about Herzl's The Jewish State, but I was surprised to discover just how programmatic it is.  Herzl sought to offer a practical plan for how the Jewish people could create a viable state out of their dispersed population.  To start, a geographic gathering place would be needed.  Herzl suggested Argentina and Palestine.  Of Argentina, he wrote,

Argentina is one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has a sparse population and a mild climate.  The Argentine Republic would derive considerable profit from the cession of a portion of its territory to us.  The present infiltration of Jews has certainly produced some discontent, and it would be necessary to enlighten the Republic on the intrinsic difference of our new movement.

Of Palestine, he wrote, 

Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home.  The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency.  If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey.  We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.

In both cases, Herzl recognized significant obstacles to forming a Jewish state in lands already occupied by other peoples.  To overcome these obstacles, Herzl proposed the formation of two agencies: the Society of Jews and the Jewish Company.  

The Society of Jews would be responsible for what we might now call "urban planning on an national scale."  The Society would assess the resources available to accommodate the influx of immigrants and design the national infrastructure.  It would also be responsible for establishing the political and governmental institutions of the new state. 

The Jewish Company would be responsible for helping to liquidate the assets of European Jews seeking to emigrate to the new state and to arrange for the purchase of land (developed and undeveloped) which would then be sold or provided to the immigrants.  The Jewish Company would act roughly as a real estate agent, but it would also have the responsibility of raising revenue for the development and expansion of the Jewish state.  Herzl believed that the high price of land and assets owned by Jews in Europe compared to the low prices in the new Jewish state would allow for the easy colonization of the new state.

He furthermore predicted that different classes of Jews would emigrate in different waves.  The first emigrants would be from the lower classes which suffered most from European anti-Semitism and had little to lose by emigrating to a new land.  These emigrants would be employed to build homes, schools, roads, and other infrastructure in return for passage to the new state, room, and board.  It's hard not to see them as indentured servants.  As conditions in the new state improved, middle class Jews would be drawn to emigrate and upper class Jews would find making investments in the new state attractive.

It is interesting how much Herzl's plan actually played out in the decades after he published his book.  Two agencies came into being that more or less enacted his two-agency plan: The Jewish Agency for Palestine (later Israel) did the work of the Society of Jews and the Jewish National Fund did the work of the Jewish Company.  Herzl's expectation that Jews would flee Europe as a result of anti-Semitism and the promise of protection in the new Jewish state came to pass writ large in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust.

As the 20th century wore on, the recognition of the right of the self-determination of peoples led to the end of the classical colonial era and the independence of colonies around the world.  It has, however, created significant problems for the Zionist movement and the indigenous Palestinian population.  Both make claims to their right of self-determination, while occupying the same territory.  It reveals a challenge to the right of a people for self-determination that is playing out in many places around the world.  

With the advent of international air travel, once homogenous and geographically separated peoples have become increasingly mixed, making the very notion of a people even more difficult to circumscribe.  In Europe and the United States, rightwing movements have risen to oppose immigration and to identify the native population as a people.  These movements are based on a not-so disguised ethnic identity.  

It is, however, long past the time when a people can be easily identified ethnically.  We live, instead, in self-governing societies that are ethnically diverse; so any appeal to the self-determination of a people, must find a basis other than ethnicity for that right or risk the imposition of the rule of one ethnicity over others.  The most obvious alternative to ethnicity is citizenship within a liberal democratic state in which each citizen has the same standing in relation to the law and the state.  

Returning to Herzl's vision of the Jewish state, it begins to look like an ethnocratic remnant of a fading past.  If current global trends make headway in Israel/Palestine, the future of the Jewish state might not be a state living side-by-side with a Palestinian state nor a Jewish ethnocracy from "the river to the sea." Instead, there might emerge a single, liberal democratic state in which all citizens enjoy the same rights equally.  That, however, will certainly require a radical shift in the identity politics of the region.

The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All / Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson, eds. -- Chicago: Open Court, 2003

 In the year 2000, Open Court Publishing launch a series titled, "Popular Culture and Philosophy" with the book Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book About Everything and Nothing. Open Court has gone on to publish scores of books in this series.  As someone interested in both philosophy and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, I was pleased to receive as a Christmas gift Volume 5 in the series, The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy.  Books in the series are anthologies by authors, largely philosophers, who seek to tease out the philosophical themes that appear in whatever pop culture subject is the subject of the book.  TLotR and Philosophy is the only work in the series that I've read.  This is perhaps a reflection of my distance from so much of pop culture -- nothing to be proud of, just a fact. Whether I'll read other works in the series is an open question, but I'm glad to have read this one.

As with most anthologies, the articles are uneven.  Perhaps my biggest complaint is that too many of the authors spend an inordinate amount of time describing major events in TLotR, as if someone reading this work would not be quite familiar with the fact that, say, Gandalf battled a balrog in Moria or Boromir was slain defending Merry and Pippin.  But setting this aside, many of the articles do a good job of exposing philosophical ideas in TLotR.  There are five parts to the work, titled, I. The Ring, II. The Quest for Happiness, III. Good and Evil in Middle-Earth, IV. Time and Mortality, and V. Ends and Endings.  Each part contains three articles, except for the last which contains four.  

Stand out articles include Eric Katz's article "The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality."  The comparison between Tolkien's One Ring and Plato's Ring of Gyges is an obvious topic for philosophical discussion.  In Plato's Republic, Glaucon argues that anyone with a ring that made them invisible would eventually use it for immoral ends, even an otherwise moral person.  Socrates responds that the moral person would prefer a life of peace and integrity to whatever would be gained by illicit uses of the ring.  Tolkien's characters better reflect this latter theory, though they present a more complicated response to the One Ring than Plato imagines for the Ring of Gyges.  Katz examines the reactions of numerous characters to the One Ring and shows how they respond according to their established character.  Each does experience a least a moment of temptation (except Tom Bombadil), but they each resist, except for Gollum and Frodo.  Gollum because he is murderous to start with, and Frodo because he simply can't overcome the force of the ring he has carried so long.  This suggests that the adage "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is not Tolkein's view.

In Scott A. Davison's article, "Tolkien and the Nature of Evil," persuasively argues that evil is not an independent force in opposition as thought by Manichaeans, but merely the absence of good.  In that sense, TLotR isn't really a story of "good versus evil," it is a story of an effort to keep corruption at bay.  Though Davison doesn't make much of this observation, Tolkien makes shadows a stand in for evil.  This is true not just in TLotR, but in The Silmarillion, Tolkien's realm of the god-like Valar, is originally illuminated (as is all of the world) by two trees.  How this might be isn't explained, but one can't imagine that these would be specific spatial sources of light.  Instead, their presence would bring light to all the world from every angle, leaving no place for shadows.  It is only when the two trees are destroyed by Ungliant and Melkor that the Sun and Moon are created, illuminating the world, but still casting shadows.  Evil has entered the world and shadows come into being.

Aeon J. Skoble's article, "Virtue and Vice in The Lord of the Rings" is rather unique in the anthology.  The other articles in the anthology largely start with features that appear in the novel and go on to observe their philosophical import.  Skoble turns this on its head.  His article reads more like an introductory essay on ethics, particularly virtue ethics, with illustrations of his points taken from TLotR.  That is, he centers the philosophical ideas as opposed to elements of the novel.  If all of the articles were like this, the anthology would make an interesting text for an introductory Philosophy course (of course with the pre-requisite that students read TLotR.  As it is, the anthology might be better described as literary criticism appropriate to an English literature class.  

The final article, by John J. Davenport, entitled "Happy Endings and Religious Hope: The Lord of the Rings as an Epic Fairy Tale," is a real stand out. Davenport makes use of Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-stories" and other works by Tolkien to support Tolkien's claim that TLotR is "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work."  This has always been something that has escaped me.  Certainly, some elements of the novel can be seen as religious and specifically Catholic, but to say it is "fundamentally" so, seemed a stretch.  

Davenport claims that the essentially religious message of the work is that "evil cannot stand forever, that its misappropriation of divine power and right destroys itself in the end.  But this does not come about without our participation, our willingness to sacrifice, and our faith (beyond all rational hope) that our mortal efforts will be met with the ultimate response, and day will finally come again."  The "ultimate response" that Davenport refers to is what Tolkien calls a "eucatastrophe" -- a sudden "turning" at the end of fairy-stories that provides an "unexpected deliverance...experienced not as an achievement..., but rather a divine gift."  The resurrection of Christ is seen as the great eucatastrophe of the Christian faith, and the sudden unexpected appearance of Gollum at the Cracks of Doom is the great eucatastrophe of Middle-Earth.  This makes Tolkien's claim that his work is "fundamentally religious" somewhat more plausible.  Of course, one might also argue that despite how seemingly hopeless things are, the future is always essentially uncertain.  There's nothing necessarily religious about that. 

Other articles in the anthology certainly deserve reviews here, but as they are each short, I'll instead recommend picking up a library copy and sampling them at your leisure.  As you should expect, some will be weaker than others, but anyone interested in Tolkien and philosophy will find them entertaining.  

  

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man / Mary L. Trump -- New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020

I've not been particularly enticed to read any of the books coming out about Donald Trump and his administration.  I guess I get enough of him reading the daily news, but Mary Trump's memoir showed up in the Little Free Library outside my condominium complex.  It looked like a quick and easy read and my brain was in a down-cycle, so I took it home.   

Mary Trump is, of course, Donald Trump's niece.  She was part of a the close knit family born of Donald's father, Fred Trump.  She also received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Adelphi University.  The combination puts her in a unique position to comment on Donald Trump's thinking and behavior.  There was a time when psychologists and other media pundits were "diagnosing" Donald as exhibiting a narcissistic personality.  Caution required us to recognize that a proper diagnosis would require more than observing Donald's public behavior.  It would require a more in depth examination by a qualified professional including personal interviews.  Mary gives us the closest thing we'll ever get to that.  Not only has she known Uncle Donald from countless private, family gatherings, she grew up knowing his father, mother, his siblings, children, nieces, nephews, personal friends, and employees.  For the book, she conducted numerous, sometimes taped interviews with these people.  Her professional conclusion is not surprising:  Donald is not just narcissistic, he's a sociopath. 

But the main thrust of the book is not Donald.  It's the Trump family.  The two figures that loom largest in her narrative are Fred Trump and his eldest son "Freddy."  Freddy was Mary's father.  He was what some might call "the black sheep" of the family, much maligned by his father and often ostracized by his siblings.  He struggled with alcoholism and eventually died of a heart attack at the age of 42.  Much of Mary's book reads as an effort to restore her father's reputation.  

As the eldest male among the Trump siblings, Freddy was expected to carry on the family business, but he had little interest in this.  He preferred a more relaxed and social lifestyle: boating and fishing with friends.  He eventually earned a pilot's license.  For a short time, he was a commercial pilot for Trans World Airlines.  Still, his reputation in the family was so low that even his mother disparaged him, saying to Mary, "Do you know what your father was worth when he died?  A whole lot of nothing."  

The comment "a whole lot of nothing" gives a pretty good clue to the family values extant in the Trump family: a person's worth can be measured by their wealth and what they are willing to do to acquire it.  According to Mary, these values stemmed from her grandfather's single-minded pursuit of money.  Mary describes Fred too, as a sociopath, distant and uncaring, concerned mostly that he have a male heir to whom he could bequeath a fortune and who would then expand it. The family's patriarchal values are exemplified in the family's tradition of naming the eldest son "Frederick" (or "Friedrich," if you trace the sires back far enough).  In Donald, Jr.'s case, "Donald" lives on.  The Trump family seems to think of itself as a royal dynasty.

When Freddy failed to live up to his father's expectations, Donald became the new heir apparent to the family business.  Donald was an unruly child that had to be sent to the New York Military Academy to try to learn a little discipline.  Unfortunately for the world, the discipline he learned was how to manage his amorality in a way that would allow him operate effectively in the world.  Most of all, Donald cultivated the "killer" personality that his father so highly valued.  On Mary's assessment, Donald is a chip off the old block if there ever was one.  He has been, however, not nearly as adept in business as his father was.  Instead, Mary claims that Donald merely cultivated an image of success which was his only real talent.  His actual fortune was a product of his inheritance and the assistance that his father gave him along the way.  Fred even participated in the creation and maintenance of Donald's image.   

As Fred aged, Donald became something of a tyrant among his siblings.  In his father's declining years, he even attempted to have his father's will changed to give him basically the whole fortune.  Luckily for the siblings, the attempt was made during one of Fred's more lucid times, so it failed.  The siblings were especially lucky as they were concerned mostly about remaining in the good graces of their father to avoid being disinherited.  Mary herself was disinherited for simply being the child of a deceased son.  Fred had no concern for his grandchildren.  Had Donald succeeded in gaining control of the estate, the siblings' bondage to the will of a sociopath would have continued for the rest of their lives.  

Mary's book only lightly touches on the unscrupulous (even illegal) business activities of Fred, but as a grandchild, Mary was more or less unaware of them until she was contacted by reporters for the New York Times.  They were working on a massive investigation of the Trump business and hoped Mary would provide them with some documents and insight.  It is somewhat surprising that Mary does not make more use of what their investigation discovered.  The article they finally wrote (NYT, Oct. 2, 2018) provides clear and unassailable evidence of the chief motives and methods of Fred and Donald.  They conform to Mary's assessments.

Very little in Too Much and Never Enough is surprising in what it says about Donald's personality.  All that Mary writes is entirely consistent with his public behavior.  Even his supporters are likely to recognize the character traits she describes, but instead view them as virtues or as lamentable quirks.  Still, it's worthwhile to see an account from someone with a deep, personal connection to Donald and with professional credentials confirm what the lay public at large can see.

One final note, the documentary evidence and public behavior of Donald's three eldest children seems to indicate that the kind of relations within Fred's family have been reproduced in Donald's family.  Both are rich family units with children subject to an authoritarian, sociopathic father.  What seems to hold them together is mainly the family's wealth.  It makes me want to re-watch the 2003 documentary film Born Rich which interviews several children of phenomenally wealthy parents.  Ivanka Trump is one of those children.