Istanbul -- a Weimar city

The author of this piece, Claire Berlinski writes for City Journal, considered by many to be one of the finest commentary journals in the country.  She has lived in Istanbul for several years now and, as is obvious in her article, finds it an extremely fascinating city in flux.  The title suggests a comparison to the Weimar city of Berlin during the interregnum between WW I and II, when Berlin was in great cultural and economic ferment which of course ended badly with the rise of the Nazi.  Berlinski is careful to draw a distinction between Hitler and Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Istanbul, but there are some parallels that are worrisome.  Erdogan is an Islamist who has taken his country into a closer relationship with Iran and has been, on occasion, quite hostile toward Israel.  This is a long piece, most articles in the City Journal are, but for those of who have been to Istanbul and Turkey,  it is an interesting read.

C.S.Lewis's body of work

Scott at Powerline has produced a post that lists many of Lewis's works and he also points out the fatuousness of liberal pundit Richard Wolffe, who appears on MSNBC programs all the time as a savant.  He's also become the official chronicler of the Obama presidency and as such has full access to the WH in order to generate his propaganda on behalf of the one.  One needs a strong constitution to watch Wolffe perform on MSNBC and avoid gagging at the outrageous distortion of reality by a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.  Paraphrasing Scott, Wolffe he is both arrogant and a fool, like most liberals IMHO.

Almost everyone knows that C.S. Lewis, known to his friends and family as Jack, was a remarkable man of letters. For a serious writer of quality, he was incredibly prolific and incredibly popular. Almost everything he wrote is still in print, and almost everything he wrote is worth reading. Amazon lists 157 or 160 titles under his name. I mention here only a few items of interest.

Every high school senior should read The Abolition of Man. In it Lewis makes a powerful case for a version of natural law that belies the relativism in which students are inculcated in one way or another in school, especially in college. The problem is not strictly American or of recent vintage. Lewis was prompted to write the lectures that make up the book by a British high school English textbook. The Abolition of Man was published in 1943.

As a scholar teaching literature at Oxford and then Cambridge, Lewis wrote such influential scholarly works as The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition and Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century, an installment in the comprehensive Oxford history of English literature series. As a college English major I used Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost with pleasure. Other distinguished books deriving from Lewis's scholarly pursuits include The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Studies in Words, An Experiment in Criticism, and Selected Literary Essays.

Lewis loved fable, myth, and allegory. He even tried his own hand at them. Among his works in this vein are The Pilgrim's Regress and Till We Have Faces.

It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that every educated person is familiar in one way or another with Lewis's Christian apologetics. He told the story of his own journey back to Christianity from atheism in Surprised By Joy. Lewis's defense and elucidation of Christian faith took form in books too numerous to mention here. Among the most prominent are Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles. Closely related are The Four Loves and A Grief Observed, the book Lewis wrote following his wife's death from cancer.

Lewis's faith also found expression in fictional form. Who doesn't know The Screwtape Letters? It has become a modern classic. Educated readers should also be familiar with The Great Divorce.

Lewis's popular science fiction trilogy for adults gave expression to his philosophical and religious concerns as well. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength are the novels that make up the trilogy. Lewis's Chronicles of Narniahas become a children's classic.

Richard Wolffe is a charter member of the Obamamania media. He is the author of the Chronicles of Obama, now comprising the two books Renegade: The Making of a President and, most recently, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House.

In an appearance on Hardball last week (video below), Wolffe demonstrated his intellectual daring with critical words about Sarah Palin. Palin had cited C.S. Lewis as an author to whom she turns for divine inspiration. Wolffe thought this was absurd. Wolffe expressed incredulity that Palin turned to the author of children's books for inspiration.

Matthews interrupted Wolffe: "I wouldn't put down C.S. Lewis."

"I'm not putting him down," Wollfe responded. "But you know divine inspiration? There are things she could've said to divine inspiration. Choosing C.S. Lewis is an interesting one."

Palin's citation of C.S. Lewis is interesting, though not in the sense that Wolffe means. I would be interested to know in which of Lewis's books Palin has found inspiration. Palin's citation of Lewis in any event makes perfect sense. Even more interesting than Palin's citation of Lewis is the fact that, at the time of his appearance on Hardball, Wolffe had no knowledge of Lewis as anyone other than the author of the Narnia books. Anyone who combines arrogance and ignorance in these proportions is a fool. Wolffe is hardly special in this respect, but he is a good example of the phenomenon.

UPDATE: Joe Malchow says that I should promote this post under the heading: "Every C.S. Lewis Book You Need to Read." It's that too!

The right approach to governing

Mitch Daniels may just be the ideal executive for the public sector. He understands the fundamental role of government is to help those who for one reason or the other cannot help themselves and provide infrastructure that allows the private sector to thrive.  To this end he has created priorities, leaned out budgets making government more efficient, and created a culture of trust in government among the people.  This is really not a complicated formula and it is one that clearly works wherever it is applied.  Unfortunately Democrats do not believe in this kind of governance. Their priorities are quite different.  They want a larger role for government in the economy because that approach suits their lack of confidence in the free market and individual freedom.  Theirs is a philosophy of command and control and seemingly no matter how many times this formula is tried and fails, there are those who believe it will if you just get the details right.  Democrats have never come to grips with the basic truth Adam Smith revealed 235 years ago that self interest and freedom are the driving forces behind economic success.  Why they can't and wont see this obvious truth is mysterious.  Perhaps the most logical explanation is they are fundamentally followers who don't really want or appreciate freedom and the risks associated with it.  Like the serfs on the manors they are willing to trade their freedom for security.  Mona Charon writes an enlightening story here of Daniels' governance in Indiana.  This is the model for the rest of the country.  Think it will be tried in states where democrats are entrenched?  Not on your life.  So those states will continue on the path to bankruptcy and the rest of us better move to Indiana or somewhere else where the dems haven't gotten control yet.

A Dose of Reality from Paul Rahe

No one wants to imagine the worst case scenario in terms of the economy, however Paul Rahe does and outlines it here in this brief and chilling article.  The unemployment chart in the article alone suggests his basic argument that this is a fiscal or excess debt-driven recession along the lines of the 1930's is probably the correct view of what's happening now.  Rahe's bottom line is we are facing a very rough ride for the next phase of this unwinding of excessive debt everywhere and that we have probably the worst leadership imaginable in place to deal with it.

Darkness at Noon -- a book to read?

John Fleming leads off The Anti-Communist Manifestos: Four Books That Shaped the Cold War with an account of Arthur Koestler and Darkness at Noon. It is a riveting chapter of an excellent book.

Professor Fleming described Koestler (1905-1983) as among the better-known intellectual figures of the twentieth century: "He was a multilingual polymath whose large literary production included journalism, fiction, political and philosophical speculation, and some of the most remarkable autobiographical memoirs of his time. He was for some years a member of the German Communist Party. Later he became one of the most effective of literary anti-Communists...Koestler's rich life will surely be illuminated by a long-awaited biography by Michael Scammell."

Scammell's biography of Koestler was published at the end of last year. In the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books(subscribe here), John Derbyshire turns his attention to Scammell's biography in "Meeting the goose," the last of the three pieces we are previewing from the new issue.

Derbyshire quotes Koesler's warning to an admirer that coming face to face with one's favorite author is "a bit like having a wonderful meal of goose liver and then meeting the goose." Koestler led an interesting life, but familiarity with it is not likely to increase one's admiration for the goose. Derbyshire observes that the "goosiest aspect" of Koestler the man was his promiscuity.

Professor Fleming writes that "To read Darkness at Noon today may require a refresher course in European history of the late 1930s; but once a a little 'background' is in place, the book is as profound and stimulating as it was on the day it was published." It remains in print 70 years after its publication. It is to be hoped that Scammell's biography will reawaken or intensify interest in Koestler's contribution to the literature of hell.

Fascinating Possibilities

This article by J.R.Dunn, editor of the American Thinker, reads like a sci-fi thriller, and yet it appears most of what he describes actually happened.  At one level it is comforting to know (speculate?) that we are as clever as Dunn suggests, at least in terms of being able to deal with the really bad guys out there who want to do us and all other infidels harm.

The America haters

Ed Kaitz provides clear thinking in this article about all the America hating so prevalent among the blacks and so-called intelligentsia in journalism, academia, and Hollywood.  It's pretty clear all those seeds of hatred and the like were planted by the hippie movement of the '60's and is largely a case, as Eric Hoffer pointed out in his writings, of arrested development.  As Hoffer saw it the young people at the heart of the 60's movement were the product of an affluent society and were not forced to grow up by means of working at real productive jobs involving manual labor, much like he did in his career as a longshoreman.  This article also puts into perspective the slavery issue, used to great effect by the grievance movement headed byAl Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Clearly it's reached the point that many in the Sharpton/Jackson movement believe that the blacks are owed a living because the system was and is still rigged against them.  This thought seems to drive those who want cash compensation for past wrongs and ever more affirmative action plans and programs to make up for those past wrongs.

The article also points out how skillfully Obama used white guilt to motivate votes.  It is remarkable how differently Obama has governed compared to his rhetoric of bringing people together. His has been a governing philosophy of divide and conquer, and the country is much the worse for it.