WHEN I THINK THAT I THINK, WHO IS IT WHO THINKS?

(This is my Jenseits-17 comment, which was already touched upon in my entry Spontaneous Generation, in the Genius section [posted on April 14, 2011, as part of a composite entry Reading Books], but here it serves as a neat supplement to the entry The Mysterious Commonwealth Of Concepts, which it immediately follows in my book, but was posted on this blog separately on January 31, 2012.)

Here is a delightful little observation, typical of Nietzsche’s genius: flimsy, yet profound:

“A thought comes when it wishes, not when I wish, so that it is a falsification of fact to say that the subject I is the condition of the predicate think.” [From Nietzsche’s Jenseits (17).]
Indeed, our best thoughts are never tortured out of a persistent conscientious effort at thinking, but they are rather spontaneous, as though coming from outside us, or even out of the mystical depths of our being, over which we have no control. Curiously, this argument does not refute the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, as, even if our thoughts as such do not represent a proof of our existence, the fact that they use us as their medium, does. After all, the word cogito is a terribly complex concept, which must never be taken for granted, as if a reasonably well educated adult might comprehend it any better than a budding kindergarten learner…

Another inscrutable philosophical mystery!

VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY FOR ALL TIME

Rationality and irrationality meet again (actually, they never part their ways, so, that was merely a figure of speech), and mate, in the act of thinking.

Creative thinking is the best of human occupations and creative communication with other creative thinkers is an integral part of it. There is nothing that brings one closer to eternity than such communication as one’s mental reach can easily span millennia in an euphoria of timelessness, without ever feeling the distance.

Reading the works of great thinkers (whether one agrees with them or not) is the most delightful experience one can imagine, a prolonged, continuous series of conversations with dear friends, who give us confidence that “in the world’s desert we are not alone.” Some people, and I shall try not to be too arrogant to say, most people, indulge in what is called ‘daydreaming’ as a way to escape from the more unpleasant aspects of the daily reality, the next best thing to nothingness. But these out-of-this-world conversations, communion with the dead who are so very much alive to us through the immortal power, “aere perennius” of their logos, are something to be always looking forward to as an infinitely rewarding experience without a slightest tinge of senselessness, associated with daydreaming, days and nights, especially when we feel miserable, wallowing in the reminiscences of our former glories: “Olim lacus collueram, olim pulcher exstiteram,” etc.

In this connection, it is remarkable how timeless philosophy is. It is truly perennial, and runs throughout the millennia never losing its currency, as opposed to all sciences, where progress means discrediting all of the previous thinking, in fact, making it all look ridiculous. Nietzsche was absolutely right, in his reverence for the pre-Socratics. I will be showing my own by devoting a whole section to them later on and its delectably apt title PreSocratica Sempervirens speaks for itself. With the pre-Socratics, we can easily discard most of their scientific discoveries as hopelessly outdated, and indeed, some of them even as utterly ridiculous, but as great original thinkers, they are as contemporary to the best of us, as anyone can ever be, and, especially, considering the circumstances, even so vastly superior to the very best of our modern thinkers that it seems, today, as if their splendid breed has by now become extinct.

MATHEMATICS AS PHILOSOPHY

It is quite customary for us to think of philosophy as a discipline that contemplates good and bad, right and wrong, the beginning and the end of days, etc., and the reasons for all of these. Yet, we must admit that this is not what philosophy is to be reduced to. We have talked about it earlier already, that philosophy is much more than a contemplation of certain things, no matter how great these things are. Philosophy is, first and foremost, the art of thinking as such: not out of some practical necessity, or having nothing else to do, but thinking for the love of it, that is in order to gain a better knowledge and keener understanding of the nature of things.

Thinking is both rational and irrational, just as God Himself is both rational and irrational. It is based on an elaborate set of hypotheses, all involving absolute standards and values, which alone rationally justify Kant in his quixotic quest after his famous synthetic aprioris.

How does mathematics fit into this suddenly esoteric discussion? The good reader has undoubtedly noticed that in the previous short paragraph I consciously, but by no means disingenuously, built a few bridges that closely connect philosophy to mathematics, or rather, the other way round.

Indeed, previously, I made an assertion that mathematics is, in fact, a subdivision of philosophy, rather than an exact science, and I stand by it. In this entry, on proper development, I intend to prove that mathematics fits the criteria of philosophy with a far greater precision than it can fit the criteria of any science.

One can argue of course that any science contains in its theoretical portion elements of philosophy, and that in this sense we can find philosophy anywhere we look around us, mathematics included. Theoretical physics, for instance is “full of gods,” playfully paraphrasing Thales. In other words, we can find plenty of both irrationality and philosophical analysis in physics alone, not to mention chemistry, biology, etc.

Yet I am not claiming that physics, chemistry and biology are branches of philosophy, although stipulating that elements of philosophy can be discerned in all branches of science. Unlike all these, mathematics in its essence is philosophical, and applied mathematics infuses philosophy into the areas of its application.

How does a mathematical mind work? Unlike a scientific mind, it abstracts from reality, rather than dwells on it. It is by far more intuitive, and whenever a great scientist displays a similar level of intuition, we can call that scientist a philosopher with a better justification than if we ascribe his intuition to science proper. Such differences may appear arcane at first sight, but they are real, and they go to the root of human mindwork.

Not accidentally, most of the early great philosophers were mathematicians par excellence as well. Which did not prevent them of course from being scientists as well, but it does not work the other way: not every great scientist can be a great philosopher or mathematician merely by implication.

In my later elaboration of this entry, I will discuss the parameters that are present in mathematics, which are indicative of its inclusion under the umbrella of general philosophy, but at this point what I have written so far will have to suffice.

RATIONALITY AND IRRATIONALITY IN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

(In my book, this entry follows The Mystery Of Things, posted on this blog on January 20^th, 2011, as the first item in the eponymous mega-entry. The reference in the next paragraph is made to this fact.)

Objectively this entry comes too early in this section. But subjectively it is so closely related to the mystery of things that it is indeed inconceivable to place it anywhere in isolation from the previous one. Now, is the mystery of things a rational concept, or an irrational one?

I say that despite the allegedly clear delineation of rationality from irrationality, the actual dividing line is a hard one to draw. Let us take the perfectly “mystical” relationship between energy and mass in physics, for an example of a diffused dividing line, throwing in the even more mystical notion of the speed of light, for good measure… Could this extraordinary relationship have been any more mystical before Einstein made it rational through his celebrated formula? How many rational scientific discoveries of the past hundred years or so would have seemed totally incredible, and irrational at best, to earlier science? How many utterly irrational concepts will become scientifically rational to the scientists of the future?

This is not to say that a thousand years from now science will totally invalidate the existence of irrationality and turn even God into a rational concept. There exists a qualitatively significant divide between rationality and irrationality, and the above noted intrusion of the former into the alleged domain of the latter has been merely a quantitative re-demarcation of the border. This is where we need philosophy rather than science to tell us where enough is enough. Paradoxically, science is of little help if at all in distinguishing incorrigible irrationality from potential rationality. It is only through a purely philosophical analysis that we can access the concept of the mystical, irrational, transcendental. Where science is limited, philosophy is unlimited. It cannot invade the domain of the unknowable of course, but it can certainly posit its objective existence better than science can…

But what about mathematics, an enlightened reader may argue? Isn’t it true that mathematics can do the job I am now attributing to the authority of philosophy? To which I respond with this earthshaking proposition: mathematics is much closer to philosophy than it is to science! In fact, I can go even further to suggest that mathematics is indeed philosophy, rather than science. This statement is so important that I intend to create a separate entry about it, titled Mathematics As Philosophy, which is coming next. Meanwhile, as promised, we shall return to the subject of rationality and irrationality later in this section.

LOVE OF WISDOM

By the same token as philosophy cannot exist in isolation from the concept of God, no intelligent activity of man can exist outside the domain of philosophy, as soon as we realize that philosophy is not some esoteric, impossibly incomprehensible, and mind-twisting discipline monopolized by professional philosophers, but, when understood plainly as “love of wisdom,” it is what distinguishes humans from lower animals.

There are obviously rules, conventions, and regulations that define the narrow interpretation of philosophy, such as, say, in the second definition of this term in my Webster’s Dictionary:

“Philosophy. 2. A study of the processes governing thought and conduct; theory or investigation of the principles or laws that regulate the universe and underlie all knowledge and reality; included in the study are aesthetics, ethics, logic, metaphysics, etc.”

To Webster’s credit, it gives the following broad definition of philosophy as its number one:

“Philosophy. 1. Originally, love of wisdom or knowledge.”

Guided by this last broad definition, we may logically argue that every science is a branch of philosophy, in the sense that all pursuit of knowledge is a manifestation of man’s love of wisdom and (yes, “and,” rather than Webster’s “or”) knowledge.

There is a deeper connection between philosophy and knowledge, however, than identifying a science with philosophy on the strength of the latter’s “original” meaning. In fact, philosophy, in its more restrictive sense as a set of rules to study the laws that underlie all knowledge, produces such distinctive disciplines as, say, philosophy of science, philosophy of art, and even philosophy of sports…

And finally, on numerous occasions already I have used the word “philosophizing” to refer to philosophy as practiced by non-professional philosophers. Lest this particular manifestation of our love of wisdom is misinterpreted as some kind of inferior activity, compared to what professional philosophers are doing, I object to such an assumption. Ironically, we are prone to a higher regard for professional gobbledygook than for a far more accessible form of comprehensible expression that we may better understand than the other sort. I do not share this slavish regard for the incomprehensible, since most often the difference lies in the quality of the writing: good writing versus bad writing. Nietzsche stands among a handful of the greatest thinkers of all time, but being an excellent writer, and philologist by his original profession, he is comprehensible in a far greater measure than a legion of other philosophers, great and small, who do not count a good writing skill among their fortes.

Generally speaking, love of wisdom has little to do with the difficulty of professional expression leading to an accompanying difficulty in the reader’s understanding of what has been written. It is about the depth of discernment, as well as the strength of the stimulating effect of any given philosopher on our own thinking process. Here is where philosophy reveals its greatest value to humanity.

GOD, BY POSTULATE!

(With this entry I am returning to the Philosophy section, which goes under the title God, By Postulate!)

This clearly preambular entry comments on this section’s general title. Assigned to the section on the spur of the moment, I started having reservations about it practically right away. There can be no doubt that this particular subject is enormously important to the philosophy of religion, but the latter is obviously only one part of the larger subject of philosophy. Why don’t I find a more encompassing title for the section, then?

I contemplated, meditated, and ruminated, and eventually I realized that my initial title was a good one. Its relevance to philosophy as such is incontestable. After all, ethics, ontology, gnoseology, epistemology, etc., are all about God, as Spinoza and Pascal passionately asserted, and as Kant has most convincingly demonstrated in his metaphysical quest. There could be no philosophy without the concept of God (compare this to Thales’s “all things are full of gods”), but there could be no understanding of the dividing line between science and religion, and no appreciation of where exactly philosophy fits in this nearly impossibly difficult conundrum, unless we separate the unknowable God, who is necessarily beyond our comprehension, from the scientifically comprehensible and theoretically unchallengeable God by Postulate.

Indeed, I will repeat that accepting God by faith is religion, whereas attempting to prove His existence scientifically, that is mathematically, is impossible, because God is the ultimate elementary concept, and we cannot appeal to any preexistent concept for help in establishing quod erat demonstrandum. As a matter of fact, the “exact” science of mathematics cannot prove any of its own elementary propositions which are otherwise self-evident out of sheer common sense to every reasonable and not necessarily educated person, for which reason it accepts them all axiomatically, by postulate, just because it can neither prove them nor do without them.

By the same token, philosophy cannot do without God, because He alone supplies the absolute standard of all things. To make my point even clearer, all atheistic philosophers must of necessity address themselves to a gold standard of sorts, and their refusal to refer to that standard as “God” is merely a matter of linguistic preference, just as those who believe in God refer to that same standard as “God.” And, just like in mathematics, as we are dealing with elementary concepts axiomatically, so in philosophy we must deal with the basic concept of God.

I am therefore confidently contending that God By Postulate! is perhaps the most important statement “made on behalf of philosophy” (hello, Kant!), and that my sectional title is thereby admirably superb.

2084

(I wrote this entry in 2007, and I have no intention of changing anything in it. The subsequent events of the Arab Spring do not amount to anything like a game changer, in my view. After the present turbulence subsides, and it will somehow subside, none of the longterm trends touched upon in this entry should be significantly affected in any way.)

What will the world look like in 2084? Will it be a better world, or are we going down the slope from now on? Most probably neither. The world in the time ahead of us may not be very much different from what we have today. In many aspects, we may say, nothing noteworthy is going to happen, to inaugurate a dramatic global change, one way or another.

America and Russia will obviously still be at odds, but I do not think that the stability of official bipolarity will be reinstated in those clear cold war terms which used to be so wide off the mark in their ideological statement, but so adequately reflecting the cold but clear factual reality of the two superpowers confronting each other. No such clarity for the new world, I suspect.

In fact, the fictitious construct of multipolarity will certainly remain the order of the day. America, Russia, China, the EU, and several other, more questionable centers of power will be loudly acclaimed as such, but the truth of the matter will be that all these centers can be safely reduced in number to two, where America will be one, in her proudly uncomprehending isolation, while the rest will form the antithesis to the United States, with Russia playing a key role in holding that uneasy alliance together.

The number of nuclear-powered nations will grow to twenty or thirty at least, as homegrown nuclear energy and the possession of nuclear weapons will be universally considered the status symbol, rather than a stigma of non-proliferation gone wrong.

The former Republics of the USSR will either toe the Russian line or conduct Russia-friendly policies. The reconstitution of the Soviet Union will not take place, and they will probably all retain their current status of independent states, thus giving Russia a plethora of votes at the United Nations. Not exactly a spectacular achievement, in terms of Russia’s geographical grandeur, if we are merely looking at the map of the world, but pragmatically, a far greater political gain than the three votes that Stalin managed to squeeze out of the UN in 1945.

The Russian populations in the Baltic Republics, the only three members of the EU from the former USSR to be granted that distinction in the twenty-first century, will all find their voices when it really counts, and will start proving themselves useful to Russia well before 2084. (Not that the other EU members may have a particularly anti-Russian inclination, far from it, but, in so far as some small but essential details are concerned, they are going to make a critical difference.)

All centers of power in Asia will be at odds with each other, allowing Russia to play the role of the benign broker, always reminding the conflicting parties about their common boogieman, the United States.

The Moslem world will be in close alliance with Russia. The Russians will never insist on becoming a full member of the International Islamic Conference, but will always be there in their special status, under the by now familiar formula “all of them plus Russia,” which cuts the pie in half, like no full membership can ever accomplish for them.

The African nations will never be able to make it into the exclusive club of the rich, and that must permanently keep them in the Russian camp: a big gain for Russia, if we consider the levels of Africa’s natural resources.

The nations of Central and South America will further speed up their divorce from the United States, while seeking Russian help in that endeavor. This is not that much of a prediction, of course, considering that this is already happening right now, but the predictive part for me is to assert that the current trend of alienation from the US will be accelerating.

As far as America is concerned, wasn’t it America’s and Israel’s own Daniel Pipes, who said a full decade ago that America today has only two steady friends, namely, Israel and Taiwan. I would not want to argue with Mr. Pipes on that account, except to say that, by the year 2084, Taiwan will be long reunited with her big Chinese family, to live happily ever after. (Once we are on the subject of reunification, the same thing is in the cards for the eager and anxious Koreans.)

Which leaves us with the question of the last bastion of American international friendship, namely, Israel. I have said it before and I am saying it again, that one-third of Israel being “Russian” does not bode well for that solid and long-term Israeli-American friendship, Daniel Pipes was talking about. But, even without this question coming to a head in the next decade or so, the fate of the State of Israel is already hanging in the balance. America’s activist Jews have clearly overplayed their hand, on behalf of Israel, making the life of the Israeli Jews virtually untenable. I suspect that very soon a noticeable trickle of Jewish emigration from Israel, in search of a safer life, will be turning into a flood, more or less, leaving behind a shrinking bunch of Zionist zealots, who won’t be able to sustain their life in Israel on their own, plus the traditional group of ultra-religious Jews praying by the Wailing Wall, none of whom had recognized the State of Israel anyway, and none of whom had previously had any trouble peacefully coexisting with the Palestinian Arabs.

All of which must have exposed my view by now, that, unlike twenty years ago, I would not bet any money or anything on the continued good health and prosperity of the Zionist State of Israel too much deeper into this century, and definitely not beyond its 2048 centenary.

There are a lot more things to talk about in this entry, when I revisit it on my next round, but for right now this will have to suffice.

OLD EUROPE, NEW EUROPE

(Having mostly been written five or so years back, with a part of the first paragraph added to it about a year ago, this entry has not lost its poignancy, in my estimation, but I will let the good reader be the judge of that as I am posting it as is without any new updates or revisions.)

This entry is about the past, present, and future state of Europe, so far, a roller coaster, first fancied united, in Giuseppe Mazzini’s vision, later, after World War II, split into two camps by Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain, next ostensibly united in the European Union, the closest model so far to the practical solution of the United Europe problem, but almost instantaneously split again into old Europe and new Europe, using the sarcastic description of the new fault line, given to it by the American Bush Administration in the new twenty-first century. (It’s been several years since this entry was written, and there is no stop to the cracks in the so conveniently, yet so deceptively shining armor of a “United Europe.” The most recent split along the predictable fault line of the more stable-less stable Europe has zeroed in on the sharp financial problems of the Eurozone, that is, pitting the nations needing to be financially rescued against their terribly reluctant and awfully demanding rescuers… But this story is to be told another day…)

In order to have a better appreciation of the future of Europe, one ought to have a clearer picture of its past, but that picture is still very incomplete and suffering from at least one key distortion which flaw this and my other books and articles have always attempted to address.

While Mazzini and a number of notable others have collectively combined to form the dreamy prehistory of a United Europe, its practical history starts with the… postage stamps inscribed Europa, the creation of Europe’s Common Market and the EEC, European Economic Community, all of this during the Cold War period, and, naturally, limited to the Western-style democracies of Europe. This prototype of the European Union (the old familiar slogan of the United States of Europe could not possibly remain in place, as it was unnecessarily, and unfairly, underscoring Western Europe’s dependence on the United States of America) also became its core when the EU itself came into existence, and it was this essential core that received the mocking nickname Old Europe at the hands of the Bush Administration.

From the collapse of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, it ostensibly followed that the only obstacle that ever mattered to the unification of Europe having been removed, the EU dream would now be coming true, like the logical conclusion to a mathematically pre-calculated formal sequence of a pre-calculable physical process. In my articles on the future of Europe, published by the Marin Independent Journal twenty years or so ago, I uncharitably called Eastern Europe “a can of worms,” and warned about the coming resentful controversies, political conflicts and outright wars that would threaten to tear Europe apart. My prediction quickly came to pass in Yugoslavia and a number of places elsewhere, but in the meantime, the new pattern of Old Europe versus New Europe was quickly forming, and there was no way to wish it away. In simplest terms it was the question of America’s new role in Europe. Whereas the free nations of old Europe by now were sick and tired of Washington bossing them around, the governments of new Europe to a much larger extent than the people of these nations were welcoming the massive incursion of the American big brother as a promise of coming prosperity, a get-rich-quick dream becoming a reality.

Such is today’s newest fault line cutting across Europe. It is no longer all that much about Russia, as about America. (Except for the fact that it is Russia, which is at the heart of the American expansionist policy in Europe, the fact that few of the new Europeans have realized so far, and when they do, their sobering up is going to be rather unpleasant…) And while the new Europeans are still recklessly flirting with their rapist in the naïve hope of marrying him, the old pros of the west are eyeing these new gals on the block with a wary and anxious eye and growing intense resentment, most certainly regretting their rashness in admitting these newcomers into their common home, which is now threatening to set that home on fire.

So, what is the future of all Europe going to be? I doubt that the European Union as such will collapse any time soon: it is too useful and convenient for too many purposes. Besides, it has already survived a number of domestic disturbances, such as the refusal of some members to sign the European Constitution. So what? we may ask. The Union is not an empire held together by force. As long as they have at least some interests in common, and we can safely assume that this will always be the case, they can retain a flexible structure of their loosely-knit commonwealth, and more or less live happily ever after.

I do not think that a warm rapprochement between Old Europe and the United States is in the cards. New Europe, however, is an unfolding story, which needs to be looked at from the opposite angle. We may assert that its ties to America are at the zenith of their strength, but there are certain factors which complicate their honeymoon, if we may call it that.

It is a standard business practice in America that a new customer in the consumer market is always treated like an honored VIP, showered with various sweetheart incentives, like three months of free HBO, or some free-of-charge gadgets, or even an extension of interest-free credit for your purchase, so that you can enjoy your new acquisition for almost a year, before you start paying for it. This is an attractive business practice, and most consumers are hooked on it. Let us say that New Europe is among such consumers and the spell of euphoria has not worn out yet.

But sooner or later the consumer will have to pay, and let us hope that the reasonable consumer understands that nothing in this business world is for free. I do suspect, however, that the New European consumer has less responsible behavior on his mind. After all, don’t we know that collection on a bad loan is frequently unenforceable even here at home, so how are we supposed to collect from our customer half a world away? But there are also other reasons as well.

Stuck between Russia and Old Europe, the New Europeans have too many needs that the distant America cannot possibly satisfy. They will have to live and cope with their neighbors, and such a practical prospect cannot bode well for Washington’s imperial ambitions. It is, therefore, my sincere prediction that a decade or two from today the current New European waywardness will certainly settle down, and the prodigal sons and daughters of Europe will come back to the home, which, ironically, they never have left.

BE A FRIEND TO RUSSIA!

(With this entry, I am resuming the series on the state of international relations in the twenty-first century. It touches upon the general state of Russo-German relations. In connection to this, see also my entry Putin’s German And Germany, posted on this blog on September 19^th, 2011. Not incidentally, my title’s idiom paraphrases Don Vito’s (Godfather) last will and testament to his faithful: “Be a friend to Michael.” The role of the old Don Corleone in this entry belongs to--- you guessed it!--- Prince Otto von Bismarck.)

No one in his own mind would contest the fact that Germany is one of the world’s truly great powers. And although it may be argued that in the twentieth century Germany, crushingly, lost two world wars in a row (so, how can a two-time loser like that be counted among the great powers?), the amazing fact about those losses is that, in spite of them, Germany landed on her feet in no time at all, every time she fell. Having lost the first World War in deep humiliation and in desperately dire straits, she had sprung back up in less than twenty years as the world’s dominant power during the Third Reich, and it would take Hitler’s remarkable combination of arrogance and stupidity to end up as the eventual loser of World War II.

Any German who had lived long enough to witness Germany’s reemergence from the ashes, to become the predominant power of Europe, by the end of the unquestionably disastrous for Germany twentieth century, decisively eclipsing the big winners of that last war Britain and France, might be wondering how different the world would have looked had Germany in fact won World War II, and frankly, he would not be able to come up with too much overall difference.

Yet, why such devastating losses at all? Not incidentally, each time that Germany suffered defeat, Russia was on the other side (the late-hour 1918 Brest Litovsk Peace Treaty between the new Soviet Bolshevik Government and Germany obviously does not count, except to prove that Germany should not have fought a war with Russia in the first place), and, I repeat, this was anything but a coincidence. In both these cases, Kaiser Wilhelm in World War I, and, of course, Hitler in World War II, were both showing a reckless disregard for their own history and for the most important historical testament left to them by the father of modern Germany, with Germany each time having to pay a terrible price for their waywardness.

Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the creator of Germany’s Second Reich, was a remarkable man in all respects and, as a true genius, he has not been able to fit into any mold, except that of a German patriot and a statesman of great wisdom. Portrayed as a solid conservative in domestic policies, this square stereotype overlooks the fact that he was the first European statesman to create an effective social security system for the German workers, including health and accident insurance and old age retirement benefits. As for his brilliance in foreign affairs, it has been exhaustively recorded by the historians, but my particular emphasis is on his key legacy to all future German leaders: never fight wars on two fronts, and, therefore, be on good terms with Russia. Those two subsequently lost world wars were Germany’s inescapable punishment for ignoring Bismarck’s bequest… Could there be a third catastrophe in a row of the same nature? No, even the thought of it sounds ridiculous, despite the uneasy history of the Cold War and the inherent East-West disagreements. Moreover, I am perfectly convinced that Germany has learned her Russian lesson so well, that in this twenty-first century Russia will have few better friends than her erstwhile archenemy Germany, and none more sincere.

…But will the Russians ever accept German friendship? After all, the hair-raising memory of the horrors of that last war is still shockingly alive in the nation’s memory. And the anti-German cinematic and musical masterpiece Alexander Nevsky (see my references to it in several places elsewhere) will never be retired as Russia’s living cultural treasure, each time bringing back the tragic memories of the past generations with a renewed sense of pride for the nation’s repeated, but no less glorious for that, triumphs.

It takes a true nobleness of character, some would call it national-chauvinism, to rise above the insults and unpleasantnesses of the past, and, worst of all, a national tragedy that had cost over twenty million lives. A lesser nation than Russia would not have been able to do it, but Russia can. After all, it was Germany who was utterly defeated at the end. It was Germany who became the instrument of that unprecedented Russian victory that turned a great power into a superpower. Nothing sweetens the bitter taste of a national tragedy like the sweetness of the final triumph. There is no hero without a tragedy surrounding him, and Germany has supplied that sine-qua-non ingredient for Russia.

ACCOUNTABILITY DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE

(Here is the fourth, and mercifully the last commemorative entry, written about six years ago, and now being posted as part of a series on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the American war in Iraq.)

When an haughty neocon makes his arrogant prediction that the war in Iraq should be a cakewalk, whereas things turn out exactly the opposite way, can he be allowed to get away with his mendacity?

No, yet he does get away! Where are all those scoundrels, who have duped us into this war under patently false pretenses? Some still there, most “kicked up” to better-paying jobs, and none at all punished!

I see no accountability here, none at all!

When the current George W. Bush Administration turns such deliberate mendacity into a national policy, at the expense of all reason and facts to the contrary, can they be allowed to get away with their mendacity?

No, yet they do get away! The great American system of government has an accountability provision for an aberrant public official. It is called impeachment. Only it does not seem to work anymore, as there exists an odd impression among the American political elite that starting any impeachment process against the sitting President must be unhealthy for the country. True, there is nothing to gloat about whenever impeachment is becoming an issue of serious consideration, yet totally removing it from consideration, on the grounds that it is going to hurt the public morale, deprives the remaining branches of government of their only effective instrument of ensuring the accountability of the Executive Branch, and turns the principle of Separation of Powers into a sad joke.

What is the meaning of accountability, when nobody becomes accountable for a tragic mistake, costing this country and others, horrific losses in blood and treasure, her national honor and international prestige going down the drain, and the worst thing about this mistake is that it was not even a mistake at all, but a colossal and deliberate deception of the worst possible kind?!

With regard to the advisers and promoters of the preexistent idea of going to war in Iraq, there is no meaningful accountability here either. There is only one reasonable solution to this problem. Those who cannot be made effectively accountable for their actions are not to be allowed into the government, or even close to the government, as its advisors and consultants.

Here is a pertinent passage from the treasury of human wisdom, the generous legacy of that great ancestor of ours, whom we used to call our Western Civilization, whom we have disowned and spiritually dismissed, on the beckoning of others.---

“It occurred to me that I should find much more truth in the reasonings of each individual, with reference to the (practical) affairs in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must presently punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a man of letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself.” (From Dèscartes’ Method, Book I)

Here is an excellent repudiation of the practice of employing those below the radar screen, unaccountable, so-called armchair philosophers of politics, and a very reasonable appeal for the practical wisdom of such practitioners who cannot afford abstract speculation, but stand to lose from their errors of judgment, in real terms. Unless America wishes to surrender her foreign policy making to charlatanism, subversion and chaos (and this is not too much of an exaggeration), her government employment practices ought to stipulate that all foreign policy practitioners be made accountable, in clear and unambiguous ways, for the probity of their strategic advice and of subsequent policy decisions! Unless they personally stand to lose from the bad advice they give to their bosses (at least in such forms as public censure and disgrace, a career-ending banishment from public life, etc.), they will surely continue to pursue false agendas (rather than employ better judgment, which, I suspect, they may still possess to some degree, yet prefer to conceal, for certain ulterior motives) with arrogant impunity.

“KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE!”

(…Here is yet another dated entry now being posted in a series commemorating the tenth anniversary of the American war in Iraq. Like the previous one, it was written five years ago.)

Why is the war in Iraq being waged at all? We have heard too many explanations of the reasons for going to war in the first place, and all of them have been proven phony. This is no longer about why America has got herself into this miserable war, but about how to get out of it. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has put it quite adequately: Once the bus has been driven into the ditch, there are only so many (meaning, few) ways of pulling it out.

And yet there is so much preoccupation with the success of the surge, whatever that means, as if America is suddenly winning the war instead of losing it. I admit that it is hard to accept being a loser, especially if one is an American but what is the definition of success here when it is clearly just a temporary reduction in the monthly death toll, yet with no end of the war in sight this is only a protraction of the long agony which has been the American very presence in Iraq, surge or no surge.

Mr. Obama is right that the mission itself is the problem and that now it has to change, quite dramatically at that, from the task of being there to the task of getting out. Leaving Iraq with some dignity: such is the definition of success.

So, here is a fresh bite on the stale pastry from the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s bakery. His byword “keep your eyes on the prize” gets a new life in the context of the war in Iraq, and particularly in the light of this Nietzschean gem: "Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal."

The Bush Administration’s abhorrent war in Iraq is not a goal but a path they have chosen to pursue, with a commendable stubbornness, which would have been a virtue had it been applied to something of substance. The big question here is “Where is the goal?” Or, in Jesse Jackson’s lingo, “What is the prize?” And I do not mean the goal of the malicious shadow-leaders and their brainless Washington followers in the White House and on Capitol Hill, but the goal of the great American nation, as it keeps sailing into the future on board a doomed pirate ship, whose business-as-usual crew, by day, turns into a scary host of skeletons and zombies by night, while the passengers are so much preoccupied with their foodstuffs, personal effects, and other trivial minutia (“It’s the economy, stupid!”) that they have lost the understanding of the fact that their basic livelihood, their decent retirement, and the future of their children and grandchildren depend on a far larger set of factors than the tiny nuts and bolts of the economic machinery, and that larger picture of where the ship is headed to, and who is in control of it, instead of becoming their legitimate preoccupation, seems to be the last thought on their minds.

The clueless and unwinnable (because there is no sensible definition of victory whatsoever) war in Iraq will end up costing trillions of dollars with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, the American nation has become so bewildered by all this that its middle class has given up even on its basic struggle for survival, allowing its bare necessities of tomorrow to be wasted and stolen in astronomical numbers by the new kind of crooks who have replaced the m in millions by b and even tr, which enables them to skim countless billions off the top of this nation’s essential wealth, adding up to trillions, and precipitously diminishing the prospects of a future prosperity…

So much for the American Dream.

WHERE IS THE CHURCH?

(This is a second heavily dated entry, posted now in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of America’s war in Iraq. It was written five years ago, long after my initial support of President George W. Bush’s policies turned into a shocked and disgusted repudiation. As the reader will see, it is not a finished entry, but an initial sketch of one, which I never bothered to finish in its present form. Yet I am never opposed to letting my reader into the kitchen, where some of my unbaked dough is stored, probably indefinitely, in my computer's refrigerator. Here it is, then.)

[A note to myself:

This stinging denunciation of the passive, or outright negative role America’s Church leadership is playing in the current political events, meekly tolerating, or fawningly applauding the shameful acts and policies of the Bush Administration, probably the most obscenely immoral, as it turns out, Presidency in all American history, particularly in its cynical indifference to the lives and thoughts of the American people, in its use of the fear factor to curtail civil freedoms, and in its conduct of the disastrous war of choice in Iraq, is quite proper, in my view. However, it is still a blueprint for a potential larger piece, where I will be naming more names, but will also identify the opposition to the Bush policies, which may be too tame, yet it does exist, and it must be mentioned, to keep a certain balance in the eventual piece. I must emphasize that the worst perpetrators here are the Establishment Evangelical preachers, the so-called Religious Right, who have rudely violated the line of separation between Church and State, intruding in the matters of this nation’s foreign policy, and going out of their way to consecrate ex cathedra (yes, I am talking about the Evangelical preachers such as John Hagee, and Pat Robertson’s crowd, to name just these two out of many names) the highly controversial and glaringly immoral aspects of the neoconservative agenda. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in America is hardly enthusiastic about President Bush’s policies, yet it is by no means vocal enough in their own repudiation.
From its first sentence, the dated nature of this entry becomes apparent: it was written at the time when Israel was bombing civilian areas of Beirut, Lebanon--- a military operation that was both despicably immoral and militarily doomed to fail. The final draft of this piece probably ought to focus more on what the Church has been doing about the actions of the American President, but, considering that Washington and Tel Aviv have long been joined at the hip, the American Evangelical Church’s predictably enthusiastic responses to the objectionable policies of Israel are also of major interest. And, of course, the contrarian attitudes of the oppositionist churches in America, such as the recently getting into the spotlight church of the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright, are quite telling, revealing, perhaps, the Pendulum effect, which I describe and comment on, in one of later entries in this section.]

On the American church leaders’ silence over the outrage in Iraq, and now in Lebanon.

In my Lecture Summary on International Justice I made the following important assertion:

“We must become philosophers before being scientists. But, unfortunately, modern philosophy is virtually bankrupt, as a result of the growing divergence between secular and religious thought that has reached the point of incompatibility… Instead of firmly taking the path of ethical social activism, religious (leaders) of today are consumed by their narrow proselytizing agendas, as if their only mission in life is to get converts for their specific denominations…”

That was written at a time when I was primarily concerned with the American Church’s virtual indifference to the life of the nation as a whole, almost like it was in the Dark Ages of yore, when the Church effectively separated itself from the woes and aspirations of the secular world behind the walls of the monasteries and universities, paying no attention to wars, pestilences, and other miseries of their fellow human beings. But today things have changed, and changed a lot. These days, the Church has stepped right into the mud of the most repulsively secular kind, throwing its considerable weight behind the neoconservative agenda, values, and practices of the George W. Bush Administration. This is not to say that the Church leaders have abandoned their former ways. Far from it. A large part of them still inhabits the Dark Ages. But the most active among them have definitely plunged their allegiances into the even darker ages of an unholy political activism.

Yes, these are not solely matters of denominational religion, that today preoccupy so many of the American religious leaders. Even more reprehensibly, they get themselves strongly involved in matters of international and domestic partisan politics, usually on the Republican side, where they are quick to attack a morally decent church-going individual, who happens to be a Democrat, while supporting the scum of the earth, just because they run for a national office on the Republican side.

The bottom line here is not to mull over how many religious leaders are thus reprehensible not only for men of faith, but even by the standards applied to ordinary human beings, but that, most regrettably, these church leaders of America have miserably failed their nation as a whole.

Forget their duty of spiritual guidance, forget their supposedly being the conscience of the nation and forget their claim to personal integrity and intellectual honesty (which, when caught, they always like to excuse by “we are all sinners redeemed by the Blood of Christ”). American Protestant Churches represent religion in the worst sense of the word. They have no clue to the meaning of “ecclesiastic integrity,” let alone any inclination for “writing with their own blood.” Yet, they are crudely but effectively versed in agitprop, and in the darkest arts of dirty politics. They have shamelessly pretended to enlist Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures in their unholy political machinations, thus showing their complete lack of belief in God, in Heaven, or in Hell.

As for most other Church leaders, apparently, theirs is “a life of tranquility and reflection, that is not to be disturbed at home” (except for the so-called church scandals, that occupy a lot of their attention, clouding an otherwise cloudless sky) “and meddles not in the affairs of the world keeping their mind at ease and their thought in one even course.” (I am quoting George Long, from my entry L’Après-Midi D’Un Philosophe. See my comments there as well.) In other words, a Philistine’s Paradise! What else would you expect from an Establishment Church? Ask Kierkegaard!

Am I offending somebody here? I hope I do! Where are you, Church Fathers, when your nation needs you so much,--- not to wage yet another immoral war, but to protest against it?!

WAR IN IRAQ: GOING BACK IN TIME

Today, in a disquieted commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the American war in Iraq, I am doing something totally unexpected from a vehement critic of that cynical and essentially wicked adventure, having since, and even quite recently, been exposed as an outright fraud perpetrated against the American public and against the whole world by the Bush Administration… I am ostensibly rising in its defense!!!

Having said that, let us clear up the mystery as fast as possible. What I am offering the reader is an article of mine, never published, written more than ten years ago, in early March 2003, that is, a couple of weeks before the start of the war. Let me remind the reader that, having been severely disgusted by President Bill Clinton’s shabby and terribly counterproductive treatment of post-Soviet Russia, I had welcomed first the candidacy and later the presidency of George W. Bush, and it would take me three years to figure out to my dismay what his presidency was really all about.

The article below was written when I still supported Mr. Bush and his ill-advised and ill-fated policy vis-à-vis Iraq. There can be no greater condemnation, in my opinion, of that policy and of its miserable outcome than this memorable article of mine, written in its defense.---

The American national debate over Iraq has become silly, and even irresponsible, as soon as the issue was allowed to be shaped as “war vs. peace.” What ought to be debated instead, is “war for a right cause vs. war for a wrong cause.”

The fault is not entirely that of the public. Regrettably, the public has been getting conflicting signals about Washington’s basic goals in Iraq. Two different voices are saying two very different things, hence, the confusion.

Nobody wants a war without a cause, but only a fringe few would oppose a war in self-defense. I strongly support the principle of preemption, and in this case the Bush Doctrine of Preemption whenever and wherever America’s national interest is truly at stake. A credible threat of preemption is the best chance of prevention. By threatening war, one can effectively fight for peace. Even at this late hour, I am convinced that the actual war on Iraq is not inevitable; that America can end up victorious without having to put any of her military men and women in harm’s way, as long as she keeps up enough pressure on Saddam to force him to submit to the demands of the international community as expressed by the UN Security Council Resolutions. However, if this does not solve the problem, the United States should go to war, remove the clear and present danger, and then quickly get out, leaving it to the United Nations to clean up the ensuing mess.

The Bush Administration need not be required to provide public proof of the clear and present danger when such exposure jeopardizes America’s sources and methods. It is quite enough for the public to be solemnly reassured by its leaders that such a danger really exists.

The essence of good political judgment is simple: basic morality and common sense. The issues can always be reduced to black and white, while the gray area is the domain of the diplomats, whose job is fine-tuning. Anybody who argues otherwise, plays the Wizard of Oz. In these simple terms, it is self-evident that every nation has a legitimate right to defend itself and its closest allies. As long as the Bush Administration represents its case along these lines, the world will be on its side. Such was the case in November 2002 when the United Nations Security Council voted 15:0 in favor of the American Resolution on Iraq, a historic political triumph for the Bush Administration. Ironically, none of those Saddam’s gracious “concessions” of the last four months, which the anti-Bush protesters cite as the main reason for not going to war, would ever have been possible without President Bush’s policy of threatening a war.

Having said that, the dramatic international about-face we are witnessing today cannot be easily attributed to the American “doves” running amok, or to some exceptional fickleness and perfidy of the world-at-large, but to the growing persistence of this other, much louder voice rising out of Washington. It is the voice of the so-called “neoconservatives,” whom the Bush Administration has unfortunately failed to unequivocally repudiate and disavow. These “neocons” will never be satisfied with disarming Saddam and removing the threat he poses to this country’s national security. Their agenda requires going to war no matter what.

The culprit here is the philosophy underlying the much-talked-about but poorly comprehended Doctrine of Globalism, not so much in terms of its economic significance, as in its efforts to legitimize itself on moral grounds. The “Ethical Manifesto” of Globalism presumably promotes an enlightened humanitarian effort to change the world into a better place by stressing internationalism as the way of the future, and by fighting against nationalism as the main obstacle to progress. Seeing any type of nationalism as the main source of social injustice and persecution of minorities, it virtually equates healthy patriotism and national pride with the extreme types of nationalist expression. Furthermore, it overrates the incentives of internationalism and underrates and berates the forces of nationalism around the world.

The passion to better the world is understandable and honorable in theoretical terms, but the doctrine itself is terribly flawed. I am sure that the current international firestorm against the United States is not aimed at the America we have known and loved most of the time, but precisely at the Globalist offensive conducted by the neoconservatives under the guise of this President’s foreign policy.

President Bush is by no means a Globalist. A few years ago he clearly went on record against the principle of nation-building: the cornerstone of the internationalist agenda. It is therefore a great injustice that America’s friends and foes see him not through the prism of his stated convictions, but through the crooked mirror of a false identification. Today, his original message does not come out as clear as it should. Meantime, his public agenda has been hijacked by his arrogant impersonators. Drawn into the mental quagmire of the fuzzy definitions, the public is having a hard time discerning the true nature of America’s involvement with Iraq: is it indeed America’s legitimate and incontrovertible national interest or somebody else’s internationalist utopia?

Once this question has been answered unequivocally, the insanity of this distorted quasi-debate should stop, and the much-needed healing process, both within this nation and between her and the outside world, must promptly take its course. I am therefore urging President Bush to introduce such a clarity into the position of his Administration.

RISING SUN IN ECLIPSE

(ZATMENIYE VOSKHODYASHCHEGO SOLNTSA)

(My original Russian title of this entry, Zatmeniye Voskhodyashchego Solntsa, is a better title, because it is a play on the two meanings of the Russian word Zatmeniye: eclipse and confusion, which play is pertinent to the making of my point. But because the English version is also effective, even though not to the extent of the Russian one, I am doing something unprecedented, which is retaining them both together, so that the English title would ring the first bell for those who do not know Russian.)

Twenty-five years ago another big loser of World War II, Japan, seemed unstoppably rising on a fast track to economic superpowerdom. Today, somewhat eclipsed and considerably confused, the land of the Rising Sun badly needs to do some soul searching, and that, in a hurry. It would be disingenuous for Japan to ask herself, who are my friends and who are my enemies, as historically she has been so isolated from everybody else and so estranged, to the point of bitter hostility, from the other oriental races, such as the Chinese and the Koreans, both of whom had suffered from the Japanese Imperial oppression, that there has never been any love lost between the world of the Orient and the Empire of the Rising Sun.

There was a rather strange long stretch of time after 1853, when Japan, having just been discovered by the American Commodore Matthew Perry, seemed to be in love with the West, just like Madama Butterfly fell in love with Captain Pinkerton. Stalin was one of the few world statesmen in the first half of the twentieth century who was able to apply the tragic outcome of Puccini’s Chio Chio-san’s love to the large context of history and draw the necessary conclusions. Indeed, as soon as the Japanese realized that the price of their escape out of isolation was to be taken advantage of by the Americans and the Europeans, the euphoria of the first date gave way to resentment and a brooding contemplation of revenge.

The Russians under the last Tsar Nicholas II, had acted as no angels toward Japan either, but their clumsy and thoughtless Far Eastern adventure ended so swiftly and decisively in Japan’s favor, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, that Japan could not possibly bear a long-standing grudge against a great power which lost her bid for a piece of the Japanese pie to begin with, but also bolstered the Japanese nationalistic pride with the laurels of a dramatic military victory.

The story of the Russo-Japanese-American triangle prior to and during World War II is told in the History section, and I refer my reader who, for some reason, may not have read it, to it, but I can still add a little to that story here, suggesting that Japan’s wary and eventually dismissive treatment of Hitler, despite the fact of her joining the Axis Powers, can be explained (only in part, of course) by her general mistrust and even antipathy for the West.

At the end of World War II, the Russians took control of Manchuria, but Japan herself predictably fell into America’s hands. Having been bombed with atomic weapons, Japan surrendered to the mercy of the victor whom she had previously attacked without provocation, so it was natural for the Japanese psyche to accept the justice of their loss, and to yield to it.

Thus Japan solidly fell into the American sphere of influence in the Cold War world, and, being so close to Russia geographically, this situation could in no way please the Russians, who, however, always believed in Japan’s latent hatred for the United States, both for the scorns of the now distant past, and, more recently, for the double tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of these days the chicken will come home to roost, the Russian analysts were comforting themselves and their leadership, but Japan’s predicted divorce from the United States was too slow in coming, to put it nicely.

Now, more than sixty years have passed, and Japan is still in the American corner, while her relationship with Russia leaves much to be desired. Will that radical change, so optimistically predicted by the Russian analysts, ever come to pass?

All change always starts with a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. The unsettling economic woes (what a dramatic economic retreat from the previously radiant glow of a phenomenal success!), the trouble in the highest echelons of political leadership, which seems to have become a permanent feature of Japan’s politics, the perpetual public restlessness over the American military presence on Okinawa, and elsewhere, combined with an extreme national worry over the meteoric political, economic, and military rise of China and the solidifying Sino-Russian ties,--- all this is a bellwether of the coming radical change in the nation’s general course, which I foresee as Japan distancing herself from the United States and entering into a very close relationship with Russia.

Today’s Russia holds all the cards. The world has become anti-American, and Russia, still remembered as the other superpower, looks ever more attractive as a counterbalance to Washington’s hegemonic posture, now that the fiction of the Russian world domination has been discarded, at least in the military sphere. In the sphere of energy it is of course a different story, but most of it becoming today’s reality, everybody has been rushing to get into Russia’s better graces, and eventually Japan will do it with no lesser zeal than the rest of them. The specific question of the Russo-Japanese territorial dispute is just another ace in Russia’s hand. The Russians have little use for the disputed islands, and they may easily offer them into a joint use, or even give them back to Japan altogether, at the right time, and only as a sign of radical improvement in their bilateral ties. I suspect that the overarching condition sine qua non will be the closing of the American military bases in Japan, which even by itself should be a perfectly reasonable trade off. And finally (even though there must be a few other things which I have presently omitted here), their rapprochement will be a great opportunity for Japan to come out of her current isolation and to be reasonably hopeful that she would not be left the odd "man" out in the otherwise anti-Japanese alliance of Russia and China, knowing full well that Russia would love to use Japan against China, as her perpetual bargaining chip, which will allow Japan to reap some benefits from such a role… And then, perhaps, the Rising Sun of Japan will escape out of its current eclipse and shine again, although with a far greater modesty and a sense of proportion than before, compensating for the lack of intense heat by the benefit of solid stability.

Summarizing my point (which some fifteen years ago was one of the key subjects of an article I had written for the Marin Independent Journal, that selfsame article which got heavily edited, cutting out all references to Japan), I expect that the current lopsided situation within the American-Russian-Japanese triangle will be changing fairly soon in favor of a different kind of lopsidedness, thus vindicating the opinion of Soviet (and later Russian) geopolitical analysts who had been kept wondering all these years whether this blessed event would ever take place in their lifetime. Well, a human lifetime is a lot of time to one human being, but not to a nation that is used to count time in centuries.