Memoirs et al

I continue to add memoirs (and correspondence) to the collection I’m developing. The latest to catch my attention is Robert Reich’s Coming Up Short – a memoir of America (2025) which starts by noting that -

The New Left had relegated the depredations and indignities of class—and the need for strong labor unions to lift workers’ wages, protect jobs, provide pensions, and give workers more job security—to the backwater of activism. By the late 1960s, it felt as if all Americans, apart from the very poor and the very rich, were on the way to enjoying middle-class life. To me, the central problem wasn’t inequality but drab conformity, crass materialism, and the hypocrisy of American ideals—as illustrated in the classic 1967 film The Graduate, in which Dustin Hoffman, playing Benjamin Braddock, a newly minted college graduate, is told that the future is in “plastics” and is seduced by the mother of the girl he loves. The trail-blazing progressive authors of the late 1950s and 1960s whose books I devoured barely mentioned the working class. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in The Affluent Society, published in 1958, America had become a society of abundance.

The Feminine Mystique grew out of a fifteenth anniversary reunion survey at Smith College; its message that women should join the workforce was of little relevance to the workingclass women already in it. Silent Spring spurred the environmental movement. Ralph Nader’s 1965 bestseller, Unsafe at Any Speed, gave birth to the consumer movement. Michael Harrington’s 1962 eye-opener, The Other America, exposed American poverty and inspired Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. But the working class and the labor movement were all but forgotten.

Not even President Johnson’s Great Society aimed to strengthen and expand the rights of workers. Initially, he intended to repeal the part of the Taft-Hartley Act that allowed so-called open shops, but he backed off when corporate lobbyists attacked. America had a civil rights movement, a women’s rights movement, a gay rights movement, a consumer movement, an environmental movement, a poor people’s campaign, and an anti–Vietnam War movement, but no movement to lift the living standards of the working class.

Reich superbly captures here the mood in not only in the US but in the UK – where I well remember my own shameful neglect of the power of the trade unions. He continues -

Democratic presidents took organized labor for granted if they thought about unions at all. When Jimmy Carter as president had to choose between spending his political capital on a bill to strengthen labor unions or a treaty to hand over control of the Panama Canal to Panama, he chose the treaty and the labor bill died. Bill Clinton didn’t push for labor law reform in his first two years as president when Democrats held a majority in both houses of Congress, nor did Barack Obama in his first two years, when Democrats also had a congressional majority. In 2021 and 2022, when Democrats again narrowly controlled Congress, President Joe Biden did not fight to make it easier for workers to form unions, although, to his credit, he did appoint a pro-union National Labor Relations Board and he walked a union picket line.

In the twenty-first century, millions of American workers—most of them with no college education and no union to support them—lacked a political home.

Without the alternative of economic populism, Americans were more susceptible to right-wing cultural populism. Yet in a world populated by people like Trump, we could not trust anyone to be truthful if they could do better for themselves by lying. (Here again, much of the public believes America is already at this point.) We couldn’t count on any claim by sellers of any product or service.

Journalists would shade their reports for their own selfish advantage, taking bribes from advertisers or currying favor with politicians. Teachers would offer lessons to satisfy wealthy or powerful patrons. Historians would alter history if by doing so they gained wealth or power. Scientists would doctor evidence for similar selfish motives. The truth would degenerate into a cacophony of competing factual claims, as, in part, it has. We couldn’t trust doctors or pharmacists to give us the right medications.

We couldn’t trust bankers and accountants not to fleece us, restaurants not feed us tainted food, lawyers not to hoodwink us. Professional ethics would be meaningless.

Diaries, Letters and Memoirs contains the up-to-date listings – all 64 pages

Other selected additions

A Little Yes and a Big No George Grosz (1946) The German/US artist famous for his satirical 

paintings of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s
Persons and Places – fragments of autobiography George Santayana (1953)
Open Secret – the autobiography of the former head of MI5 Sheila Rimington (2001)
A Lie about my Father John Burnside (2006) the Scottish poet
Back from the Brink – 1000 days at number 11 Alistair Darling (2011) ex-Chancellor for the 

Exchequer in Gordon Brown’s government 
Kurt Vonnegut – Letters ed Wakefield (2012) The US writer who survived Dresden
Building – letters 1960-75 Isaiah Berlin (2016) Berlin was the famous UK philosopher
More Affirming 1975-79 - letters Isaiah Berlin (2016)
More Explaining 1982-96 - letters Isaiah Berlin (2019)
The Room where it Happened – a white house memoir John Bolton (2020) Trump’s Sec 

of State who has become his greatest critic

Because, however, the axis of adults had served Trump so poorly, he second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government. The axis of adults is not entirely responsible for this mind-set. Trump is Trump. I came to understand that he believed he could run the Executive Branch and establish national-security policies on instinct, relying on personal relationships with foreign leaders, and with made-for-television showmanship always top of mind. Now, instinct, personal relations, and showmanship are elements of any President’s repertoire. But they are not all of it, by a long stretch. Analysis, planning, intellectual discipline and rigor, evaluation of results, course corrections, and the like are the blocking and tackling of presidential decision-making, the unglamorous side of the job. Appearance takes you only so far.

More Enlightening 1946-60 letters Isaiah Berlin (2024)
More Flourishing 1928-46 letters Isaiah Berlin (2025)  

A Resource on AI

I’m not a great fan of articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) – although I’ve dipped into Nexus – a brief history of networks from the stone age to AI by Yuval Harari (2024), The Coming Wave – technology, power and the 21^st Century’s greatest dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman (2023) and The Machine Age by Robert Skidelsky (2023) 

All of these books are clearly written and give a good assessment of the pros and

 cons of AI. A much more difficult book to assess is The Great Transformation – 

history for a techno-human future by Judith Bessant (2018) whose conclusion 

includes this excerpt -

Co-evolutionary theorists like Merlin Donald and Michael Corballis developed a sophisticated theory of the mind, consciousness and evolution that pays attention to historical and evolutionary change over very long periods of time and offers a relational or ecological approach to understanding the mind, body, consciousness, and culture which includes technology.

As Karl Jaspers (1953) observed, the Axial Age (800–200 bce) was a period of dramatic intellectual, mathematical, religious, and philosophical development that occurred simultaneously in China, India, the Middle East, and Greece. Its protagonists included Confucius, Buddha, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle. It was a pivotal time in human cognitive and intellectual development signified by the birth of comprehensive systems of philosophy, theology, and science. It was also a time marked by an exploration of ethical ideas (e.g. justice, kindness, compassion, and piety), which for many became central to the idea of a good life and spirituality.

For Donald, the Axial Age was also a key period in a larger evolutionary history of human cognitive and cultural development - it signalled the advent of a new human consciousness, a ‘theoretical stage’ of human thinking. This account of the Axial Age provides a base for a key argument in this book, namely, that we are now experiencing distinct changes in human consciousness and ways of representing reality that are as significant as the changes in consciousness that defined the original Axial Age. The new techno-Axial Age we are now entering is revising long-established relations between human consciousness, that is, the ways we represent reality, human action, and work.

The changes documented in this book will have major implications for every human now alive, because they will affect all aspects of our experience and existence. They raise ethico-political questions in which we all have a direct interest in answering. Doing so requires open debate in the public sphere and is too important to be left to experts and elites.

All this indicates the importance of thinking about the arrangements, policies, education, and ethical frames we want and need to develop if we are all to enjoy the benefits of new and emerging technology. The governing ideas and representations of the late-modern capitalist order, like those of pre-Axial societies, are failing to provide what is needed to give meaning and to secure our political cultures as they seemingly did once.

The previous chapter identified a number of design principles that might help guide our thinking and deliberating about a new social imaginary. The aim of that exercise was not to prescribe a doctrine or plan, but to identify particular ideas that will help in deliberations about possible paths and the preliminary steps we might take along them. To do this I drew on a number of writers to argue that priority be given to promoting deep freedom and diversity (plurality), while recognizing that the conditions in which we now live require a new social imaginary. I concluded with an argument about the role educational practices can play in enabling this to happen.

We need now as never before intelligent, ethically sensitive governance. It is something that can be achieved by recognizing everyone’s capacity to imagine and create change.

READING LIST ON TECHNOLOGY – starting with the most recent
Nexus – a brief history of networks from the stone age to AI Yuval Harari (2024)
The Coming Wave – technology, power and the 21st Century’s greatest dilemma Mustafa Suleyman (2023)  
The Machine Age Robert Skidelsky (2023)

The Next New – navigating the 5th industrial revolution Pranjal Sharma (2023)

Impromptu – amplifying our humanity through AI by AI and Reid Hoffman (2023) 
The Age of AI; and our human future H Kissinger, E Scmidt and D Huttenlocher (2021)
“Humanity is at a Precipice” (Pew Institute 2019)
Future Politics – living together in a world transformed by Tech  by Jamie Susskind (2018)
The Great Transformation – history for a techno-human future Judith Bessant (2018) 
“Artificial Intelligence and the future of Humans” (Pew Institute 2018) 
Utopia is Creepy ; Nicholas Carr (2016)
The Internet is not the Answer ; Andrew Keen (2015)
The Second Machine Age – work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies ; Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014  
From Guttenberg to Zuckenberg – what you really need to know about the Internet ; John 
Naughton (2013)
To Save everything click here – the folly of technological solutionism; Efgeni Morozov (2013)
The Shallows - what the internet is doing to our brain Nicholas Carr (2010)
Technology Matters – questions to live with  David Nye (2010) Looks exactly what I've been
looking for
The End of Ethics in a Technological Society LE Schmidt ((2006)
Technopoly - the surrender of culture to technology ' Neil Postman (1992)
The Technological Bluff Jacques Ellul (1989)
The whale and the reactor –a search for limits in the age of high technology Langdon Winner (1986)
The Impact of Science  james burke, isaac asimov (nasa 1985)
The Technological System Jacques Ellul (1980)
Between two ages – america's role in the technetronic era Zbigniew Brzezinski (1980)
The Republic of Technology  Daniel Boorstin (1978)
The Revolution of Hope - toward a humanized technology  by Eric Fromm (1968)
The Technological Society  Jacques Ellul (1964)

Previous posts on the issue
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2024/09/can-we-ever-keep-up-with-technological.html 
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/08/perhaps-we-need-to-be-more-cautious-in.html 
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2023/07/have-we-lost-our-collective-intelligence.html 

The Good Society

Three books have borne this title – by JG Galbraith, Walter Lippman and David  

Donnison respectively. Unfortunately Donnison’s book (about urban development 

published in 1980) is unavailable for downloading.
The Good Society Walter Lippman (1936) is a rather unpleasant book glorifying 

the idea that planning leads to totalitarianism. Its only redeeming feature is that it 

follows the old tradition of taking 15 pages to set out its argument chapter by 

chapter. Galbraith’s The Good Society – the humane agenda (1996) is a much 

more positive book -

Among the great nations of the world none is more given to introspection than the United States. No day passes without reflective comment by the press, on radio or television, in an article or book, in compelled and sometimes compelling oratoryon what is wrong in the society and what could be improved. This is also, if in lesser measure, a preoccupation in the other industrial lands Britain, Canada, France, Germany, elsewhere in Europe and in Japan. No one can deplore this exercise; far better and far more informative such a search than the facile assumption that all is well. Before knowing what is right, one must know what is wrong.

There is, however, another, less traveled course of thought. That is to explore and define what, very specifically, would be right. Just what should the good society be? Toward what, stated as clearly as may be possible, should we aim? The tragic gap between the fortunate and the needful having been recognized, how, in a practical way, can it be closed? How can economic policy contribute to this end? What of the public services of the state; how can they be made more equitably and efficiently available? How can the environment, present and future, be protected? What of immigration, migration and migrants? What of the military power? What is the responsibility and course of action of the good society as regards its trading partners and neighbors in an increasingly internationalized world and as regards the poor of the planet? The responsibility for economic and social well-being is general, transnational. Human beings are human beings wherever they live.

Concern for their suffering from hunger, other deprivation and disease does not end because those so afflicted are on the other side of an international frontier. This is the case even though no elementary truth is so consistently ignored or, on occasion, so fervently assailed. To tell what would be right is the purpose of this book. It is clear at the outset that it will encounter a difficult problem, for a distinction must be made, a line drawn, between what might be perfect and what is achievable. This task and the result may not be politically popular and certainly not in a polity where, as I shall argue, the fortunate are now socially and politically dominant. To identify and urge the good and achievable society may well be a minority effort, but better that effort than none at all. Perhaps, at a minimum, the comfortable will be afflicted in a useful way. In any case, there is no chance for the better society unless the good and achievable society is clearly defined.

Another book with “good society” in its subtitle is Barry Knight’s Rethinking Poverty – what makes a good society? (2017) which reminds us that an unequal society is a bad one. This, of course, was first spelled out in Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson’s The Spirit Level which is summarised in their short paper “The Spirit Level 15 years On” – for my money, however, the better book is Danny Dorling’s Injustice – why social inequality still persists (2015)

Why Do We Ignore Poetry?

It’s more than 5 years since I last raised this question with this post -

Most people ignore most poetry

Because

Most poetry ignores most people

Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008)

I have decided views about writing genres – with a rather strong preference for essays (and short stories). I sometimes wonder whether my lack of interest in fiction betrays an element of autism – although in 2010 I did an interesting list of the novels which had appealed to me in the previous decade. But some years ago I went so far as to suggest that the flood of books had reached such a point that we needed to consider rationing at least non-fiction books

Given the popularity of Twitter and the fear that our attention span is declining, one might have imagined that poetry might appeal to the younger generation. But I don’t sense any sign of this…The Music of Time – poetry in the 20^th Century is a book written by the Scottish poet John Burnside in 2020 which contains marvellous and convincing essays (in many cases translated) 

In The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, Burnside moves through his personal life and those of writers responding to war, political turmoil and environmental damage. This is a book where Burnside shows us how to read, how to live a life formed by reading, how poetry knits its way into our minds. It is also a curiously uplifting, rousing book. “Hope”, he writes, “is of the essence for all poets. We might even say that to make a poem at all is an act of hope.”

Why do so few poets appeal to us? I have a few favourites - Bertolt Brecht, Norman MacCaig, TS Eliot, WS Graham, Charles Bukowski, Marin Sorescu and Adrian Mitchell. What is it about such poets which allows them to “reach parts other cannot reach”?

In Bukowski’s case the answer is obvious – he wrote about low-class life in a bawdy way and made not the slightest concession to the poetic structure. It seemed like a flow of semi-consciousness….Norman MacCaig and Marin Sorescu – from opposite ends of Europe – shared a wry, humanist approach to nature and events. See MacCaig’s “Smuggler” and Sorescu’s “Asking too Much?” - the latter about a man commuting between Heaven and Hell and unable to choose between a book, a bottle of wine and a woman

Bert Brecht and Adrian Mitchell – on the other hand - were both highly political

My favourite poem is probably Brecht’s “In Praise of Doubt” which you can find in this collected edition of Brecht’s poetry.

WS Graham and TS Eliot were pretty apolitical but I have always been fond of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets not only for its Zen like sense of time and the puniness of our efforts but for its references to the fragile nature of words – thus, in “Burnt Norton”

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

decay with imprecision, will not stay in place

You can read the entire poem here and later (in East Coker) a section I use a lot–

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

Little wonder, therefore, that Eliot was a great admirer of a little-known poet from my home town (Greenock) in the 1940s, WS Graham, who also wrote a lot about words eg

Speaking is difficult and one tries

To be exact, and yet not to

Exact the prime intention to death.

On the other hand, the appearance of things

Must not be made to mean another

thing. It is a kind of triumph

To see them and to put them down

As what they are. The inadequacy

Of the living, animal language drives

Us all to metaphor and an attempt

To organise the spaces we think

We have made occur between the words.

Update; when the post first appeared, I quite unforgivably omitted Tom Leonard from the list. He died, sadly, in February 2019, but his website richness is still available and the letters in particular give a true sense of Glaswegian literary life. His most famous poems were in contemporary street Scots – my favourite being “The Six o’clock News” which you will find my scrolling down this excellent extended tribute

Further Update; 2 British poets, John Betjeman reads Philip Larkin's poems

The 2000th Post

Today, I have much pleasure announcing, is the day I mark my 2000^th post. It’s taken some 16 years to reach this goal – that’s some 125 posts a year by my reckoning although I’m only hitting 46 so far this year. In 2014 I celebrated the 1000^th post in this way and have picked out some of my more neglected posts (starting with some older ones)

Some Notes on a Crisis 
Memorable Messages 
The Search for the Holy Grail  
What will it Take to rekindle our lost faith in the political process
Journeys in Scotland 
Why don't we ask more interesting questions?
What is to be Done?  
If you look at the right-hand column, you will see no less than 28 of the Ebooks 

I have made from the posts during these 16 years – several are complete books 

such as The Long Search for Democracy and “What is to be Done? – dispatches 

to the next generation” - but most are shorter eg

Diaries, Letters and Memoirs (August 2025) Gradually I’ve accumulated an annotated list of some 250 books of memoirs, letters, diaries and biographies with hyperlinks to the text of most

Notes on the concept of CHANGE (August 2025) classifies, lists and (briefly) assesses 130 books on this subject

Just Words? A sceptic’s glossary (March 2024) I’ve taken a great deal of pleasure in identifying all relevant texts and then developing my own caustic definition of some key and commonly used phrases

Puzzling Cultural Values (Jan 2024) În the brave 90s, talk of culture became unfashionable but has recently become more acceptable. This paper explores possible reasons for the change