Daily Archives: May 22, 2020

Navigating the Zeitgeist: A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism308 pp, $25 pbk, ISBN 978-1-58367-727-8By Helena Sheehan

Reviewed by Thomas J.Morrissey for The Irish Catholic

Dr Helena Sheehan is a well-known left-wing intellectual. Her book, Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: Critical History, published in 1985, became a classic work on its subject.

She has now written her autobiography, and this is the first volume, covering her life from the 1940s to the 1980s, a book which is full of interest for a particular view of Ireland and the world today.

She grew up in a middle class Catholic family in Philadelphia, attended a Catholic school, and was more developed intellectually and had more intellectual interests than most of her contemporaries.

She encountered doubts of faith, but struggled against them and felt called to religious life. She joined the Sisters of St Joseph. She describes the details and rigidity of convent life in the 1950s and the absence of any concession to change.

Noviceship

After the noviceship, she taught in a primary school, read widely, and became caught up in the sense of change that affected church and secular life. She attended the Jesuit University of St Joseph in Philadelphia, read widely in philosophy, seeking answers for her doubts by means of reason and philosophy.

The values of Vatican II, and her desire for a better and more just society influenced her teaching in school. Parents objected and she was let go. It was the final straw. She left the convent and, finding little support at home, left home and lived rough for some time.

Praying for light, without effect, and seeking to solve the mystery of God by reason, also without effect, she gave up religion.

She embraced the freedom movement of the late 1960s and 1970s revolting against war, seeking a free life style, living in communes, while also searching mentally for justice and meaning.

A striking, red haired woman, with capacity for passionate debate, she became well known in socialist circles. She found that she was searching for something that fulfilled as many aspect of life as Catholicism had done. She failed to find it in one outlet after another, and eventually turned to Marxism for solution.

Marxism and science became a preoccupation. She lived with a fellow socialist. They had two children. Following her desire for academic distinction in socialist philosophy, she was absent from home for months at a time, leaving her companion to look after the children.

She visited conferences across Europe, spent months in the Soviet Union but recoiled from its lack of freedom, then visited East Germany. There too she was welcomed as a committed socialist, but again found the regime too restrictive. She sought always liberation as part of the socialist answer.

In the 1970s she identified with the liberation movements in places such as Vietnam, Cuba, and Northern Ireland. She came to Ireland in the 1970s because of her Irish roots and to assist the liberation movement there.

She linked with members of the IRA, some of whom she had met in their visits to America, learned the Irish language, and eventually identified with the Irish Communist Party and the Official IRA, both of which had support from Moscow.

As in her dealings with socialist groups in America, Europe, and the Soviet countries, so too in Ireland, she wrote freely of people and groups in terms of their commitment to socialist principles and their attitude to her. She made enemies, but she made many friends. Her driving energy and intellectual ability was combined with an attractive personality.

In Ireland, her relationship with her American partner came to an end and she settled down with a well-known Irish communist.

She obtained part-time lecturing in Trinity College Dublin, and later a professorship in Dublin City University, where she taught the history of ideas and media studies.

She has published a significant number of books and articles on politics, culture and philosophy. As regards her children, her influence ensured that they did not become Catholics. In persuading others to be open minded, it is a pity that Helena Sheehan closes her own mind on the matter of religion in its largest sense.

This interesting, complicated, controversial and very honest book has one large deficiency: it does not have an index.

(c) The Irish Catholic, reprinted with permission

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A retrospective view of Ireland from the far Left: The Irish Catholic considers Navigating the Zeitgeist - Monthly Review

The world found out about Rutger Bregman in 2019 when, on a panel organized by TIME at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Dutch historian lambasted businesspeople in the audience for trying to fix the world economy without talking about taxation. It feels like Im at a firefighters conference and no one is allowed to speak about water, he said.

Now, he has a new book out, titled Humankind, in which the unconventional historian tries to unravel even more of the conventional wisdom that, he says, actually stands on empirically shaky ground. Bregman spoke to TIME in March, while the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly around the world.

Obviously I think Im right! The old fashioned realist position has been to assume that civilization is only a thin veneer, and that the moment theres a crisis we reveal our true selves, and it turns out that were all selfish animals. What Im trying to do in this book is to turn this narrative around, to show that actually, over thousands of years, people have actually evolved to be friendly.

Theres always selfish behavior. There are lots of examples of people hoarding. But weve seen in this pandemic that the vast majority of behavior from normal citizens is actually pro-social in nature. People are willing to help their neighbors. That is the bigger picture that were seeing right now.

I hope that the message of my book is extra relevant right now. Because its not only the virus that is contagious, but our behavior as well. If we assume that most people are fundamentally selfish, and if we design our response to this virus with that view of human nature, then were going to bring that out in people. Whereas, if we assume that most people are cooperative and want to help, then we can actually inspire other people. This may sound a bit cheesy, but theres actually a lot of psychological research that shows that acts of kindness are really contagious. They really spread throughout a social network, even influencing people who you dont know, who you havent seen.

The other thing this crisis shows very clearly is how dependent we are on certain professions. Around the globe, there are governments coming up with lists of so-called vital professions. If you look at those lists, you wont find the hedge fund managers or the marketeers or whatever. But youll find the garbage collectors and the teachers and the nurses, people who we often dont pay very well, but turn out to be people we cant live without. So just imagine what the influence of that could be for the longer term. Because theres now a whole generation growing up that will be impacted by this pandemic. Well all remember 2020 as an historic year. And for decades, people will be able to say, remember 2020. Remember when things were really tough. Who did we rely on? I think that could impact a whole generation.

I think everything starts with your view of human nature, because what you assume about other people is often what you get out of them. So if we assume that most people deep down are selfish and cannot be trusted, then youll start designing your institutions around that idea. And youll create exactly the kind of people that your view of human nature presupposes.

Im trying to redefine what the realist position is. I go over all this empirical evidence in my book, and I show that actually, what you see most in times of crisis is an explosion of altruism. Weve got more than 500 case studies of natural disasters from around the globe. And every single time sociologists and anthropologists find that its almost as if you push a reset button in peoples heads and they go back to their better selves. They will start helping each other. And this is the opposite of what weve been told for decades, for centuries even in Western culture, and what the news tells us every day.

Yes, but Im not part of the generation of the Cold War when the debate was all about capitalism versus communism or market versus state, right? I dont live in that binary world. Sometimes markets work best, sometimes the state has the best solution. During the Enlightenment, there were brilliant thinkers who realized that, if you assume most people are naturally selfish and you construct the market around that, sometimes it can actually work for the common good. I just think that in many cases, it went too far. What many economists forget is that this view of humanity, the so-called homo economicus, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You could do pretty much everything in a different way. In maybe one of the most radical examples in my book, I look at how the prison system works in Norway. They basically give prisoners the freedom to do whatever they want, right? Often, they even have the key to their own cells. And youve got prisons there with cinemas and libraries where they can just relax around on a friendly basis with the guards. Now, if you look at that, from an American perspective, youre like, these people are totally crazy. But then if you look at it from a scientific perspective, you look at the recidivism rate, right? The odds that someone who has committed a crime commits another one once he gets out of prison. Well, the recidivism rate is very high in the U.S. its one of the highest rates in the world. But its the lowest in Norway. So actually the realist prison here is the Norwegian prison, where inmates are treated like humans and as adults, whereas many American prisons where inmates are often treated as animals, as beasts. At the moment those are taxpayer funded institutions to educate people for more criminal behavior. Thats basically what they are.

Well, this is the big question hanging over my whole book. We do terrible things that are not done by any animal in the animal kingdom. Theres never been a penguin that says, lets lock up a group of other penguins and exterminate them. These are singularly human crimes. We can get the beginning of an answer if we look at this theory from biology that people have evolved to be friendly, what they call the self-domestication theory. And the idea here from some biologists is that theres a dark side to that as well. Because, friendliness, wanting to fit into a group can sometimes stand in the way of justice and truth. We find it very hard not to be included in our own social groups, to go against the grain. You even find it with babies, studies show as young as three to six months old that they already seem to know the difference between good and evil, and they prefer the good but they also have xenophobic tendencies. Babies do not like unfamiliar sounds, unfamiliar faces. So this is a tribal button that can be pushed in our brain.

But if you watch a lot of Hollywood and Netflix series, you might get the impression that people find it really easy to commit violence against each other. Well, we actually know from psychological studies and from the history of warfare, that people find it really, really hard. For example, during the Second World War, its estimated that only around 15 to 20% of soldiers actually managed to fire their gun. When they had to look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger, most of them couldnt do it, but that doesnt mean that you cant condition people to do it, you cant make them push a button of an artillery device or something so that they can kill people from the distance. So there are all kinds of technological and psychological means to get people to commit violence, but it is not deep in our nature. For most people, its actually really hard to do.

The other fascinating thing unique to humans is that we blush. How could this ever have been an evolutionary advantage that we involuntarily give away our deepest feelings? This shows that we evolved to cooperate. The thing is, this works really well on a small scale. Now, when we settled down, 10,000 years ago, and we first started living in villages and cities and doing agriculture, we also lost sight of each other, literally. And some of the things that we evolved for didnt work anymore. And I think its no coincidence that this is also the time in world history where you see the first wars breaking out. The reason is that the distance between people has increased.

And so obviously the simple solution that you come to if you want to do something against racism or prejudice or all these tribal instincts in our nature, the ultimate solution is obviously contact. People gotta meet each other.

Yeah, thats obviously the classic example. And in very diverse neighborhoods, most people wanted to stay within the E.U. And the same is actually the case during the Trump election in 2016. Neighborhoods with very little diversity voted for Trump. It is something that you should always keep in mind when you design your institutions, like schools. It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because thats what real life should be about as well.

Im optimistic actually. I think to be honest, that were living through extraordinary times. The Zeitgeist is really shifting before our eyes. You have to remember that even Joe Bidens climate plan is more ambitious than Bernie Sanders climate plan was in 2016. Even Biden wants to have higher taxes on the rich. This has become the new normal right now. So I really think that, what they call the Overton window, you see it moving. And you really see it with taxes as well. So the worst period was 10 to 15 years ago, when we werent even talking about it.

Now of course, the coronavirus is changing everything. Maybe this can become a bigger movement that you could call some sort of a neo-realistic movement, right, with a new updated view of human nature. Maybe this will be the end of neoliberalism, the incredibly powerful idea that basically conquered the West since the 1970s. The ideology was that most people are selfish. Now, maybe we can move into a different era, because this whole idea that most people are selfish is simply unworkable during a pandemic. Im not predicting this will happen. Its just a hopeful scenario, that may be accelerated by this pandemic.

Well, actually, my book is all about the power of human beings collectively, right? So individually, we cant achieve much. Were not very smart and were not very strong. The strength of human beings only really comes out on a big scale. So the same is true for climate change. Were never gonna solve anything about climate change if we keep making it into this individualistic discussion. Im not saying that doesnt have a role. I mean, the personal is political. But I think the message of scientists right now is that as a society, we need to go through this huge transformation. And we need to do something thats never been done before in peacetime. Move to half emissions in 2030 and zero emissions in 2050. That means that radical is the new reality. Greta Thunberg is totally right about this. Were now going to a world that will be three degrees warmer. And thats the average prediction. It could be worse. Now, Im living in the Netherlands, where big parts of the country are meters below sea level. So Ive been interviewing experts who say, its not certain that our grandchildren can still live here in the 22nd century. Its not certain that we can save this country. And so the stakes are incredibly high. But then again, its technically feasible. And weve done similar things in the past. So its not impossible. But this shift in the Zeitgeist needs to speed up quite a bit more.

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Write to Billy Perrigo at billy.perrigo@time.com.

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'Acts of Kindness Are Really Contagious.' Historian Rutger Bregman Argues for a New Way of Thinking About Humanity - TIME

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Dear J.T. & Dale: My husband has been out of work for a year. He was always the main breadwinner in our family. In the past decade of his career, he found himself getting laid off two times in a row. He was at both jobs only two years when he had turned them around so much that they didnt need him anymore and thought they were overpaying for his services. As a result, he is really defeated. At this point, I am the top earner in our family and I absolutely love my work. That said, Im feeling a little angry with him. All he does is exercise and pursue his hobbies. Weve both worked our whole lives. When our kids were little, I even had a part-time job while I was the stay-at-home parent. So, I find it quite annoying that he is getting all this free time off, and I do not. I told him he has to get some type of job. Its getting to the point where its affecting our marriage. Any suggestions? I think hes going through a midlife crisis! Kathy

DALE: Your resentments are understandable. There was a time when working was optional for women, but thats never been true for men. Years ago, I heard someone say that while woman could think about whether to stay home or work part time or work full time, for men there were two choices work or prison. And thats still mostly true. There was a brief house-husband movement, but it didnt stick. Indeed, I believe the current zeitgeist is to look with suspicion on anyone of working age who isnt working. The good news is that the definition of work has become less rigid.

J.T.: I dont think your husbands situation is a midlife crisis so much as a midcareer crisis. Your husband built up his skills and specialties to the point that hes really only needed on a project basis at an organization. Once he gets everything situated, they can make do with less expensive employees. Even though he was a full-time employee, he really was a consultant, and his assignment essentially ended. Which is exactly what I would advise him to do he should consult with companies and charge them a great hourly rate. He would have to work only a few days a week and probably be close to the same pay he was making before. That way he can keep the flexibility and lifestyle hes currently enjoying and make you happy too. There are a lot of online organizations now that are offering contract work like this. One in particular is called GoCatalant.com. I recommended this website to lots of people in his situation, and theyve been quite successful in landing gigs. This could be exactly what he needs so that he can find a new level of work-life balance at this phase of his life.

Dear J.T. & Dale: About a month ago, the owner of my company bought himself a new car. Its expensive. Today, he held a meeting and announced we missed our quarterly earnings and there were no bonuses. People were seething. Is it right to speak up and mention the optics of the car in the wake of this information? Andres

J.T.: I wouldnt say anything. Just like how you choose to spend your income is your business, the same goes for your boss. I realize the optics arent good, but being the one to tell him that wont do your career any favors because hell likely assume that you are bringing it up because you feel that way too.

DALE: Yes, its not like the boss is going to give back the car and apologize. If confronted, your boss might even say that hes providing motivation to employees to work hard and succeed. So, instead of talking to him about his car, Id suggest that you ask him to mentor you, offering to be one of the employees who comes up with ideas to insure that the team exceeds the next quarterly goals.

Jeanine J.T. Tanner ODonnell is a career coach and the founder of the leading career site http://www.workitdaily.com. Dale Dauten is founder of The Innovators Lab and author of a novel about H.R., The Weary Optimist. Please visit them at jtanddale.com, where you can send questions via email, or write to them in care of King Features Syndicate, 628 Virginia Dr., Orlando, FL 32803. (c) 2020 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Excerpt from:

My husband isnt working and its affecting our marriage - Albuquerque Journal

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Rap royalty in 2020 is far more a seesawing subjectivity than it is a finite objectivity.

The fundamental considerations once applied to such status chart-topping hits, airwave domination, and irrefutable rap talent, to name a few seem somewhat obsolete when shaped up beside wavering internet popularity, arbitrary industry co-signs and trending topic spectacles of the contemporary hip hop ecosystem. The King of New York crown, however, is still held to qualifiable standards.

Is it momentous-to-monumental stardom like that of the Bronxs Cardi B? Does it call for total domination of a particular sound movement like the late Pop Smoke? Or, is it symbolic of tenure, critical acclaim, homage and exceptionality like JAY-Z? These requisites are still up for debate. But, the caliber can at least be measured by one household name who has preceded the King of New York reputation for over two decades: Christopher George Latore Wallace a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., who creditably conquered these benchmarks, and then some.

Forever canonized in New Yorks cultural bedrock, Biggies organic climb to worldwide recognition, and now remembrance, is still one of the most compelling case studies of hip hop to date. His squalid Bed-Stuy hood of Brooklyn, New York reified his glaringly bleak, yet brilliantly masterful rap storytelling from as young as 17 years old. Biggie lived and lyricized stray bullet baby deaths, dope fiend gutters, crooked cop stickups, and slummed out playgrounds where most of his peers could only hope to survive.

Matched with this unassailable storytelling gift, sweatless flow on the mic and distinctively gruff baritone, Big was the fast-growing terror that none of his rap peers nor predecessors saw coming. The March 1992 publication of The Source magazine did, though, and properly magnify his artistry in its Unsigned Hype column for the rest of New Yorks rap assemblage to see. All four of his jams were basically a freestyle exhibition, The Source commended of his first untitled demo tape, which prompted his Unsigned Hype spotlight. Obviously, to come out as an MC takes a lot more than hype rhymes, but rhyme skills are the main ingredient to true success in hip hop, and when it comes to those, B-I-Gs got plenty.

From this visibility, Bigs reign proliferated into several music industry purviews. His Big Apple kingship was snowballing beneath him and becoming even more macroscopic among top music executive circles. His short-lived stint at Uptown Records quickly transformed into an inaugural and imprinted presence at Sean Diddy Combs then-newly-developed Bad Boy Records in 1993. It was only right, seeing as the former Uptown A&R had already invested sheer faith in this promisingly talented 21-year-old as raps next B.I.G. thing.

Bigs Bad Boy entryway amplified his demand in the urban music spaces feature artist pool too, another sign of his imminent rap domination. From Mary J. Blige to Michael Jackson, a Biggie verse was practically synonymous with a certified hit even if the track was already blasting up the charts. Craig Macks Flava In Ya Ear (Remix) and Totals Cant You See are still among two of Biggies best guest spots of all time, and during this era, solidified his position as a powerhouse lyricist. Hence, when the time came to unleash his now six-time platinum debut album, Ready To Die, the acclaim was already pending in the drafts of music critic reviews before the project even dropped.

The three main singles of the album Juicy, Big Poppa and One More Chance notched multiple placements on Billboard charts, most dominantly the Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. In its entirety, Ready To Die was likened to Ice Cubes Amerikkkas Most Wanted, a solo project exalted as one of the defining hip hop albums in the 90s artistic zeitgeist. What took some of his rap ancestors up to a decade to accomplish, Big roared through in roughly 24 months. This journey also included his spearheading and mentoring of hip hops hardcore spitters Junior M.A.F.I.A. Consequently, the success of the group levitated the solo career of trailblazing rap icon Lil Kim. Bigs allegiance from his peers and community became so widespread that he even gained unanimous support as commander-in-chief in the East Coast vs. West Coast rap warfare, which devastatingly ended in the deaths of himself and the West Coasts indubitable leader Tupac.

Between Bigs abundance of critically acclaimed awards and nominations including four Grammy nods and fructifying worldwide expansion, he became the imperial ruler of not only raps capital, but the entire East Coasts hip hop renaissance. That lionization engraved an array of gems into his crown and took on several honorable forms: The savior of East Coast hip hop, as designated by AllMusic; the greatest rapper who ever lived, as decided by Rolling Stone; and the No. 1 greatest rapper of all time, as established by Billboard. His second studio album, Life After Death (released posthumously), hit diamond status. Twenty three years after his murder, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A drive through Brooklyn easily turns into an outdoor Notorious B.I.G. museum tour, blanketed with murals and artwork featuring iterations of his face, lyrics and other likenesses. All of these distinctions are encompassed as a definitive blueprint of a card-carrying kings reign to be followed by the generations of rap after him.

To boot, Bigs competition among his territory was virtually nonexistent, barring Pac, the one coequal on the opposite end of his New York kingdom worthy enough to challenge him. As King of New York, Big moved with the respect, skill, following, material success, consistency, appeal and, ultimately, the authority to put up on the chess board. The new class of crown contenders and their reach for the throne collectively pale in comparison be it a facetious declaration like that of Kendrick Lamar on Control; a democratic decision like that which hails Pop Smoke; or an impudent self-proclamation like Tekashi 6ix9ines. As of late, the debate of who the crown belongs to and the criterion for such recognition is cracking headlines fandom wars and recent rap beefs. On the other hand, an overwhelming majority of votes still appear to lie with JAY-Z and Diddy, hip hops chief hyphenates among Bigs rap peers. But, their pivots to other objectives in the business and philanthropic spaces sometimes costs their removal from contemporary conversations and considerations.

Needless to say, the exclusion of two leading hip hop names shouldnt encourage loose usage of the title or a lowering of the bar for someone like 6ix9ine to jump above either. The next king may not have to churn out a diamond-certified album after six months of writers block or wipe out a clan of his rap nemeses in two verses. To the possible disgruntlement of hip hop heads in Biggies era, the crown just might adjust itself to modern times and factor in internet infamy and sweeping streaming numbers along with other nuances of millennial culture. There was, after all, never a handbook to complete nor a stage to walk across to earn the crown. There isnt even an amount of votes on a poll over who would determinately achieve the title.

But, the one certain touchstone for whoever is worthy enough to claw for it is that she or he will have B.I.G. shoes to fill.

Read more from the original source:

The Notorious B.I.G.: The makings of the King of New York - REVOLT TV