On the new FBI investigation of Clinton's emails

The last minute opening of a new investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of her emails shows three things:

- Trump and his team were convinced that if they don't get some serious mud-throwing done in the last minute they will lose.

- The Republican party has its pants full. Trump has hijacked them, and if Trump loses then not only did a madman tarnish their reputation, he will even lose for them, making them very weak.

- The Republican party and Trump have enough leverage with people at the FBI to force the opening of such an investigation before the election. Gives you an idea where the money that Trump saved on not paying taxes is going.

This is such an outrageous case of corruption that if the Russian government wouldn't be so eager to push its propaganda against the US others would nevertheless say the same things this week.

Tokyo view from Roppongi

This summer we visited Roppongi Hills with my partner. It is a wonderful, busy, bustling part of Tokyo, teeming with business, restaurants, cafe, ice cream parlours and impressive architecture.

In the superb Mori Arts Center Gallery - also in the towers, like the Mori Art Museum - we saw an excellent and fun exhibition on

Around Roppongi there were hundreds Doraemons, obviously very popular both with kids and adults. The event was probably similar to this one.

Inside the towers there are several restaurants, ranging from pricy elegant ones serving kobe beef to the more budget friendly but still very nice mid-range sushi restaurants. We had a pleasant sushi lunch. Next to us a small kid and his mom were sitting, and I could witness first hand that kids - as in any other country - can have their difficulties with cutlery, in this case with chopsticks.

And there is a wonderful view from the towers on the downtown Tokyo.

Hungarian architect and blogger bonakovacs also has a nice entry on the area around Christmas, when the Roppongi Hills and the Midtown towers are competing with each other in who can put on the more mesmerizing Christmas-lights show.

What to read next?

When I'm finished with a batch of books I need a few days when I just work and don't commit to a new schedule of books. I usually start reading 1-2 handbooks, research books, nonfictions, and 1-2 novels, collections of poems or short stories roughly at the same time. Depending on how busy I'm it takes me a few weeks or 1-2 months to get through them (or as with the Karamazovs three months, but to be honest I've read 6 other books meanwhile).

Do many of my readers read this way? Or do you try and focus on one book?

The last batch of books I read consisted of the short stories collection War Stories edited by Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen, Dostoevsky's The Karamazov Brothers, Michael J. Sandel's What Money Can't Buy, Akiko Hashimoto's The Long Defeat, and Ogura Kazuo's Japan's Asian Diplomacy, and Hugh de Sélincourt's Oxford from Within. (The links point to reviews of the books or their publishers' pages.)

Besides doing my regular philosophy re-reading (Rousseau's The Social Contract, Aristotle's Politics, Anscombe's Intention, and Hornsby's Actions), I'm considering some of the following non-philosophy books:
Melville's Moby Dick,
Owen Jones's The Establishment,
Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads,
G. R. Evans' The University of Oxford: A New History,
Heinrich Böll's Frauen vor Flußlandschaft,

Anne Enright's The Green Road,
David Steeds and Ian Nish's China, Japan and 19th Century Britain,
and
Jeffrey N. Wassertstrom's The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China.

I don't want to start more than 3-4 books now, and I wonder which ones would go well together...Any advice or tips, as well as recommendations along these lines are welcome!

On Akiko Hashimoto's 'The Long Defeat'

Akiko Hashimoto's book offers a very good overview of Japanese attempts both of politicians and civilians to understand their role in the second world war, and since then.
Hashimoto covers the main political debates between pacifists, nationalists, and reconciliationists, as she divides the calls her groupings of the main approaches. These distinctions are someties oversimplified, but there are plenty of details and careful references, so anyone can strike out and make up their own mind about the issues discussed.

 

The last 30 pages of the book are in many respects the most interesting since Hashimoto reflects briefly on the post 2000 events up to 2014. It is too bad that she doesn't deal on more pages with the effects of Chinese and South-Korean nationalism, and the hatred against Japan stoked by Chinese and Korean (both North and South) governments. This is a phenomenon we have seen more of recently, and is used as a tool by the Chinese and Koreans to direct away attention from internal politics and economic problems, and their own issues with authoritarianism and human rights issues; and of course China uses this as an excuse for its own aggressive military expansion. These factors are becoming more and more important as China and both Koreas grow stronger, and turn many of the earlier fears of nationalist Japanese politicians into actual threats that Japan has to take seriously.

Of course these factors also complicate the picture of how Japan should relate to its own WWII role and validate that it should simply move on. Enough apologies have been offered, restitutions have been paid, and since WWII Japan is more peaceful and democratic than the large majority of its vocal critics, including China, the Koreas, and the US. Chinese and South-Korean politicians are utterly reluctant to admit the strenght of the Japanese peace-movements, the fact that their militaries are stronger or as strong as the Japanese, or that they are employing authoritarian, dictatoric means against their own citizens, as well as that they also have a violent history going back millenias. Until they use the conflicts with Japan for domestic political purposes in this way, the apology-politics should stop, the topic should be dropped, and a more forward looking vision crafted for Japan. Of course the horrible war crimes perpetrated by Japanese soldiers, leaders and sometimes even civilians have to be openly remembered. But they do not constitute the whole history of Japan, nor are they the only and main thing about the country around which its identity should be constructed.

This is perhaps my biggest point of disagreement with Hashimoto, who never challenges whether the relationship to Japan to its WWII role should be a central topic these days, and whether it should really be so important to the nation's identity (if there is such a thing at all). Surely there is more to Japan's history the tragic and guilty war years between, say roughly 1929-1945, and there is definitely more to it more than 70 years down the line. Since then Japan has been supporting other countries in their economic build-up, been a peaceful country, and evolved into a major welfare state conscious of the rights, interests, and wellbeing of its citizens. This cannot be said of the US which waged many wars and where the social network - which was always weak - hasn't developed properly, or China where an authoritarian regime is keeping its people cut off from the internet, occupied tibet, the north-eastern territories, and is punishing by torture, prisoning and force any serious organized dissent. The maniac focus on the issue of Japan's WWII role just seems to serve political interests of nationalist politicians in Japan, and the Chinese, Korean, Russian, and US military and political dilpomacy.

Akiko Hashimoto, The Long Defeat. 2015. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hugh de Selincourt's 'Oxford from Within'

I've just finished the a nice old edition of Hugh de Selincourt's Oxford from Within. The book is short and readable, although the style is fairly outdated and at times very circumstantial. It is about an imagined journey the writer takes in Oxford, and an internal conversation between his positive and negative  memories and opinions of Oxford. In the end the good opinions are overwhelming, and much of the more condemning criticism is written down as understandable ideas of the author's younger self.

The book is nice, if one is in a dreamy mood. However if you hope to get some real insight into the workings or student life of Oxford don't choose this book. Besides some nice description of mostly known things and a few additional details you won't find much new information. The freshest and clearest parts of the book are - somewhat surprisingly - the sections praising the changes that women were allowed to study at Oxford, and that science and the classics were achieving a complementary position (something that has changed a great deal since the early 1900's when de Selincourt was writing).

The book - at least the older hardcover edition published by Chatto & Windus in 1910 - features some lovely paintings by Yoshio Markino, who lived and painted in London for a long time. The pictures bring to life how Oxford looked a 100 years ago. They are very atmospheric, complementing the text well. As someone who loves the places depicted - Trinity's gate, the front of All Souls and the Radcliffe Camera, Iffley Church, New College Tower - these pictures are really heartwarming.

Yoshio Markino's rendering of Turl Street and the tower of Exeter

All in all, I would recommend this to someone who hasn't yet read much about Oxford, and who wants an easy reading that can be finished in one or two afternoons.

On the rottenness of the political leaderships

For a long time I thought that most populist politicians just track the interests and preferences of voters and serve them.

In the last years however it seems more and more that some parties and politicians are perfectly capable of forming the wills of the voters in a way that suits their agenda.

Every time one hears a politician talk these days one is faced with a product. There isn't much content usually that has anything to do with the motivations and values of the person talking, or the institution/post she/he represents. It is just a marketing product designed to attract 'buyers'. who are in this case voters.

What we see at the moment in the EU and in Europe at large (including post-Brexit UK, and European Russia) is that right-wing, extreme-nationalist people are parading as political conservatives. But don't be deluded. They don't actually aim at defending any values or ways of life. They aim at grasping power and securing positions for themselves and their collaborators. This in itself wouldn't be a problem. You will have these moves in any competition. The problem starts when this becomes the sole goal of their activities.

Brexit is an excellent case to study. It does not serve the EUs interests, it does not serve the interests of the British people at large, or the English people at large. It does not serve the interests of Britain, or Britain's foreign political partners. What it does is simply this: There was a worry for some more nationalist and mainly middle level administrators and political and business players in the UK that they would lose their positions and weight in a more unified Europe, and in a UK which is becoming richer and richer. These folks came up with the idea that leaving the EU will protect their positions within British politics and business by isolating - at least partially - the decision making structures and markets in which they participate. It might also help them get higher positions and get a slice of the enormous wealth that the UK - much with the help of the EU, EU citizens working there, and other international partners - has amassed in the last decade.

Vitality Oxford Half Marathon

I completed the Oxford Half Marathon last week. It was good fun: there is plenty of beautiful architecture around the route, the weather was pleasant, not too cold, not too warm, and the mood wasn't too bad. To be honest the Hungarian races I participated in last year had much more of a party-vibe, but I'm used by now to Oxford being a bit stiff, whether it is a race, a conference, or a drinks evening.

The route started from Broad Street, in fron of the Sheldonian, and it went up a bit towards Banbury Rd, turned back to Pitt Rivers, did a loop by New College and back to Banbury, up North almost until the roundabout, then back to Marston Ferry Rd, all the way to Old Marston where we did a nice loop along the historical buildings and back to Marston Ferry. After that it was just running all the way back, and the last few miles stretched through University Parks and came back around the Radcliffe Camera, passed by Exeter College and through to Turl Street, and the finish was on Broad Street again.

The organization was alright. There were plenty of drink stations and toilets, lots of friendly volunteers, and the spectators and bands raised the mood. The only issue was - as usual in Oxford - space: the organizers issued small plastic bags with the application and one could only leave as much stuff in the baggage drop area as what fitted into the plastic bag. For anyone travelling from another town, city, this must have been quite inconvenient. Also, there were no showers for after the race. One had to go home to get changed. And since there was a good turnout and 8000 people ran, the narrow streets and the paths of University Park constantly became 'clogged' and one had to adjust the speed to others running in front. Apart from these small things it was a lovely day, and I'm glad I've completed the race. My time was a bit better than what I expected: 1hour 48minutes instead of 2hours. Still, much slower than my PB from last year, which was 1hour 35minutes in November, on a cold and windy day, in Siófok by the lake Balaton.

The page of the Half Marathon offers good running training advice and training plans for everyone wishing to compete at some point. I usually use the training plans of BUPA, but it seems that one could train perfectly well with these ones too. I also raised some money for Macmillan Cancer Support and received some nice compliments and thanks for doing so.

In the mood for music

It rarely happens to me but at the end of this week I was really in the mood for music.

I very much enjoyed listening to Miwako Okuda's Shizuku. Nice voice, not too much drama but dynamic, and nice background tunes.

Afterwards I needed something a bit more complex, and a piece we discovered with my partner at a concert this Spring was just perfect: Dvořzak's Song to the Moon (by Rusalka) in Renée Fleming's wonderful rendering.

Enjoy and have a lovely weekend.

On the Nobel Prize in literature and Bob Dylan

It was announced that Bob Dylan won the nobel prize in literature. Immediately much discussion sprung up, and many people were in joy. I'm a bit entauscht, and I have a feeling as if there should be another announcement for the prize for proper literature.
Not that I'm against Dylan: I sometimes enjoy his music, and surely his lyrics are an integral part of his performance. It is rich, interesting, entertaining, emotionally sophisticated, at times political. Still, if read it is not outstanding poetry, compared with many who have not been deemed worthy a Nobel.
My gut feeling tells me that what we have to do with in this case is a PR act to put the Nobel prize in literature on the map for younger folks, as well as less 'high literature' oriented folks, and brand it as a relevant Prize, one which they should pay attention too. I'm always dubious of such motives: I know that we live in an era where we have to compete with all the low and high quality well advertised products churned out by huge companies spending tons of money on getting their stuff to us. Still, the Nobel is what it is: a high mesaure of excellence, be that excellence in enriching cultural memory and understanding, a trailblaizing experimental style, or a masterly literary achievement. Dylan's - written - work is certainly none of these. Giving the prize to him is especially harsh a year after it was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich.
Alexievich is an excellent writer, has focused on events of the 20th century in much of her work which have altered the lives of countless people - Chernobyl, the Afghan war of Russia, etc. - and does that in a way that she makes our memories and understanding of these events much more sophisticated and complex, hence, much more close to the truth.
However, literature surely also has the role to entertain. Anyone denying this would be a fool and with no understanding either of the history or the role of reaidng, books, printing, and literature as such. So, Dylan it is. I'm sure his work will receive much attention for the next months. His fans will be happy about the news, people who weren't fans might give it a try with a new openness and appreciativeness, and even those who never heard of him or never liked him might recognize something valuable in his work after listening to it again (or for the first time).

Rereading 'The Brothers Karamazov'

Last week I finished re-reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. It was a strange experience: As a teenager I could vividly feel with Alyosha, Ivan, and, although I never liked his personality, even with Mitya. Now 15 years later I mostly saw them as very passionate, easily excitable young men who get into trouble because of the greed of their father, and their passionate love affairs.
It is also interesting to see, as in many 19th century books, that the protagonists are all rich and well off. Even though Dmitry works for the army, if he would be careful with the money that his father agrees to pay out to him he could establish himself comfortably.

Dostoevsky is of course a brilliant writer. I've read the book in one of its recent Oxford editions, with footnotes, introductions, and the novel's length in itself was a good 900 pages. Dostoevsky manages to maintain tension and excitement, to keep the reader's interest alive throughout all these pages, and to build up one, coherent story. A masterly achievement. The work touches on psychology, morality, politics, and religion. Of course it doesn't do that at the level in which a psychologist, philosopher, politicla scientist, or someone doing religious studies would do this, but still, the novel showcases that Dostoevsky was a real intellectual, thinking about contemporary issues, following not only the criminal news, but also the intellectual currents of his time.

In one sense the book didn't have the effect on me as more recently published big books. I suspect this is exactly because it had such an enormous influence on literature that its best features have been countlessly interpreted and applied, mimiced and developed further by writers since Dostoevsky. Therefore I have encountered similar - and in one or the other aspect even better - writing from 20th and 21th century writers. Still, that I could enjoy all that good literature as it is, is Dostoevsky's achievement.

The second Clinton-Trump debate...

...reminded me a lot of some of the biggest debates in our elementary schools.

The level at which foreign and military policy were discussed would make any 7 year old proud.

On hating other nations

Politicans talk of  'people' and 'nations' often. They do this to achieve an effect. They are talking rubbish. No nation is unified in the sense in which they say it is. No country, not even a village!, has only people who think in the same way, who live in the same way. No country or nation is 'good' or 'bad'. Governments, leaders, individuals, organizations are eveil, bad, heroic, good, decent, average. But countries?

Talk of nations usually engeders an artifical 'them and us' way of thinking. The army and politicians use it to awaken hate and alienation in people towards others living in different countries. They use this hatred when they are justifying wars and other horrors they inflict on others in the name of their countries.

The truth is that people are the same everywhere. Sure, cultures, habits, efficiency, cleanliness, clothes, etc. differ. What does not differ is that there are good and bad and average people everywhere. That the average Jane, or Cuicui, or Sakura, or Johanna does not want war and does not care about other countries. The average John, or Jose, or Maua, or Xun wants to get on with his job, be safe, and have a healthy family. This is what is universal and what would serve as a perfect platform for peaceful global growth. All war and conflict is about the power-games of leaderships who have interests in gaining more money and power. Be that Russia, China, the US, or the European countries, Japan or African or South-American countries, it is always about the might of the elites. Wars are not for and in the interest of the people.

The section quoted below illustrates eminently well how people find out that other countries have normal folks living in them too.

"Yes, I remember that being at war with the Italians was taken as a licence for Americans to defecate all over them. Even though most of us in the base section at Naples had never closed with an Italian in combat. Our argument was that we should treat the Neapolitans as the Neapolitans would have treated our cities presumably if they'd won the war. I watched old ladies of Naples pushed off the sidewalks by drunken GIs and officers. Every Italian girl was fair pray to propositions we wouldn't have made to a streetwalker back home. Those who spoke Italian used the tu on everyone they met. And I remember seeing American MPs beating the driver of a horse and wagon because they were obstructing traffic on Via Roma. I don't think the Germans could have done any better in their concentration camps. I thought that all humanity had gone from the world, and that this war had smothered decency forever.

- These Eyeties, the mess sergeant said, ain't human beins. They're just Gooks, that's all.
- All I know, the corporal said doggedly and worriedly, is that they ain't Americans...They don't see things the way we do.
- They'd steal anything, the mess sergeant said, stuffing a turkey, his mouth crammed with giblet leavings.

I remember that other arguments against the Neapolitans, besides the cardinal one, that they'd declared war on us, were that they stole and were filthy-dirty. I only know that no Neapolitan ever stole anything from me, for I took pains to see that no temptation was put in their way. Though once my wallet was lifted in a New York subway. And for those Neapolitans to whom I sometimes gave an extra bar of soap, I noticed that they used this soap joyfully on themselves, their children, their clothes. I've buried my face in the hair of Neapolitan girls. It was just as sweet as an American girl's if the Napoletana had the wherewithal to wash it.

I remember that in Naples after my heart broke I decided that a stricly American point of view in itself offered no peace or solution for the world. So I began to make friends with the Neapolitans. And it didn't surprise me to find that, like everyone else in the world, they had their good and their bad and their admixtures of both. To know them, I'd been working on my Italian. That lovely supple language was kind to my tongue. The Neapolitans were gracious in helping me with it.
(...)
This forced me to the not original conclusion that the Neapolitans were like everybody else in the world, and in an infinite variety. Because I was an americano the Neapolitans treated me with a strange pudding of respect, dismay, and bewilderment. A few loathed me. But from most Italians I got a decency and kindness that they'd  have showered on any other American in Naples who'd made up his mind to treat them like human beings. I'm not bragging. I'm not unique."

From John Horn Burns's The Gallery, in the section appearing as 'My Heart Finally Broke in Naples' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen), 2014, London: Vintage, pp. 274-5. 

Tim O'Brien on true war stories

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behaviour, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude had been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil."


(From Tim O'Brien's 'How to Tell a True War Story', in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen), 2014., London: Vintage, p. 351.)

On explanation far and close, interesting and uninteresting

When scientists say that explaining the formation of chunks of matter (for example planets, energy, atoms) or the distribution of information is an explanation of everything that is important for us these days, that's exactly as much of an explanation as saying that 'and then people started growing crops, settled down, and that's why we have culture and science today!' Meaning: it is not an interesting explanation. It is an explanation, like it is an explanation of why I eat a pizza now that I am a human and hunger is a powerful motivation that moves me to act. Sure, but this does not explain why I'm eating pizza, why I did go along with this motivation right now, not twenty minutes ago or half an hour later, why I did not rather occupy myself with something else to push the hunger back - as any normal adult human being can do. These further questions are not answered by a hazy allusion to general, species-level motivations.
Of course there would be scientific explanations of why I'm eating a pizza now, or why there science and culture today. But these will be immensely complex, interdisciplinary explanations, where each details will matter a great deal. The world is complex, and hence there are no simple explanations of it. If someone is not willing to get down with the details, then they should not profess that they have explained everything. Such self-serving, ego-boasting phrases don't help anyone.

Putin's nuclear threat to the West

It is a well known fact, publicized by Russian newspapers and confirmed by the Russian military, that Russia is regularly exercising and planning for the offensive use of nuclear weapons in Western Europe, as well against the US.

But then of course there are people who publish this and similar stuff on 9GAG and other social sites:

 

I think what this meme is expresses is perfectly right in one sense: no sane, average civilian wants to nuke any other country. The average Joe, Sara, Teju, or Zoltan wakes up, goes to work, cares and worries for and about her or his family, friends, kids, health, house, hobbies, interests, and job. No normal person wakes up and thinks: 'Oh, gosh, I sure hope today my country's military kills, debilitates, and ruins the lives of tens of thousands of foreigners!'

On the other hand it is not true that no Russian - or for that matter that no Chinese or US - higher ups entertain such ideas. And it is partly our duty as citizens of a given country to oust politicians, administrators, and military leaders who are willing to go down such ways. No other country's civilians can do that instead of us, and if we don't do it we can't blame anyone else. The average, normal people in Russia, China, and the US, and in other countries, have to ensure that their countries work properly. One has to engage with politics, most importantly READ about it serious books and papers not just internet crap, write about it, think about it, talk about it, and if needed go out to the streets, go to the parliament, stage protests, throw eggs at politicians and so on.

Elected people can go berserk, and elections can go wrong. We need to make sure that loonies such as Trump, or tyrants such a Putin, or his pet-wanna-be-dictator Orban don't get into power, and even if they do they don't get the license to do anything their whims drive them to.

UPDATE: This piece on the issue just confirms and supports with more references what I have been saying.

The futility and tragedy of war

Two Vietnamese soldiers talking in 1976 after the war about meeting the dead in their dreams:

" 'Do you speak to them?'
'Yes, but...well, differently. The way you speak in hell. There are no sounds, no words. It's hard to describe. It's like when you're dreaming - you know what I mean.'
'You can't actually do anything to help each other?' asked Kien. 'Do you talk about interesting things?'
'Not very. Just sad and pitiful things, really. Under the ground in the grave human beings aren't the same. You can look at each other, understand each other, but you can't do anything for each other.'
'If we found a way to tell them news of a victory would they be happier?' Kien asked.
'Come on! Even if we could, what would be the point? People in hell don't give a damn about wars. They don't remember killing. Killing is a career for the living, not the dead.'
'Still, wouldn't peacetime be an ideal moment for the resurrection of all the dead?'
'What? Peace? Damn it, peace is a tree that thrives only on the blood and bone of fallen comrades. The ones left behind in the Screaming Soul battlegrounds were the most honoruable peole. Without them there would be no peace,' the driver replied.

'That's a rotten way to look at it. There are so many good people, so many yet to be born, so many survivors now trying to live decent lives. Otherwise it's not been worth it. I mean, what's peace for? Or what's fighting for?' Kien asked.
'Okay, I'll grant you we have to have hope. But we don't even know if the next generation will get a chance to grow up, or if they do, how they'll grow up. We do know that many good people have been killed. Those of us who survived have all been trying to make something of ourselves, but not succeeding.' "

(From Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War, quoted from the excerpt appearing as 'The Jungle of Screaming Souls' in War Stories (eds. Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hensgen, pp. 354-55.)

 

Three important things about the Hungarian referendum about refugees

There are three things everyone has to understand about last weekend's Hungarian referendum about the refugees:

1. The referendum is not valid. The number of people who went to vote was too small.

2. Many of the people who did not go to vote did not go because they hate Orban and his regime, government and they did not want to lend their support in any form to their propaganda vote.


3. Still, there are too many Hungarians who bought into the governments propaganda. Roughly 80% of the media is controlled by the government or close allies of the government in Hungary. The message they sent blurred the distinctions between refugees and migrants, and between innocent average people and potential terrorists. It demonized hundreds of thousands of innocents fleeing wars and terrible conditions.

One of the posters of the Ketfarku Kutya Part (The Two-tailed Dog Party), reading: 'Did you know? There is a war in Syria.' These signs were set up to mock the government's state-money sponsored hate campaign against refugees and immigrants. See more posters here.

New month, new books

I've just started reading War Stories, an anthology edited by Sebastian Faulks and Jörg Hengsen. The anthology comprises a long list of excellent short stories and sections of novels that depict different experiences and viewpoints in war, from different nations (US, Germany, Greece, Japan, French, and so on), from writers who have been in the war.

The selection is outstanding: there are pieces focusing on combat, on the strange sides of war - for example the beauty of artillery lights at night -, the horror of rape and killing civilians, of losing one's comrades, of going mad with fear, and so on. The editors obviously knew the literature well and set high standards. The only thing I'm sorry about is that there aren't more Asian perpectives, and Anglo-Saxon writers dominate the list somewhat, but then again I guess if someone is editing a book in English for mostly English speaking audiences that isn't a terrible fault. The authors certainly are aware of other literature than what they have included and provide a helpful bibliography at the end of the book broken down by conflicts with which those writings deal.

It is a great read, and I wish more people - young and old - would read it. In the last few years I have encountered both in TV and on the internet many people who have never experienced war but make big prononouncements about what they would do in a conflict, how other countries should start wars, or how refugees are really lazy or defectors for not picking up arms against well trained armies and militias. The book makes one understandin well that civilians have nothing to do in war, in fact, nobody has anything to do in war. It is a horrible dirty affair, one that always borders on the insane and people wanting to go to war need to be stopped. It is not an affair of nations but of bad leadership.
 

Worrying amount of Russian political misinformation on the internet

Recently I have noticed that several posts in major newspapers (Chinese, German, Japanese, UK, US) have comments written by people with VERY-American or British or German etc. names. At least their accounts look as if they were natives of these countries. Usually these comment-writers pose as man around 40 or 50, who are confident, obviously well informed and in-the-know. They bash what reliable news agencies and independent writers say, and push very forcefully a narrative heavily leaning towards Russia and/or China. In these narratives the US and the EU are always the bad guys, who treat poor Russia and China badly, and are unfair, and start wars everywhere (or finance the wars and make a good buck on them). According to these narratives all these wars started were totally unnecessary and self-serving, and Russia and China are peaceful giants, who would never do the same.

Of course this is total rubbish. It is total rubbish not because the US and the EU are not involved in arms trading or they don't start/finance/participate in wars. But it is total rubbish because the motivations for going to wars are usually a lot more complicated than simply aiming at monetary and territorial gains. And it is also total rubbish because many of these wars are about countering aggressive push by Chinese and Russian armed forces, secret services, or military units.
It is enough to think of the Ukraine: the EU did offer the Ukraine the chance to start the process to become a member state. But it did not attack Russia nor did it threaten it with that. Nor did it occupy the Ukraine. The then-Prime Minister of Ukraine was not forced to agree to this; it was Russia who twisted his arm to back out of the deal. It is easy to see who was the aggressor here, and then Russia aggravated things by pushing into the Ukraine by military force.

Consider also North-Korea, who have pushed the speed of their military missiles development programmes up to maximum. This has taken both South-Korea and Japan by surprise, and both states need to quickly up their defenses. They are at the same time constrained from doing so by contracts enforced on them by the US, and by the aggressive diplomacy of China. China thinks all military development is justified for them, while their neighbours should just sit with their hands crossed in their laps. Whereas any sane country that is the neighbour of a superpower needs a normal, up-to date military. This need is now made even more stringent and urgent by North-Korea's recently upgraded striking capabilities. Now, North-Korea has surely not achieved these striking technological breakthroughs suddenly on its own merit. Either China and/or Russia had to finance and probably support their projects with money, technology and expertise.

Add to this Russia's role in Syria, where it first vetoed all attempts at intervention, letting several millions civilians become displaced, and tens of thousands get killed, only so that its strongman ally leader can stay in power. Then when interventions begone Russia entered into contracts with the US and allies, but refused to stick to those contracts and bombed civilians and those it was supposed to support.

At the same time China is trying to gobble down the whole South-China sea, unilaterally. This incorporates waters well in the economic interests zones and reasonably assigned self-defense zones of several other countries. China is also building up artificial military islands in the region. Surely not the most peaceful move.


In light of all this, it is easy to see that the narratives of the apologists don't add up. It is also well known that there are plenty of government sponsored trolls spreading such news. The funny bit is when one gets into a debate with them and assumes a reasonable, true-to-the-facts-but-open-to-new-evidence approach they take off. They don't stay and engage in substantial debates and conversations. They are only interested in swaying the opinions of people who are dumb enough to think of politics in terms of Good and Bad, and who are willing to force this two dimensional straight-jacket view on current affairs and cast the US or Europe in the role of evil perpetrator.

Ogura Kazuo's 'Japan's Asian Diplomacy

As part of my self-education I'm reading a good deal on Japan, China, and East-Asia in general. The last book that I got in my hand was Ogura Kazuo's Japan's Asian Diplomacy. The author served as Japan's ambassador to Vietnam, France, and Korea.

It quickly becomes obvious from the book that Ogura has plenty of insight into the main ideological and political currents shaping the broader agenda of foreign policy making in Japan, China, and Korea. He offers a historical, ideological, and political overview of Japan's relations with its neighbours going back to the early middle ages, and shows that in most cases the Japanese policies and stances were heavily influenced by internal political interests and leadership contests. In many places in the book he is openly critical about such short sighted diplomacy, and makes an effort to show that in many cases taking a too hard line in domestic politics forced the leadership into a position where to save face it was almost necessary to act aggressively on the international place - to live up to the expectations raised in the public, so to say.

The author was not afraid to point out some harmful and aggressive long standing tendencies of Japanese policies - such as treating the affairs of Korea almost as an internal issue requiring constant intervention - and the lack of long term vision in the building up of relations with China.

The book also offers a very interesting perspective on how the Tokugawa shogunate's closed-door policy served to prepare Japan to see itself ideologically and politically among the Western, colonizing, powers very soon after the Meiji period. This amounted to a significant shift from the earlier Japano- or Sino-centric world views dominating political thinking. It also explains in part why Japan acted quickly and with no sympathy towards other Asian nations.

The book discusses several other issues, and it is a very interesting and thought-provoking reading. I don't have an in depth knowledge of either Japanese history or politics yet, but I'm happy that I took down this volume from the library shelf, and at the moment it seems that it will definitely contribute to my understanding of the Japanese perspectives on diplomacy in Asia.

On relationships and sexual urges

- Instincts! – said he with a satisfied smile, basking in the warm light of the belief that he offered a brilliant one word response, which, not wholly by incident, also happened to justify his behavior towards his wife, and women in general.

- Well, but two questions throw some doubt on this: first, just because something is an instinct, ‘natural’ so to say, is it good, is it something we should act on? I think obviously not. After all we don’t want a society in which people bash in each others’ skull when there is competition for resources, or where man habitually rape woman they want to be with despites that both of these behavior were widespread and prevalent in early humans. Second, we have many different capacities that we can use to live different kinds of lives. Relationships are not only about sex, although sex is an integral part of most grown-up committed partnerships, and there might be very valuable and meaningful relationships that would be seriously harmed and affected by someone following their hedonistic sexual urges. In such cases surely the fact that we – by nature – have some capacities which enable us to have full, enriching experiences shows that i) an urge’s being natural does not count either in favour or against acting on it, and that ii) acting on it might go against a very human type of relationship, the committed relationship. I don’t mean by ii) that only humans have committed relationships. But only humans have the type of committed relationship involving the exercises of long term planning, joint social and ethical values, participation in socially constructed institutions of significance for local communities, and so on. Proper grownup relationships have all these dimensions and are from no perspective – natural or non-natural – second-rate. And they are surely not to be relegated or scrapped in favour of acting on ‘instincts’. Humans have their instincts under control all the time. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be expected to do so in relationships.