Upon reflection, my previous post's title seems a bit premature. ;)
It turns out my June was just about as busy as my May had been--a mix of personal & professional things. My apologies, I had thought I'd have the half-hour or so of quiet time. I haven't. Maybe in the near future? Who knows?
“The cure for loneliness is solitude.” This is an interesting story, about a guy who might have been a really significant star, but decided just to be successful. And now is reflecting on his life.
If I had to teach an introductory class in college right now, an introduction to being in college, I think I would be sorely tempted to do it around the crisis of institutions and suspicion of authorized experts, much of which crystallizes in the whole debate around “doing your own research.” This piece talks about it, less in terms of medical issues around vaccines, when I first heard of it, and more in terms of new financial instruments, like cryptocurrencies. I am aware that there is a great deal of actual scholarly research done on this crisis of expertise, authority, and institutions, and I don’t think I have all the time necessary to do my own research on it, alas it
Five views on the question of China’s economic future. Four of the five sound pessimistic to me. The fifth one is a law professor in Hong Kong.
More worries about whether China is going to be able to escape the middle income trap, especially so long as Xi Jinping is in charge
This is a fascinating initial look at how long-term Russian understandings of how their army might be used, given constraints from politics and society, have affectively shaped the Russian army in ways that make it it’ll prepared for this kind of war:
“Contemporary debates on force structure and military strategy would benefit greatly by looking at the choices the Russian military made and how they ended up in this position. There’s much to be said about the primacy of political assumptions, which is one of the most decisive factors in how the Russian armed forces were initially thrown into this war, but equally, it is structural choices that have limited its military’s ability to adjust and sustain combat operations.”
Interesting idea, though a less dramatic one than this guy seems to realize: “Who knows how we would judge Shakespeare – whom one contemporary described as “Watson’s heir” – had the full spectrum of English literature from his time, or the eras before and after him, survived. Who might the giants of world literature be, if we knew just what those 30m Indian manuscripts contained, or if the millions of others that were burned or mouldered away had survived. Greatness may sometimes be less a property of great minds than an accident of history.” The question is whether there were really a lot of great written works lost in the past. Reviel Netz's recent book--an astonishing work of scholarship, by the way--suggests, at least in the case of Greek literature, no. Now, in the case of oral stories, I have no doubt much has been lost; Michael Witzel's controversial book of a decade or so ago still seems to me suggestive on these matters.
The changing nature of globalization in the wake of the pandemic and the Russian Ukraine war. Short story is globalization is not going away, though it it seems to have slowed in its growth.
How "War Studies" has been affected by the war in the Ukraine, and how those changes have played themselves out especially via social media. It’s been interesting to watch this, especially the way social media turns into a platform for this scholarship to be made more public.
Sometimes significant events happen and people don’t realize they have happened. This is one such event. It is not causally significant, but it reflects larger changes. I never imagined I would see a day when the US could geopolitically say “well, let’s let the Persian gulf be someone else’s problem,” but we’re getting a bit closer to that, with this announcement. Thank fracking, and shale gas.
Take care, everyone.