My Amazon Review of Ian Buruma's "Spinoza: Freedom's Messiah"

Cancelled

At a time when cancel culture is running rampant in the West, it is useful to note that pernicious as it is, it is not new. In Dutch born Ian Buruma’s biography we find the 23-year-old Baruch Spinoza banned from his Sephardic synagogue in Amsterdam for his heretical ideas about G_d and the origins of the Bible. At the time Spinoza had yet to publish anything, but his ideas were so powerful that he threatened both the Jewish and Christian communities alike. Mind you this occurred in 1656 at the height of the Dutch enlightenment. Along the way we learn much about life in the milieu of the Dutch Republic.

Spinoza would go on to write a major book on the philosophy of Descartes and later several books on his own philosophy. He was part of a coterie of intellectuals that viewed him as a cult figure; a reputation that was enhanced by his ascetism and celibacy.

Spinoza’s god was nature itself. Thus, to study nature in the spirit of open scientific inquiry was the pathway to finding G_d. For espousing freedom of thought, Spinoza was cancelled. Although Spinoza did not believe in organized religion, he did believe that it served the purpose of inculcating the values of justice and charity within the broader population.

Buruma himself was cancelled as the editor of the New York Review of Books in 2018 because he didn’t bow down the #MeToo orthodoxy. In writing about Spinoza, Buruma has exacted a modicum of justice against the radical hyenas of the Left. 

For the full amazon Review see: Cancelled (amazon.com)

My Amazon Review of Philip Bobbitt's "The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World that he Made"

A Prince of a Man

International lawyer and historian Philip Bobbitt offers us a fundamental reinterpretation of Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince.” Instead of it being a manual for tyrants “The Prince” is, in fact, an outline for the modern state that was to arise out of the feudal order. Bobbitt calls this new governmental form the “princely state” which he dates from the Treaty of Augsburg of 1555. For the reader not familiar with Bobbitt’s “Shield of Achilles,” his history of governmental order, this book can be rough going.

“The Garments of Court and Palace” combines a long book review with a biography of Machiavelli. To him Machiavelli’s priorities were to create a state to enhance the public good and to unify the feudal states of Italy into a unified whole. He puts into perspective one of Machiavelli’s most famous aphorisms, “the ends justify the means.” Taken literally this is a license for extreme actions, but Bobbitt notes that to Machiavelli the means have to be proportionate to the ends. When viewed this way, Machiavelli’s aphorism is a constraint on a ruler rather than a license.

Bobbitt has a lengthy discussion on the role of “virtu” and fortune in the affairs of a prince. “Virtu” here is defined as skill and resoluteness and fortune is the role of chance. A prince has to be constantly aware that fortune can overwhelm skill and effort or make a failed policy successful. Flexibility is the key and this also applies to previously entered treaties that no longer serve their original intent. Here I would add the comment of the 20^th century political philosopher and baseball executive Branch Rickey who noted the “luck is the residue of design.” In other words a prince has to make his own breaks.

Machiavelli understood the feudal world was dying and a new form of governmental organization was required. To him a republic governed by a prince sensitive to the needs of his populace was the wave of the future.

Again as I noted above this book can be difficult going, but if the reader wants to get a sense of Machiavelli, his thoughts and the world he would make, it is worth the effort.

 For the full Amazon URL see:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R4DEQH9OSDYGV