Hope Against Hope

Nadia Mandelstam

Hopelessness is a much maligned sentiment. It's such a horrific admission that most people jump through hoops to avoid it. But is the denial worth it? Secretary of State Tony Blinken is running around like a chicken with its head cut off when maybe the more productive approach would be to admit being at ground zero. Neither apathy nor obliviousness to suffering is what is called for. You may have heard the phrase "take the action and drop the results." Along with the eye for an eye for an eye paradigm, turn the other cheek. Contrariety is no stranger to human behavior. Isn’t that the quintessence of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission created in the aftermath of South African Apartheid. You cannot change anyone. MAGA Republicans are steadfast in their loyalty no matter how many felonies their leader is convicted of—under the theory that Reality lies only in the eyes of the beholder. Hope Against Hope is Nadia Mandelstam's memoir of the persecution off her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, during the Stalinist era.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and watch the trailer for Erotomania which will be featured in the Nihilist Film Festival

Free Solo

At a certain point in life, society may seem to be less of a top down affair, less of a hierarchy. You’ve climbed the mountain and now you partake of the long view in which all of human existence is spread out before you. Those ogreous personalities who once passed you by without acknowledging your existence are dead. They will never know what you were thinking; neither will they  know about the monkey dancing on their graves. Sometimes you meet these faces and they thumb their nose at you from an obit (obits themselves are like the endowments of famous porn stars—legendary for their size.)The virtue of being so high up lies in being recused from hurt and impervious to sleights. The down side of looking down is that no one can hear you. But why did it have to be so ? A recidivist urge may push you back to knocking on doors which have been closed forever even when there's no longer anybody there.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and watch the trailer for Erotomania which will be featured in the Nihilist Film Festival

The Winds of War

The Winds of War was the title of a novel by Herman Wouk about World War II. The cover story in the November/December edition of Foreign Affairs, "The Sources of American Power"  by Jake Sullivan features the following quote: "The Middle East is quieter than it has been for decades." It’s uncanny that Israeli intelligence was totally caught off guard. The Americans purportedly warned their Israeli counterparts. However, Sullivan, U. S. National Security Advisor, apparently possesses his doctoral degree from the same institution as Dr Pangloss. The whole episode recalls another 7th, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor. Sullivan’s article makes light of perils in the course of exuding the self-satisfaction of a woman whose faulty marriage is about to explode. Shit-eating grin might be the way to describe the self-satisfied tone of an article--obviously written before the events of October 7 and for which he received a slap in the face.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and listen to "Love Train" by the O'Jays

The Godfather

Americans have a fascination with criminals until, of course, they're robbed." Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde  were all legends, Houdinis who escaped not from underwater  coffins but the law.  “Robber” “Baron”—the two words are oxymorons reflecting the aristocratic sounding soubriquet of men like Carnegie and Rockefeller who were ruthless visionaries. Ayn Rand would extol these impulses in her portrait of the architect, Howard Roark, inThe Fountainhead. The automobile is a symbol of freedom. Young men get their wheels aka cojones. But it’s an open road freed of impediments--the kind that Trump obviously thought he was navigating as he hoodwinked banks to get loans. Ever mindful of individual rights, the Supreme Court is currently hearing a case restoring the bumpstock--which was actually outlawed in the wake of several mass shootings during the Trump years. Is Trump The Godfather? And is judge Arthur Engoron as "untouchable" as Eliot Ness?

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and take part in the Goodreads book giveaway for The Kafka Studies Department

"Wanted" --One World Historical Individual

Vishnu

Hegel iterated the idea of the World Historical Individual.  Augustus, Napoleon, the three Yalta alumnae Roosevelt. Stalin, Churchill, even Hitler, Pol Pot and now Putin qualify. Hegel famously proposed a dialectics (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) that Marx adopted in Das Capital. Of course Hegel’s notion was as “value-free” as Newton’s Third Law of Thermodynamics  (which itself is curiously applicable to realpolitik). Kant believed in a categorical imperative which dictated morally correct action but Hegel looked on history like an astrophysicist gazing through his telescope at a distant star. World Historical figures don’t appear by way of want ads. They emerge from history. Martin Luther King was both a product and impetus for the Civil Rights Movement. Gandhi signaled the end of British Imperialism and was enormously significant  in his advocacy of non-violent or "passive resistance." How far away such "ways and means" seem in the present volatile environment where a Democrat or Republican crossing the aisle can elicit the kind of rage Liz  Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have endured. Humanity is so far gone that even atheists have begun to pray. Could God be the answer? Why not fight God with God? The problem is no one will be able to agree on which one (or two or more depending on the religion).

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and hear Francis Levy discuss The Kafka Studies Department at Canio's

Clausewitz in the Middle East 300 Level

photo: Novel Foundation Archive

Is there any conflict more complex than that which is now transpiring in the Middle East? The war is supposedly between Hamas and Israel, though both are proxies of Iran and the US, respectively. Since Iran is a proxy of Russia along with Syria, the plot thickens. In the background is the movement of Bahrain and the UAE a la the Abraham Accords which might have also brought Saudi Arabia into the Israeli fold. In the context of the present war, the impulse to employ materialism as bait seems like a long lost dream. In fact the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and the Iranian Shiites could become fellow travelers or strange bedfellows if the Israeli response to October 7th radicalizes and unites a once fractious Arab world. On the other hand imagine a MacArthur plan arising out of the ashes and subsequently a two-state solution. It’s fun to daydream, but not at the expense of reality. Remember Hamas is a millenarian organization that won't be happy until its razed Israel to the ground. It might be argued that terrorism eventuates from repression. You had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the aftermath of apartheid. Is there a Nelson Mandela-like figure who could ignite a movement based on peace and forgiveness? And how would one deal with the complex issues of reparations and repatriation? This course will run for an as yet undetermined amount of time. It will be Pass/Fail but will require more than papers and exams for those participating to achieve a passing grade.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and take part in the Goodreads book giveaway for The Kafka Studies Department

Clausewitz in the Middle East

War is the continuation of policy with other means. How can Clausewitz’s famous saying be reflected in the war between Israel and Hamas? What would Machiavelli have advised? Or Sun Tzu in The Art of War? You can can’t eradicate an idea, but what are the political consequences of fighting an opponent who partakes of a millenarian Ideology? The Sunnis and Shiites have always been enemies and Syria, an Alewife Christian country. one of Russias proxies. Would Saudi Arabia step into line with its once enemy Iran, despite the Abraham Accords with Bahrain and the U.A.E.? How strong are the armies of Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia? And how would this new Axis stack up against Israel, the US and the other Western powers. The left supports Hamas despite the atrocities committed on October 7. However, say the US is reeled into an all out war. Indeed, Russia and Iran have a quid pro quo. Yet Russia has its hands full in Ukraine where it's losing. One possible outcome is that the Allies prevail, the Ayatolah and the Revolutionary Guard are weakened and a popular uprising topples the Caliphate, bringing democracy back to one of the must important players in the Middle East. Q.E.D. Hope springs eternal.

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklife

and take part in the Goodreads book giveaway for The Kafka Studies Department