Yes, that’s what I assumed: On Truth by Harry G. Frankfurt

On Truth by Harry G. Frankfurt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

On Truth exists largely as a footnote to Harry G. Frankfurt’s earlier work, On Bullshit. An excellent example of a concise, clear argument, On Bullshit was a brilliant essay on the subject of bullshitting – of communicating without any regard for truth. Bullshitters, Frankfurt argues, are distinct from liars, because liars at least know what the truth is, even though they choose to contradict it. Bullshitters on the other hand don’t know and don’t care about the truth. They communicate with a specific goal in mind (eg. persuasion, improving their popularity), and will say anything in order to achieve this goal.

The purpose of On Truth is to fill a gap identified in the argument against bullshit – an explanation of the importance of truth, a reason why we should care about it. Frankfurt is not concerned with defining truth and falsity – for his purposes the universal, commonsense definition of truth suffices. For example, we all know the truth concerning such things as our names and addresses, and what it means to lie about these. Frankfurt begins by critiquing the relativism of postmodernists who vehemently deny the existence of any objective truth. Regardless of their claims, our lives depend on truth. Engineers need facts about building materials and measurements in order to build a bridge that will not collapse. Surgeons need to know truths about the human body in order to operate on it.

Most of Frankfurt’s argument is similarly utilitarian – we need truth to plan our day-to-day lives, to set long and short term goals, to better understand ourselves, to maintain social cohesion (which is based on trust). This all makes perfect sense and gives you good reason to want to KNOW the truth and, therefore, to resent being bullshitted and avoid bullshitting others. However, it offers little reason for why you should TELL the truth, because a lie might better serve your purposes, and therefore has more value in utilitarian terms. Frankfurt’s essay might convince bullshitters to respect the truth by finding out what it is, but whether they then decide to use it to be honest or deceptive depends on which of these options provides a means to their ends. Consequently, I found that On Truth only achieves part of its goal – it demonstrates the importance of knowing and using the truth, but falls short of convincing one not to lie.

If, when reading On Bullshit, you assumed that it would be better to know the truth, or if this is simply your general conviction, On Truth will probably be incredibly boring – a case of preaching a dull sermon to commonsense converts. There are no insights about truth that I found noteworthy. Compared with On Bullshit, it’s terribly banal. Despite the fact that I could easily have read this in about two hours, I lost steam halfway and only picked it up again about two weeks later, mostly because failing to finish such a tiny book would be just shameful.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lynne Truss is, perhaps, a little nuts about punctuation, but she has a point and she knows how to use it.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves is a very useful and very funny little book that discusses and illuminates punctuation in a manner that all but ensures you’ll know how to use it. Truss strongly believes that “[p:]roper punctuation is the sign and the cause of clear thinking” (202) and she argues her case very well. Using gorgeous little metaphors and images, historical origins, and a generous dose of humour (including hilarious errors), Truss makes clear the functions and importance of various types of punctuation. Not only does she explain the rules (where they exist), but she gives you a feel for language that deepens understanding.

Particularly amusing are the ‘raging’ debates that have occurred over such things as the frequency of comma use or whether or not one should use a semi-colon. Any editor or proofreader will be able to recall similar disputes (with fondness, frustration, sadness, anger, hilarity, etc., etc.). “If there’s one thing to be learned from this book,” Truss says, “it is that there is never a dull moment in the world of punctuation” (125). Heated debates on apostrophe use aside, I’m not sure if that’s true, but I can say that at least there’s never a dull moment in this book.

Highly recommended to everyone.

Two Stars by Paul Theroux

Two Stars by Paul Theroux
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A quick easy read, comprising 3 pieces on female movie stars – a definition of the ‘starlet’, a long article detailing Theroux’s interviews with Elizabeth Taylor (including an interview with her close friend Michael Jackson) and a very short article on the auctioning of Marilyn Monroe’s possessions.

A sense of tragedy runs through the whole book – the dashed hopes of most starlets in their longing for fame, the lost childhoods of Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson, Taylor’s many failed marriages, Marilyn Monroe’s miserable life and her eventual suicide. At the same time their bizarre lives and the money it generates feels incredibly surreal. Elizabeth Taylor bought Michael Jackson an elephant, Jackson went on tour with two cargo planes, carrying things like arcade games. The pair had a very playful relationship, perhaps trying to reclaim their lost childhoods, and imagine themselves as Peter Pan and Wendy.

Marilyn Monroe’s red stiletto’s were sold for $21 000; Tommy Hilfiger bought her thrift-shop jeans for $36 500. These were some of the low-priced items. Her sparkly ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ dress sold for over a million dollars, the record auction price for a woman’s dress. And yet, when Monroe died, she had only $5000 in the bank.

Two Stars reads a bit more like a biography than the study of celebrity in general that I had hoped for (with Taylor and Monroe as case studies), but I enjoyed it nevertheless. I’m from the wrong generation to know much about these stars though, so for someone who lived through their days of iconic fame (or just has a great interest in it), Two Stars would no doubt be an even better read.

On Love and Death by Patrick Suskind

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A very short book of Suskind’s musings on love and its relation to death, with some interesting insights for his famous novel Perfume (and possibly some of his others as well – I have yet to read them).

Love, Eros is described as a frenzy, “the finest frenzy there is… a mania inspired by and yearning for the divine” (15). Love is “a force instilling in human beings a desire for what they lack: beauty, virtue, happiness, perfection – whose reflection the lover sees in the beloved – and finally even immortality” (15-16)

Suskind looks at examples of Eros as an insanity that leads to poor choices, an intense desire in which lovers cut themselves off from the world and even scorn everyone else in their longing for each other. There is also a more noble example of a writer who falls in love with a waiter but never confesses it, turning his passion into creativity instead, using love to achieve immortality through his work.

About halfway through this little book, Suskind turns to the relationship between love and death. “[L:]ove in general is on easy terms with death” (42) he says – lovers kill themselves to escape the pain of love, others are willing to accept death as the price for a great love. Suskind turns to the poetry of Goethe and the suicide of writer Heinrich von Kleist to explore the idea of love finding “it’s highest and purest form, indeed it’s fulfillment, in death” (43).

Finally he compares Orpheus to Jesus Christ, both of whom tried to conquer death for the sake of love, and comes to the conclusion that Orpheus is more human and his story more touching because of his humility and his ultimate failure.

These musings are literary, not literal, making it a quick and interesting read for literature lovers and anyone interested in the association of love with death and insanity.

Public Power in the Age of Empire by Arundhati Roy

Public Power in the Age of Empire by Arundhati Roy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Are ‘democracies’ still democratic? Are governments accountable to the people who elect them? These are some of the questions that Arundhati Roy asks in her brief but insightful speech (this little book is the transcription, and can also be found free online). We live in an Age of Empire, she argues, characterised by economic colonialism and the repression of resistance.

Using Indian and American governments as her main examples, Roy discusses the ways in which governments can manipulate the people they’re supposed to serve, and how elections have the illusion of ideological choice. While people might get the governments they vote for they might not get the governments they want. Or need. In third world countries, the national agenda is often not dictated by the needs of the people, but by the demands of foreign capital and freemarket capitalism which are given the label of ‘reform’. However, these ‘reforms’ lead to mass unemployment and poverty. Faced with the threat of being crippled by capital flight, governments continue to facilitate the economic exploitation of their countries. Consequently, Roy says, it is impossible for governments to achieve radical change. It is only the public that can do so.

In the second half she looks at some of the dangers that resistance movements face, such as their relationship with the mass media and the use of NGOs to defuse political resistance. What I found especially powerful was her argument that public power in the age of Empire can be forced to resort to terrorism (which here is loosely defined as violent resistance) as a direct consequence of governments’ merciless crackdown on resistance in all forms. If governments are not open to change through non-violent resistance, then they are in fact endorsing violence as the only choice of action for an oppressed and exploited public.

Overall I found this to be a very useful, memorable book that should be easy for the most readers to understand. In a very few pages it provides an essential critical perspective with which to view contemporary global politics, particularly the depiction of humanitarian struggles by the media and political authorities. Even if you don’t agree with everything Roy says, this essay does you the valuable service of dissuading you from swallowing information whole and encouraging you to learn more and think more carefully and critically about the way in which countries and global powers are treating human beings.

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