This book is a semi-difficult book to read for someone who doesn’t read “scientific journals” too often. In this book, Jung attempts to approach a subject that is beyond his scientific time – a natural law operating outside the quantifiable view of reality.

Most of our reality can be placed within the line of space and time. For each event there was a cause, and for each action influences a number of possible consequences. For the events that happen outside of this equation, our scientific mind intuitively grasps that as a chance in probability.

Here he understands the difficulty of differentiating between what can be known as another form of connection, or one that is related to probability. He delineates between the different kinds of meaningful coincidences in his own experiences and has even brought up other scientists’ theories on each kind.

Coincidences, chance, luck, miracle… these ideas warrant no cause and are left to the math of probability. Jung tries to describe a new theory in two ways – a falling together of events in time (fate?) and where another view of reality stems from the unconscious realm, subjective as one deriving meaning in life.

There is another way to decipher the difference between predetermination and synchronicty. Predetermination relies on the premise of “prima causa”, a will that manifests itself in time. Synchronicity is more based on the collective unconscious in an interplay and the interpretation of that in our waking life.

He also loops a few astrological aspects in his theory without renouncing his scientific mind. Jung acknowledges that this is a subject of bewilderment, but broaches for an explanation through the discussion between previous experiments, his own experiences, and some mild imagination.

I’m skimming over a lot of the wonderful details and insights of course. Mostly I’d say check this book out for it’s examples and for its scientific musings. The stories are definitely not too far from any normal person’s experiences and stirs one curiosity to find some sort of pattern or relation at work.

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“History has generally been written by the victors”, Ronald Takaki expresses in his book, and he hopes to bring about another form of telling history – through the stories of individuals who have lived and experienced life in a past time. In this book, Takaki gathered stories that are connected in themes and brought them together through written essays in between the testimonies.

In these essay introductions, Takaki writes a different version of history that isn’t the same traditional history taught in our public schools. Reading it blithely, some would say that Takaki doesn’t bring in anything new – “yeah they screwed over the Natives” or “yeah, slavery was horrible” and etc. These things aren’t new revelations, but there is more to the book than these perspectives that entertain our emotion of pity and morality.

The book talks about how history shapes the identity of a culture, and in a nation of immigrants, our identity has been very static and linear. For a country that is so diverse, we have still clung to the divisions of yesterday. Takaki says that who we are as a collective and as an individual are redefinable, and new associations beyond ethnic and biological ties can liberate people from keeping confined to divisions.

In one of the essays, he wrote about Palolo Island as an example of how people of different cultures came together and formed a new culture in Hawaii. They created a hybrid language, celebrated diverse holidays, and shared recipes. Because Takaki also included the stories told by the individuals, we can take from it what we want. We can find whatever connection between people, or themes from the story, and use them as examples to analyze other experiences in modern life.

This book is an easy read, and is pretty engaging for its ideas and themes. I give it a 3.7 out of 5 stars.

Technorati Tags: ronald, takaki, a larger memory, palolo island, book review, identity, collective identity, history, culture, immigration, immigrant, redefine, ethnic, biological, associations, division, american history

This is Daniel Quinn’s top selling book written in the 70s (I believe). The book is a conversation between a gorilla and an intellectual. They talk about society and all the other sub topics that surround it – one may find economic, political, individuality, and religious truths throughout the “story”. The gorilla enlightens us as we are captivated by the intellectual who has an “earnest desire to save the world”. Daniel Quinn himself has called it a spiritual adventure and offers us another interpretation of the state of affairs.

Here are some ideas based off of this book:

1. Life feeds on life; diversity sustains life for all living organisms.
2. Agricultural societies and how they have ‘taken over the world’.
3. How “Mother Culture” tells us our history and what main philosophy has come out of it.
4. The life of communal societies, such as Native Americans, and how they preserved individuality amongst a collective.
5. The economics of agricultural society as opposed to hunter-and-gatherer societies.

There are many other ideas in this book, and in between these enlightening moments are inquiries and a thought process. The intellectual learns more about himself, the world, and the forces that are destructive in our planet.

The ending doesn’t tell the reader what to do in order to “save the world”. At the end of the book, the gorilla dies of hypothermia and so the intellectual is left in the dust with a few keepsakes from his cage. However disappointing the ending is to some, the book still offers any reader with a way to frame things through the stories of the “taker societies” (agricultural societies) and the “leaver societies” (other societies). The taker society assumes god-power and tries to run the world, shaping it to its needs; the leaver society leaves nature to run its course and lives in accordance to its bounty. You can read more about this discourse between the two…

Stylistically, the book is an easy read. Hope you will enjoy it!

Technorati Tags: daniel quinn, ishmael, book review, ideas, taker, leaver, agricultural societies, hunter and gatherer, economics

This book is a work of fiction that is strange beyond most of the familiar genres today. It is one that encompasses the ideas of the occult, “The Golden Dawn”, and through the discussions, it wraps around ideas from Magick, the Tao te Ching, politics, history, and a variety of writers. It is rumored too, that it is based off of his own experiences in Magickal battles, and that he made a few points in making fun of the “other side”. Before I get into the review of this book, I think it is necessary to say that the word occult simply means “hidden”, and that Magick isn’t “magic”, like hocus-pocus, shooting fireballs from your fingertips, or based off of illusion tricks.

With that said, the book’s plot is based off of a war between the sorcerers (evil) and the magician (good). With the backdrop of World War I, which is the time when this book was written, Crowley also characterizes the two sides by revealing aspects of psychology, motivation, as well as reasoning preceding the action. The comments towards society, politics, and the war are sporadic throughout the book, showing up in conversations between magicians. The main plot is spurred on by a girl, Lisa la Guiffra, who was pulled into the magickal war between her two lovers, Cyril Grey (good) and Abdul (evil). Without spoiling the ending, I’ll just extract a few ideas out of the book…

The premise for the occult, or things that are hidden, is quite fascinating. Crowley explains this in a form of dimensions. Imagine, for instance, a two dimensional plane (like the surface of water), and that a three dimensional object were to act itself in two dimensions. Take a cone, a 3 dimensional object, and place it into two dimensions. Dip the pointy part of it, and the water will see a succession of circles. Dip a side of it, and the flat piece of paper will see a succession of parabolas. Dip the side in an angle, and it will see ellipses. With all these impressions (and more), the 2 dimensional consciousness may or may not even have the idea that all these things were all related to each other!

The human existence is somewhat like that in terms of fate and meaningful coincidences as we try to divine which is actually coincidental or luck. The universe keeps its secret, and everything that man knows really doesn’t amount to much – despite all scientific advances, man is still ignorant to truth and reality as he was thousands of years ago. Skipping over Crowley’s history of man’s development, he says (through Cyril Grey), “Perhaps the universe is a four dimensional object, manifesting itself in diversity, regular or irregular, just as the cone did to the water.” The metaphor expands to illustrate the manifestation of ideas, the soul, and of infinity…

Another part of the book discusses the “moon”. The moon is a symbol in astrology; it is the object that reflects the light of the sun, representing emotions. The soul is something that is eternal, and is symbolized in astrology by the sun, and the mood is just a projection of it. The moon, subject to change, sorrow, the play of all the universe’s forces, and the redemption of the moonlike qualities is the solution to the “cosmic problem”. In the experiment conducted by her lover Cyril Grey, Lisa la Guiffra was to be the moon, the one who would transform herself into an extremely passive energy in order to receive a collection of visions from the “fourth dimension”. The second vision includes the manifestation of a soul into the material dimension. Then Crowley goes into the “dark side of the moon” (haha, this was written before the pink floyd song).

Well, a big part of the last pages is about Lisa’s dark mentalities, and then comes out to go seek the “moonchild” (the manifestation of the soul is born into the world). The end wraps up everything quite nicely, and leaves the reader with a good discourse on the ideas behind the occult, the world, and the ways. There are some things that are beyond worldly sense that might throw you off, but then again it is just a piece of fiction, and Crowley always brings it back to some philosophical point. We can find a lot of realism in this book, as well as nuggets of allegorical phrases and descriptions. At times, it makes for a difficult read, for Crowley does make a lot of quick references to outside names and things. Another drawback is there are a few incomprehensible events that are left without explaining its relevance. Your eyes may glaze over a few portions, but overall an engaging book!

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For those students about to embark in an economics class, you may want to consider checking out this book. It is a combination of history and biography while it outlines the discourse of economic thought. The book is called “Worldly Philosophers” because the nature of man and society, in terms of an economic system, reflects the way of life and a philosopher’s perspective on it. The book engages the reader both for its insight, historical relevance, and for its accessibility – much different from a text book that tends to apply to the hypothetical or dryly delineate theories without any context. Heilbroner himself had wrote this book in hopes to turn the dodgey subject into something that is palatable and relevant to a general audience.

There are many book reviews out there, and many people may have found this book disappointing – namely a handful of economic teachers and students. Some students were saying that this book didn’t encompass some of their favorite economists or discuss some “important” economic theories; however, as a writer, you cannot always please everybody. It would make the writer lose focus in trying to encompass everything (I had even seen a review that criticized Heilbroner for not including Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau!) Teachers have also commented on how this book lacked textbook qualities of explaining the mathematics behind the theories (this mean they would have to TEACH!) But again, this is not what Heilbroner’s book was geared towards, he doesn’t even use the terminology of the economist. So in response to these one-star reviews, in addition to my previous commenting on who would enjoy this book, I would like to add who this book would be useful to.

The book would probably be very useful for students who have taken an introductory course in economics. Like any book read by a reader with a background, it offers another way of saying things, a different approach to outline ideas, and another perspective. For example, I learned about the state of mind before the development of markets, (and how that the peasants had no concept of an increasing standard of living – this is a modern idea since the conception of markets). This is one of the many great insights that shows an evolution of the economy over time, its effects on people, and how the attitudes and policies needed to change over time and events.

Again, you don’t have to have taken an economics course to enjoy this book. I find to go the other way makes the class more useful & enjoyable to discourse and learning. Depends on the person. You can’t really approach either with “knowing everything”; that would be like critiquing books based on what you thought was important and omitted, or going to class and controlling the topics of discussion. Of course, there may be validity in certain cases, but between the one-star reviews and hielbroner’s book, this is not the case. This book is an intro book and not for those who are looking for “intermediate principles and theories”. The book is mainly written for the average reader, and should it further interest them, they can advance their specific course of study through other means.

Technorati Tags: robert heilbroner, worldly philosophers, book review, economic history