pith…

Recently, New York Times reporter Motoko Rich wrote an article about how during a recession, what people want is a happy book, with a happy ending. Incidentally, book sales have soared in the romance novel genre, and, as the masses know, the vampire love story genre. Mass-market paperbacks fly off the shelves of your Walgreens, Walmarts and Kmarts, while large trade paperbacks suffer at your Barnes and Nobles.

I understand that the heart may be a lonely hunter during this tough economic downturn, and some may feel the need to inject some escapism or sentimentality into their lives. But for the incredulous, a romance novel may not be plausible.

Thus, I’ve assembled what I believe to be 10 “thinking man’s” books to read during an economic slump. Rather than picking 10 books solely dedicated to economics, I’ve tried to be diverse in representing the general tone of this recession. In addition, I’ve incorporated a few books that may not evoke the tone of the recession, but will hopefully encourage you about overcoming it. Most of these books are not de facto “feel good” reads (with the exception of one indispensible comedy), but they are relevant and rewarding in many ways in regard to how one views world discourse. And when the world is in trouble, these books are what I consider food for thought, or reexamination, if you have read them before.

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Adam Smith was a strong advocate of a free market economy, and this was in 1776, before the term economics was even coined. Smith argued that a free market economy is more beneficial to society because it promotes healthy relationships with employer and employee, as well as makes people responsible for their choices. “If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered”

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is an obvious choice because Marx opposed bureaucracies and the bourgeoisie, and was for the proletariat. With the crisis on Wall Street that propelled us into an even deeper global recession, many (most notably, Christopher Hitchens) have argued that Marx is still very relevant in the discourse of our nation, and the world. “Working men of all countries, unite!”

ATLAS SHRUGGED

Ayn Rand’s gargantuan novel about free enterprise, free market and laissez-faire capitalism, uncannily evokes the tone our current recession. It shouldn’t surprise you that this anti-bureaucratic novel has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the last 18 months. As some recent bumper stickers have pointed out, we may have to modify Rand’s question from: “Who is John Galt,” to Where is John Galt?

ON LIBERTY

John Stuart Mill echoes his Utilitarian philosophy in this famous essay on civil and social liberty. Mill believes that political actions are necessary and right if they benefit the majority of the people, and provide happiness to the majority of society. Similar to Thomas Paine, he believes that the rights of individuals should be safeguarded or if necessary, fought for by the government. John Stuart Mill was a liberal-minded thinker, and his tone certainly resonates with us today: “the disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.”

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

With the subtitle: Thoughts for Reclaiming the American Dream, The Audacity of Hope serves well as a manifesto for change in politics. With Obama in office, he is finding out how difficult it can be to overcome partisanship, but many historians agree that although his first hundred days have been challenging, they have been effective and highly productive. As Obama once said, and as we found out in the detail of his latest press conference, “Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.”

FAHRENHEIT 451

Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel on censorship and how television destroys interest in reading literature creates a world of paranoia and little choice. Bradbury’s “fireman” work as book burners who burn books for the “good of humanity.” The novel takes place in a future American society run by self-interest and indulgence; critical thought through reading a book is outlawed. Disturbing? Yes, for: “we must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal.”

RIGHTS OF MAN

Thomas Paine’s polemic asserts that the rights of man should not be taken away by any government. Paine believed that government was there not to interfere, but to safeguard the individual and their inalienable rights, and this is the central thesis of this work. “Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.”

LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM

I didn’t want to get too partisan with any of these choices, but Al Franken’s book offers some important insight into the changing spirit of America’s political discourse. And it’s funny as hell. Although Franken’s book is subtitled, “A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” it is still biased to the left. This, however, shouldn’t stop anyone from reading it, whether you’re left, middle or right. Al is just full of staggering wisdom, for who else could put things so eloquently: “it’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.”

LETTERS TO A YOUNG CONTRARIAN

Christopher Hitchens’ witty and educational book is written as a series of letters to whom he calls contrarians. Hitchens uses his incredible knowledge and reason to advise people to question the things they were taught. Question your religion, your politics, your education, your society; question everything. Hitchens’ allusions to politics, literature, history, religion and even pop culture and current events are beautifully integrated in each letter. A lesson from Hitchens that can be applied to all vocations: “write because you have to, not because you want to.”

BANKER TO THE POOR

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus discusses how $27 lent out to a village of 45 people spurned his idea for Grameen Bank, a bank that has now lent out about 4 billion dollars to over 7 million people – 95% being poor women. Yunus will inspire you to make a social entrepreneurial difference, whether it’s with $10 or billions of dollars. As Dr. Yunus says, “today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world – out of six billion people, more than three billion do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.”

It seems there is a shortage of gods in the universe today. Here on earth, if you mention the name Baal, Njord, Horus or even Krishna, people will look at you like your nuts, or like you’re alluding to someone out of a fairly tale. These gods, now considered to be blatant myths, are basically extinct. In a day and age when people can recite at least a dozen basketball players, it’s all too interesting that most people are only familiar with their one god, and sometimes that’s even a stretch.

If you ask a neighbor, coworker, friend or family member to name their god, you will find confusion and ignorance. Seriously, try it. At work a few days ago, I took it upon myself to ask this question to ten colleagues. Most people responded by saying, “My god is the god of the bible” or “Jesus Christ” or “I have no idea” or “The Judeo-Christian god.” Out of the ten, not one responded, “well, obviously Yahweh is my god, and he is the great god of the New and Old Testament.”

Shouldn’t one at least know the name of the god they choose to worship? I personally wouldn’t want to pray to an invisible manifestation I don’t know the name of.

The problem with this new evolutionary juncture regarding the few gods still worshiped on this planet is that we have used up all of the gods. Gods are not evolving like they used to – Krishna is not transforming into Jesus (both stories are presumably taken from the same myth). We are stuck. Once these remaining few are christened as myths, what will we do? People are not as superstitious as they were in the past. I don’t see people propagating gods out of thin air. Maybe the Catholic Church will offer a few new gods (as they always have good responses to crises). Maybe alien life will be referred to as gods.

As for now, however, we remain in our comfortable world with our comfortable myths. But the myths, and therefore, the gods, are becoming more and more obsolete.

Currently, we have less than 5 prominent gods to work with. The three-headed monster consists of Christianity’s Yahweh, Islam’s Yahweh and Hinduism’s Krishna and Rama (Hinduism is polytheistic and worships other gods as well, but Rama and Krishna are the main culprits). Add Mormonism’s Yahweh, and we are still only at three gods. These gods are so popular that nearly 5 billion people adhere to them.

So there they are, the three gods the average person should know, but doesn’t. Will these gods continue their reign through child indoctrination, perpetuation of organized religion, and other popularizing techniques, or will they fade into the realm of reason? With the rise of secularism, agnosticism, atheism or other nonreligious groups, it seems as if reason is on the way. Over a billion people in the world today consider themselves secular, agnostic, atheistic or nonreligious – and one can only hope that these people tell (or have told) their children the beauty about the cosmos and the fantasy of the mythos.

It is reassuring to think of the extinction of these gods, and maybe, just maybe, reason will prevail in our future.

4/5 Update: Hope failed to generate much interest for discussion. That’s appropriate.

Hope. Is it a wonderful, positive thing? Or is it an empty self-delusion? What does hope mean to you? What part does hope play in your daily existence? pith… wants to know. Here’s the basic definitions and some pithy quotes as fodder for your thoughts:

Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.” – Wikipedia

1. (verb) hope, trust, desire; expect and wish; “I trust you will behave better from now on”; “I hope she understands that she cannot expect a raise”
2. (verb) be optimistic; be full of hope; have hopes; “I am still hoping that all will turn out well”

“When Pandora opened Pandora’s Box, she let out all the evils except one: hope. At the time, the Greeks considered hope to be at least as dangerous as all other evils in the world.” – Wikipedia

“Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.” – George Iles

“Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.” – Robert G. Ingersoll

“We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” – Barack Obama

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out” – Vaclav Havel

So, what do you think? What’s hope mean to you?