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17741. Toward a Sovereign Afghanistan

Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton University (LISD) convened the conference, “Toward a Sovereign Afghanistan,” October 20-22, 2011, in the Cecilienhof Castle of Potsdam near Berlin, Germany. More than 40 leading experts from Afghanistan and 14 other states participated in the private, off-the-record conference. The colloquium was opened by Ambassador Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Afghanistan of the UN Secretary-General; Dr. Rangin Spanta, Afghanistan National Security Advisor; Ambassador Michael Steiner, Special Representative of the Germany for Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Ambassador Vygaudas Ušackas, Special Representative and Head of Mission of the EU's Mission for Afghanistan. Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, LISD Director, chaired the colloquium.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Civil Society, Economics, Islam, Peace Studies, and Self Determination
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Germany

17742. A Symphony of History: Will Durant's The Story of Civilization

Author:
Dan Norton
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Eleven years ago, toward the end of my undergraduate years as a philosophy major at the University of Virginia, I was feeling dissatisfied with my knowledge of history. I had taken several history courses but wanted more. Because my immediate interest was ancient Greece, I decided to try a friend's recommendation, The Life of Greece by Will Durant. Finding the book at the library, I was surprised to see that it was but one volume in a massive series called The Story of Civilization—eleven substantial volumes spanning two feet of shelving.1 Although I wanted to learn more about history, I wasn't sure I wanted to learn that much. It turned out that I did. Reading those volumes—sometimes poring over large portions of them multiple times—would be one of the most enlightening and enjoyable experiences of my life. First published between 1935 and 1975, The Story of Civilization is a work of great and enduring value. Exceptional for its masterful prose as well as its size and scope, the Story is a powerful combination of style and substance. An author of rare literary talents, Durant (1885–1981) won a wide readership through his ability to make history intriguing, lively, and dramatic. His volumes, intended for the general reader and each designed to be readable apart from the others, have sold millions of copies. Some even became best sellers, and the tenth volume, Rousseau and Revolution, won a Pulitzer Prize. Individual volumes have been translated into more than twenty languages.2 Having earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1917 from Columbia University, Durant first won fame and phenomenal success with The Story of Philosophy (1926). This book sold two million copies in a few years and has sold three million copies to date; eighty-five years later, the book is still in print and has been translated into nineteen languages.3 Durant followed this book with another best seller, The Mansions of Philosophy (1929).4 His earnings from these and other books, as well as from articles and public lectures, helped free his time for writing The Story of Civilization, which would be his magnum opus. His wife, Ariel Durant (1898–1981), assisted him throughout his writing of the Story, her assistance increasing to the point that, beginning with the seventh volume, she received credit as coauthor.5 The Story of Civilization begins with Our Oriental Heritage, a volume on Egypt and Asiatic civilizations. The remaining ten volumes tell the story of Western civilization (with a substantial treatment of Islamic civilization in one of the volumes6). Durant's original intention was to tell the story of the West up to the present, but, despite working on the Story for more than four decades, he was unable to do so: “[A]s the story came closer to our own times and interests it presented an ever greater number of personalities and events still vitally influential today; and these demanded no mere lifeless chronicle, but a humanizing visualization which in turn demanded space” (vol. 7, p. vii). The increasing space he gave to each period of European history resulted in his having to end the Story with the downfall of Napoleon in 1815; moreover, he had to omit the history of the Americas entirely. He was ninety when the Story's last volume was published and had carried it as far as he could. In each volume Durant takes a comprehensive approach, covering, for each nation and in each period of its history, all the major aspects of civilization: politics, economics, philosophy, religion, literature, art, and science.7 He called his approach the “integral” or “synthetic” method, and regarded it as an original contribution to historiography.8 Elaborating on the origin of his method, he writes: I had expounded the idea in 1917 in a paper . . . “On the Writing of History.” . . . Its thesis: whereas economic life, politics, religion, morals and manners, science, philosophy, literature, and art had all moved contemporaneously, and in mutual influence, in each epoch of each civilization, historians had recorded each aspect in almost complete separation from the rest. . . . So I cried, “Hold, enough!” to what I later termed “shredded history,” and called for an “integral history” in which all the phases of human activity would be presented in one complex narrative, in one developing, moving, picture. I did not, of course, propose a cloture on lineal and vertical history (tracing the course of one element in civilization), nor on brochure history (reporting original research on some limited subject or event), but I thought that these had been overdone, and that the education of mankind required a new type of historian—not quite like Gibbon, or Macaulay, or Ranke, who had given nearly all their attention to politics, religion, and war, but rather like Voltaire, who, in his Siècle de Louis XIV and his Essai sur les moeurs, had occasionally left the court, the church, and the camp to consider and record morals, literature, philosophy, and art.9 Durant's integral history does not only occasionally consider these latter areas (which he calls “cultural history” or “the history of the mind,”)10 it emphasizes them. “While recognizing the importance of government and statesmanship, we have given the political history of each period and state as the oft-told background, rather than the substance or essence of the tale; our chief interest was in the history of the mind” (vol. 10, p. vii). (Nevertheless, the Story contains ample and excellent material on politics.) The Story is by far the most massive and thorough treatment of Western civilization by a single author (or team of two) that I have been able to find. Large teams of historians have collaborated to produce similarly large, or even larger, works. But such works, writes a respected historian, “while they gain substantially in authoritative character, are seriously lacking in correlation and are not written from a . . . harmonious point of view.”11 Harmony is indeed one of the cardinal virtues of Durant's work; readers find therein a beautifully integrated tale of man's past, a veritable symphony of history. For this reason and others—notably, Durant's grand, philosophical overviews and scintillating style—I believe that many, and perhaps most, readers will find no better place to turn for a large treatment of Western civilization than The Story of Civilization. . . .
Topic:
Government and History
Political Geography:
America and Europe

17743. Around the World: "The Communist War against the Philippines and Why It Rages On"

Author:
Joshua Lipana
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
An insurgency led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is ravaging the nation's countryside.1 Children as young as twelve are forced to join the “New People's Army” (NPA) and to fight for the communist cause.2 Farmers are often killed for refusing to support or join the communist cause. Businessmen are threatened with death or the destruction of their property should they not pay taxes to the revolutionaries. Politicians in areas of strong communist influence either become puppets of the CPP-NPA or are murdered. This insurgency has killed more than 120,000 Filipinos to date, and the body count is rapidly rising.3 The communist insurgents' ultimate goal is to conquer the nation, and they are fighting toward this end via two means. The first of these is armed force. According to Jun Alcover, a former high-ranking Communist Party member turned anticommunist congressman, the CPP hopes “to win the revolutionary struggle and change the social, economic, and political landscape in the Philippines—[through] armed revolution, Mao Zedong style.”4 Yettan Verita Liwanag, a coauthor with Alcover of the book Atrocities Lies: The Untold Secrets of the Communist Party of the Philippines, details the communists' plan to carry out this bloody insurrection. The first step would be to draw a significant number of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) away from the island of Luzon (where the capital is) to the southern Island of Mindanao, where the NPA, allied with secessionist forces such as the Moro National Liberation Front and the Bangsa Moro Army, would be able to bog down the AFP. “Attacks from the combined forces would tie down a large part of the AFP in the south. By splitting the AFP, NPA forces in the Visayaz could then contribute to the uprising by simultaneously assaulting their areas of responsibility. Finally, after achieving strategic advantage over the elements of the AFP by dividing its attention,” the communists in Luzon could “then strike the National Capital Region by surrounding it with pockets of Red-controlled areas and enveloping it from the inside” with a massive uprising of armed and non-armed supporters, ranging from workers to leftist students.5 This is the communist dream of violent revolution as envisioned by the founder and leader of the New People's Army—however, it is a long shot.6 The communists know that the AFP, which is far more powerful than their own modest forces, would almost surely win an all-out military conflict. So the communists are also fighting for control of the Philippines on a second, more insidious front. The CPP-NPA is trying to increase its reputation as a legitimate political party within the international community; meanwhile, it is smearing the Philippine government and the AFP as human-rights violators and mass murderers. The communists hope ultimately to cause enough commotion to invite direct intervention in Filipino affairs from foreign entities (including the United Nations), leading to pressure from those entities to accommodate the communists and perhaps even create a coalition government with them.7 In this way the CPP-NPA could wield much power in the Philippines while reducing the damage to its insurgency force. Even more amazing than the fact that a remnant of the Cold War severely threatens the Philippines is the fact that the Philippine government is permitting it to do so. From its prime in the 1980 of tens of thousands of “comrades,” the NPA has been reduced to a few thousand—a number that the Philippine government could easily squash. Yet a continuous policy of accommodation and appeasement from the Philippine government has allowed the NPA to survive, threatening the prosperity and lives of all Filipinos. . . .
Topic:
Government and War
Political Geography:
Philippines

17744. Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Author:
C.A. Wolski
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Although Ayn Rand published her epic novel Atlas Shrugged fifty-four years ago, and although it has consistently sold hundreds of thousands of copies annually, Rand's magnum opus has spent decades mired in Hollywood “development hell.” Numerous producers, stars, screenwriters, and film production companies have endeavored but failed to execute a film version (see: “Atlas Shrugged's Long Journey to the Silver Screen,” p. 35). All the while, fans of the novel have anxiously waited for the day when they could watch the story come to life on the silver screen. That day is finally here. Atlas Shrugged: Part I, the first in a planned trilogy, should, for the most part, please the novel's patient fans. Fortuitously following a blueprint similar to one outlined by Rand in the 1970s (see “Adapting Atlas: Ayn Rand's own Approach,” p. 38), the film covers the first third of the story. Like the novel, the movie focuses on Dagny Taggart as she endeavors to save her struggling railroad from both intrusive government regulations and the mysterious John Galt, who is hastening the nation's collapse by causing the great entrepreneurs and thinkers of the country to disappear. She is aided in her efforts by Henry “Hank” Rearden, a steel magnate who is also being squeezed by government regulations and is anxious to put an end to John Galt's activities. Those familiar with the novel know generally what to expect: the disappearance of more and more industrialists and other great producers, the banning of Rearden Metal, the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule,” the initial run of the John Galt Line, and finally Wyatt's Torch and the collapse of Colorado.
Topic:
Development and Government
Political Geography:
America, Middle East, and Colorado

17745. The King's Speech

Author:
C.A. Wolski
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
It is 1939 and England is in crisis—war looms, the government is in chaos, the people are in despair. All eyes turn to the country's reluctant, recently crowned monarch, George VI, to offer stirring words that will brace them for the coming storm. But there's the rub. The king suffers from a paralyzing stammer, and there are grave doubts that he will be able to deliver the speech that will unite his nation. Tom Hooper's Academy-Award winning The King's Speech is much more than a simple, inspiring wartime tale of a historical figure overcoming a physical and psychological ailment. The story of how Albert, Duke of York, later King George VI, overcame his stammer to give a series of rousing wartime speeches that united and inspired his nation is indeed the framework of the film. But at its heart, the film is the story of the power of the human mind and how hard work and perseverance—not miracles and wishes—are the bulwarks of the human spirit. The film opens in 1925. Albert (played by Colin Firth) must deliver the closing speech of the Empire Exhibition. The king's second son is terrified. He is led to the podium where his speech will not only be heard by the assembled crowd but is being simultaneously broadcast across the Empire. The time comes, and in what can only be described as sheer agony, Albert chokes out the first few words. He is next seen several months later at a session with a so-called “speech therapist” who insists that smoking will “relax the throat” and that stuffing one's mouth full of marbles is the “classic” cure for stuttering. Both remedies, unsurprisingly, fail. Albert, with the help of his wife, Elizabeth (played by Helena Bonham Carter), eventually lands himself in the offices of Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian speech therapist, who promises that he can help Albert (whom he insists on calling “Bertie” to the prince's continuing disdain) overcome his stammer and speak clearly. The eccentric speech therapist delivers. Through hard work, setbacks, and triumphs, Logue, with sometimes unusual therapeutic techniques and a wry bit of psychoanalysis, treats the prince and helps him rediscover the confidence and self-esteem that had been robbed from him during his bleak childhood. The efforts culminate in the pivotal speech that Albert, as king, must give. Success is the only option—and the psychological tightrope the king must cross during this moment is more compelling than any explosive action sequence one might imagine. . . .
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
Australia and England

17746. Leaving Johnny Behind: Overcoming Barriers to Literacy and Reclaiming At-Risk Readers

Author:
Laura Hilse
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Conscientious parents and teachers have long wondered why so many educators are hesitant to teach phonics despite its known successes. Anthony Pedriana's Leaving Johnny Behind: Overcoming Barriers to Literacy and Reclaiming At-Risk Readers answers this perennial question and explains how the educational community shifted from teaching reading based on phonics (alphabetic code) to the “whole-word” or “whole-language” approach. Pedriana's book is based on his thirty-five years of experience in education, first as a public school teacher and later as a principal in Milwaukee's inner-city schools. Although initially committed to the whole word approach—by which students are taught to recognize word shapes rather than word components—he became increasingly frustrated at his students' lack of reading progress. When a new teacher promised him that she could have every one of her second graders reading at grade level by the end of the year—if he permitted her to use a phonics-based approach called “Direct Instruction”—Pedriana gave her the green light. He was soon astounded by her progress: Even though many of her students were already a year behind, the teacher, using the phonics approach, had 95 percent of her class reading at grade level by the end of the year. Having witnessed these results, Pedriana wanted all of his teachers to use the “Direct Instruction” method. Although he expected some resistance, he was surprised at how strongly many of the teachers opposed the program and implemented it only halfheartedly. Over the next few years, with the phonics program in place, Pedriana saw some gains made in reading at his school. But without the teachers putting forth the requisite effort and follow-through, these gains were negligible compared to what that one enthusiastic teacher had achieved, and Pedriana accordingly suffered much criticism for the program. Pedriana soon retired but could not stop thinking about these events. He wanted to understand why a program that promised to help so many students was opposed by teachers, and he wanted to be able to answer critics of the program. Leaving Johnny Behind is the result of his search for answers. . . .

17747. Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In 2003, HarperCollins published Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America. The book is as relevant today, if not more. At the beginning of Terrorist Hunter the anonymous author, since outed as Rita Katz, has infiltrated a conference for radical Muslims. She asks herself why she is in a place where she (and her unborn baby) will probably die if anyone finds her recording equipment. Recalling her past, she goes on to answer that question. Katz was born into a wealthy family of Jews living in the then-prosperous Iraqi city of al-Basrah. Her happy childhood changed dramatically after Israel soundly defeated the Arab nations that attacked it in the Six-Day War of 1967. Unable to match Israel\'s military power, many Arabs began to take revenge on the Jews within their own borders. After the Ba\'ath Party of Saddam Hussein and his cousin Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr seized power the year following the war, they came for Katz\'s father, falsely accused him of being a traitor and a spy for Israel, and began torturing him to extract a confession. Meanwhile, Katz\'s family was moved into a small, guard-surrounded stone hut from which her mother would leave each day to beg for her father\'s release—and to which she would return with fresh bruises bestowed by her husband\'s captors. Sadly, her valiant effort was in vain. Katz\'s father was well known, and his trial was scheduled to be shown on television. The Iraqi tyrants were determined to quench their Arab citizens\' thirst for vengeance by reaching a guilty verdict. Because no amount of torture had hitherto pushed Katz\'s father to confess to the crimes he had not committed, Ba\'ath party agents invited his pregnant wife into a room he knew well—one in which, just the day before, another prisoner\'s wife was beaten and gang-raped by many guards. The agents told Katz\'s father that, if he refused to confess, they would immediately walk into that room, cut open her belly, and bring his unborn child to him on a tray. Later that evening he walked to the stand and “in a clear, unwavering voice, confessed his crimes as an Israeli spy and a traitor to the Iraqi nation” (p. 25). He was hanged soon thereafter in Baghdad\'s central square—to the cheers of a half million Iraqis. Katz goes on to tell the story of her family\'s daring escape from Iraq, which required her mother to drug the guards with Valium bought surreptitiously and then pretend to be the wife of a general in order to get a car ride to a town where they could be smuggled to safety. The remainder of their trek to safety involved hiding in the secret compartment of a chicken truck and walking across mountains with duct tape on their mouths to ensure that nobody made a sound. All this is told with the drama of a good novel. In fact, when Katz and her family are on the plane to Israel, and her little brother musters the courage to ask if it is finally OK to tell people they are Jews, you are likely to cry—just as everyone on that plane did. . . .
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, and Arabia

17748. The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World

Author:
Roderick Fitts
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World, Dr. Laura Snyder contrasts the early 19th-century man of science (or “natural philosopher”) with the modern scientist. Yesteryear's men of science were usually wealthy (often from an inheritance), pursuing their scientific interests with no support from a government, university, or corporation. Their discoveries, though long used by kings and governments, were rarely regarded as something that could improve the lives of ordinary men and women. The men of science would hardly ever meet, and they would never debate the merits of their work or papers publicly. Unsurprisingly then, they had reached no consensus as to a proper “scientific method,” and no single process of reaching theories was upheld above any other. The modern scientist, by contrast, is a specialized, credentialed professional who usually works for a government or university while conducting research. This scientist routinely defends his work from contemporaries in the same field, is answerable to the public, and is even seen as a social reformer of sorts, capable of dramatically improving lives politically, economically, or socially. On top of it all, he adheres to a standard account of the scientific method, even as ongoing debates about the specifics of that method emerge and are assessed. Who or what accounts for the transformation of the field of science and of its practitioners? The dominant thesis of Snyder's Philosophical Breakfast Club is that the efforts and achievements of four Cambridge graduates, friends, and men of science—John Herschel, Charles Babbage, Richard Jones, and William Whewell (pronounced “Who-ell”)—are largely responsible for our modern conception of what it means to be a scientist. To support her claim, she presents a biographical account of their lives, discussing their scientific, family, and social lives as well as their goals, personal interests, and the social context surrounding them. Each chapter presents aspects of what the four accomplished (or attempted to accomplish), along with the contextual background necessary to understand the importance of their work. The result is a clear view of the social and scientific atmosphere in which these men lived, and an even clearer understanding of exactly what they wanted to change in the world of science, and why. . . .
Topic:
Government

17749. The Sleuth Investor: Uncover the Best Stocks Before They Make Their Move

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Many books on investing begin with complex instructions for analyzing a stock's fundamentals or the blips that its price makes on a screen. Avner Mandelman, however, begins The Sleuth Investor: Uncover the Best Stocks Before They Make Their Move by simply describing what a company is and is not. A company is not its legal charter, nor its annual report, nor its corporate filings . . . nor is it a string of historical prices that can be plotted together and regressed. Rather, a company is a group of people doing work in an office or a plant, so that other people (the customers) will send them checks. A company, in short, is a check-receiving work group. If the work group does good work, the other people (the customers) will send them lots of checks, and then the stock (which is a piece of the company you can buy) will rise. If the work group does bad work (or work that is not as good or as cheap as that done by other work groups), the customers will send fewer checks, and the stock will fall. (pp. 9–10) This essentialized view of a company sets the stage for one of the most unique books on investing ever written. Mandelman emphasizes the importance to investors of having first-hand, exclusive information about a company's people, products, plant, and periphery. A precautionary reason to seek out such information is to avoid investment losses: “If you invest in a company without knowing anything about its own specific drama, or characters, you'll likely end up losing money” (p. 29). A proactive reason is to invest profitably—as Mandelman has done for decades at Giraffe Capital. . . .

17750. From the Editor

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
It's here. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged finally has come to the silver screen, and in this special, Atlas-themed issue of TOS—which begins our sixth year of publication—we have details on the movie and a whole lot more. As you may have noticed, we have lost our tombstone-like academic look and gained a full-color graphic cover to match the verve you have come to expect from the journal. The artwork on the present cover depicts a scene in the movie from the first run of the John Galt Line. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Harmon Kaslow, coproducer (with John Aglialoro) of Atlas Shrugged: Part I, to discuss the film, how it came together, choice of screenwriter and director, casting, score, and distribution. Dovetailing with this interview are Chris Wolski's concise history of the efforts to adapt Atlas for the screen and his review of the film (he attended a prescreening in February).
Topic:
Economics and History