Timothy Snyder - On Freedom (Crown, 2024) ****

What is more valuable than freedom? What is the incredible joy to be allowed to think, to express, to move, to engage, to write, to create, to act ... in total freedom and with respect for the freedom of other beings? Roughly around 80% of the World's population does not have access to this high good. Timothy David Snyder is an American historian specialising in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He recently joined the University of Toronto for an indefinite time.

In this preface he introduces the structure of his book as well as the five forms of freedom that he will elaborate on: 

"The five forms are: sovereignty, or the learned capacity to make choices; unpredictability, the power to adapt physical regularities to personal purposes; mobility, the capacity to move through space and time following values; factuality, the grip on the world that allows us to change it; and solidarity, the recognition that freedom is for everyone." (Preface)

Snyder's book is timely, considering the current situation in the world, with its increasing levels of ignorance, its evolution towards totalitarianism and autocracy, and a gradual decline in tolerance and wisdom. 

"We tend to think of freedom just as freedom from as negative. But conceiving of freedom as an escape or an evasion does not tell us what freedom is nor how it would be brought into the world. Freedom to as a positive freedom, involves thinking about who we want to become. What do we value? How do we realize our values in the world? If we don't think of freedom as positive, we won't even get freedom in the negative sense, since we will be unable to tell what is in fact a barrier, how barriers can be taken in hand and become tools, and how tools extend our freedom. 

Freedom from is a conceptual trap. It is also a political trap, in that it involves self-deception, contains no program for its own realization, and offers opportunities to tyrants. Both a philosophy and a politics of freedom have to begin with freedom to. Freedom is positive. It is about holding virtues in mind and having some power to realize them." (p. 31)

I like his comparison to our situation in which we are often blind for the context that we live in, the automatic responses that we have without truly understanding that there is something outside of the box that we are trapped in, like animals in a behavioural test that our current digital technology could well be:

"The first brain hack is experimental isolation, getting you alone, out of bodily contact with your fellow creatures. It generates an artifi­cial loneliness that enables four more brain hacks, four more kinds of manipulation. In the experiments, the isolated rat or pigeon works one end of the tool but does not see its other end, nor the actions and intentions of the experimenters. We similarly set our eyes on the display of a com­puter or a phone. We are ignorant of what lies on the other side: the tangle of algorithms, the vacuum of purpose. Fingertips on a keyboard, we fall into a trap. We speak of "my computer" or "my phone," but these objects are not ours, any more than the lab belongs to the rat­unless we figure out how they work on us." (p. 101)

 The deliberate intention of people behind the scenes to create algorithms that determine your thoughts and behaviour may seem paranoid but as we're currently witnessing in real life, and many Western politicians and intelligence services seem very naive in this context: 

"Our fears are cultivated to conform to what others in our catego­ries fear. If you are a middle-aged white male and you fear exactly what other middle-aged white males fear, you have been had. When your fears are predictable, then so are you, which means that you (and your digital demographic) are ripe for manipulation. When you are predictable, you predictably bring your country down. 

Conforming, you are easily led. Having withdrawn from the rugged borderland of the unpredictable into the cozy cove of your digital demographic, you await orders, or nudges. You have exposed your buttons, and you wait for them to be stroked and pushed. Anyone (or anything) that caresses your naked anxieties will also be arousing those of the legion of cowards in which you have enlisted. The more people there are who fear the same things, the easier tyranny becomes. Unfreedom is efficient." (p. 105)

The autocrats like Putin and others are real masters at this: taking advantage of the weaknesses and isolation of individuals to rally them for a great sense of historical community: 

"Politicians of inevitability are fake economists who lull us to sleep with the idea that larger forces will always bring us back to equilib­rium. Politicians of eternity are real entertainers who assuage our sense of loss with an appealing tale about the past. They gain our confidence by circling us back to a mythical era when we as a nation were (supposedly) innocent. These time-looping con artists nudge us away from democracy and toward their own feeling that they should rule forever and never be sent to prison (a motive especially apparent in the case of Trump and also Benjamin Netanyahu). Deprived of his­torical knowledge and of the habit of ethical thinking by the politics of inevitability, we are easy marks. Rising authoritarians succeed in this century not by proposing futures but by making any conversation about them seem pointless or absurd. 

"Vladimir Putin was the most important politician of eternity. His Russia drew directly from Brezhnev's 1970s, a time of nostalgia for the victory of 1945. Putin and his generation were raised with the idea that the supposed innocence of an older generation justified any action by a younger one. He looped back to Brezhnev's 1970s, and from the 1970s to an imagined 1945, and then to a baptism a thousand years before that, which supposedly joined Russia with Ukraine for­ever and made Russians eternally innocent. Russia was always the vic­tim and always the victor. Russians had the right to determine whether or not Ukraine and Ukrainians existed; anyone who denied that right was an enemy. A Russian fascist tradition that spoke in just this way was discovered and celebrated." (p. 156)

Yet he is equally severe for libertarianism, where everything is left to market forces.  

"According to the libertarians, the "free market" defends freedom. If the market does not defend something, it follows, that thing is not freedom. If the market does not protect a certain right, then we are expected to concede that it is not a right. When libertarians argue that markets defend freedom, they really mean that humans have a duty to defend markets. In a "free market," freedom is defined as the right of things to move around unhindered by humans, who are defined as barriers, or as entities with duties toward things. Human beings must be denied the freedom to change how capitalism works, and that denial must be labeled "freedom." Thus in a "free market," politics begins from Orwellian oppression. The "free market" only exists as a slogan covering senseless contra­dictions and justifying political bullying. There is no such thing as a "free market" in the world, nor can there be. Capitalism minus norms and laws is murderous conquest. If someone invades your country, seizes your house, enslaves your children, and puts your kidneys up for sale, that is the magic of the unregulated market at work.  Markets cannot be free. Only people can be free. Freedom is a human value. It can be recognized and pursued only by humans. There is no substitute for freedom, no way to delegate it. The moment we delegate freedom, to the market or anything else, it becomes submis­sion. When people surrender the word free, freedom vanishes from their lives." (p. 215)

For us Europeans, who live in a free world where we can do and act as we please, all this seems pretty obvious. My assessment is that many Americans do not understand what freedom means, and they are definitely not the Leaders of the Free World. Obama made this claim, and many presidents before him, but the US is not and has never been this Leader. I think it's up to us Europeans to step up and show to the rest of the world that real population happiness and prosperity are the result of deep democracy, with rule of law, human rights, press freedom, solidarity and a socially corrected free market. 

Snyder's book gives a good analysis, food for thought and also a framework from which to design this freedom we all crave. 

Peter J. Hotez - The Deadly Rise Of Anti-Science (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023) ****

If there is one topic of interest for all of us, is the rise of anti-science. Out of the political frustration and dissatisfaction with their fate, many people have huddled together in a weird movement that rejects reason, science, evidence and even education. They seem tired to be on the wrong side of rationality, hence they accept any theory to feel equal to people who completed higher studies and have acquired some intellectual expertise, whether in medicine, chemistry, biology or engineering. 

Peter J Hotez is clearly a true expert. He is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical diseasecontrol. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics. He also serves as a University Professor of Biology at Baylor University.

He is also very active on X (Twitter) to keep advocating for evidence-based medicine, crusading against anti-scientists on a daily basis, and risking his own life and that of his family in the process. 

In this book he gives an overview of the rise of anti-science in the world, and how it has become its own kind of business, generating huge amounts of money for snake oil salesmen. 

With the appointmentof Robert Kennedy Junior as Health Secretary in the United States, it appears that the battle for reason and evidence has been lost, with all results already showing in terms of the spread of measles, small pox and other infectious diseases in the United States. I only hope people will soon realise why experts and expertise is highly needed. 

I selected some related excerpts from his book, showing the way forward not only for the scientific community but for all of us to ensure that people get the right information and are not the victims of selfish conmen. 

"One of the most challenging aspects of confronting anti-science aggres­sion is that those promoting its agenda have acquired wealth, power, and organization. The anti-vaccine/anti-science ecosystem now in­cludes the most widely viewed nighttime cable news shows, far-right members of the US Congress and extremist groups, and a formidable array of contrarian intellectuals or pseudointellectuals. From my per­sonal experience, I learned firsthand that these groups play hardball. Not only are they aggressive, but as I have tried to make clear, they do not feel compelled to be truthful. They sometimes seek to trigger waves of hate e-mails and attacks via social media. 

Another challenge is the simple reality that anti-science very much runs along a partisan divide. The anti-vaccine and anti-science move­ments are fully enmeshed in extreme conservative or far-right politics. At times, this can include extremist politics, such as when the Proud Boys and other White nationalist groups participate in anti-vaccine ral­lies and messaging. Therefore, combating anti-science means it is often not possible to remain politically neutral." (p. 134)

"In the biomedical sciences, anti-science groups exploit to their advan­tage two key tactics that make it difficult for the scientific community to counter their influence. First, anti-science in America is currently spurred by a strong partisan divide, but the scientific professions re­main committed to political neutrality. Next, health freedom propa­ganda often dismisses mainstream science as little more than science dogma perpetuated by high priests working at elite research universi­ties or institutes. To make matters worse, the anti-science groups dom­inate the modern public square-the Internet and social media-know­ing full well that our profession looks inward, seldom engages the public, and prefers journals and scientific conferences where we speak only to other scientists. 

Therefore, success in combating anti-science aggression requires that we must at some level be prepared to do battle on multiple fronts. It means that at least some biomedical scientists must show a willing­ness to learn and practice science communication in the public market­place." (p. 140)

"However, these actions do not address those generating the content from the far-right, the role of the disinformation dozen in monetizing the Internet, or the Russian government's weaponized health commu­nication. Given the 20 years of relative neglect by the US government in tackling anti-science aggression, I believe we must realize that this issue goes way beyond the health sector. We need input from other branches of the federal government such as the Departments of Homeland Secu­rity, Commerce, Justice-and even State, given the Russian involve­ment. We must seek ways to demonetize the use of the Internet by the disinformation dozen or halt the anti-science aggression emanating from Fox News and elected officials, but in ways that do not violate the Bill of Rights or the US Constitution. Although the health sector may not know what can and should be done to address anti-science aggres­sion, there are those who do and who could come to the table with ex­periences that taught them how to combat global terrorism, cyberat­tacks, and nuclear proliferation. We must learn from them. Along those lines, the White House should consider establishing an interagency task force to examine such possibilities and to make recommendations for action to slow the progression of anti-science." (p. 159)

There is work to be done. We try to participate in this where possible. 

An important book that should be read by everyone in politics. 

 

Anne Applebaum - Autocracy, Inc. (Allen Lane, 2024) ****

If one book describes the strings that determine the global geopolitical powerplay, it is this one. Aptly titled, "Autocracy, Inc" it is all about the financial streams that feed the hunger and the power of autocrats around the world. Anne Applebaum explains how for instance Putin as an ex-KGB man had access to all the secret bank accounts of the Soviet regime around the world, with which opposition in local communist parties were financed, and how this network suddenly became a tool to syphon money out of the country after the Soviet Union collapsed. She explains how naive the West, and especially Germany has been with regard to deals about gas transport with Russia. She explains the deep financial connections between Russia, China, Iran and other regimes around the world, such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe. How a few elites in each of these countries sacrifice their own citizens to keep growing their personal wealth, which allows them to buy power, to oppress and manipulate their citizens. 

Informed citizens in the West are aware of these connections, often in a fragmented way, by reading news articles left and right, or by possible links that are claimed by some to exist but without clear evidence. Many of the elements in this book will not be hard news. Yet, the picture that Applebaum depicts in this book brings it all together, and provides much more. She has been a privileged journalist and historian, witnessing things first hand when she lived in Poland, and having interviewed and met many of the protagonists in the book. 

I already recommend her "The Twilight Of Democracy" when it appeared in 2020, but this one is even more relevant. It's well written, easy to read despite the many factual information that she provides. But the strongest message of the book is a wake-up call to anyone who's interested in democracy and justice and prosperity for all: if we don't realise what's happening, if we don't open our eyes and start acting to protect our Western democracies, the few countries in human history that actually generated prosperity for all citizens, we risk to be eaten from within by all the smear campaigns, polarisation campaigns, manipulation and interference campaigns that remain largely hidden but are all too present, led by the autocrats of the world who have found their common interest in destroying the liberal mind. Not to mention their funding of extremist political parties. 

The book was published before Elon Musk starts funding Trump's campaign and distributing money to his voters. I wonder what she has to say about this. 

Next to highly recommending this book, I can also recommend that you follow her on "X" and read her frequent articles in The Atlantic, including her recent podcast with Peter Pomerantzev. 

Anton Jäger - Kleine Anti-Geschiedenis Van Het Populisme (De Geus, 2018) **½

In deze "Kleine Anti-Geschiedenis van het Populisme" schetst doctoraal onderzoeker en columnist Anton Jäger naar de oorsprong van de term 'populisme' die terug te brengen is naar de Amerikaanse beweging die eind 19de Eeuw in de Verenigde Staten ontstond in reactie op de achterstelling van een groot deel van de bevolking. De oorspronkelijke woede van deze mensen ging in tegen het establishment, tegen de besluitvorming zonder inspraak, tegen de economische actherstelling, tegen corruptie en ondoorzichtigheid van het politiek en juridisch bestel. Ze verenigden zich in de "People's Party" die ageerde over de rassengrenzen heen. De term 'populisme' heeft in de loop van de eeuw een andere definitie gekregen, en hoewel het aanvechten van het establishment een ingrediënt is gebleven, is de lading ruimer geworden, met nationale identiteit als bijkomend ingrediënt, en populisten zowel van linkse als rechtse signatuur

Jäger vult zijn boek met heel veel data en verwijzingen, die heen en weer springen in zijn verhaal, met jammer genoeg een niet altijd duidelijke structuur, en hij haspelt gebeurtenissen, theoretische kommentaren en zijn eigen opinie door elkaar, iets om als lezer tureluurs van te worden. Er zijn veel bomen, maar was is het bos? Er zit veel vlees aan zijn verhaal, maar waar is het skelet?

Het 'populisme' zoals we het vandaag kennen (Trump, Johnson, Orban, Farrage) heeft inderdaad niets meer te maken met de oorspronkelijke bottom-up beweging, maar het is een top-down strategie van op macht beluste individuen geworden, die gebruik maken van de meest basale emoties onder het volk om democratische instrumenten zoals het stemrecht/stemplicht naar hun hand te zetten.

In mijn opinie als communicatie-deskundige hebben de huidige politieke leiders, zowel op nationaal als Europees niveau, het verzaakt om aan de bevolking uit te leggen wat er is bereikt en waar we naar toe moeten (probeer maar eens te zoeken waar onze belastingen aan worden besteed). Er is geen communicatie tussen de politieke klasse en het gros van de bevolking. Ze zijn bezig met hun eigen kleine wereld en het beheren van de machtsverhoudingen. Ze spreken een technische taal die geen burger nog begrijpt. Als dan een populist zijn "big picture" komt vertellen vanuit een geconstrueerd doemscenario, en in eenvoudig taalgebruik, goed en slecht duidelijk polariserend, en gebruik makend van het ongenoegen onder de bevolking (dat is er altijd wel ergens), dan heeft die alle ruimte om succes te kennen.

Het zou me te ver leiden om dit hier uit de doeken te doen, maar er is een gigantische leemte van kennis en emotionele connectie met de bevolking die vandaag wordt gevuld met de destructieve rethoriek van de populisten. De populisten zijn marketingstrategen die zelfs bewust onlogisch en incoherent mogen zijn, want ze weten dat hun doelgroep, zelf dagelijks wordt verweten dit te zijn. Daarom spreken ze aan, daarom mag Trump onzin blijven verkondigen, daarom mag Johnson regelmatig tegenstrijdige standpunten innemen. Dat stoort hun kiezers niet. Ze herkennen er zich in.

Het populisme is een dusdanig gevaar voor onze samenleving dat het meer verdient aan aandacht en publicaties. Jägers boek is een kleine aanzet in ons taalgebied. Er is ook nog Jan-Werner Müllers boek "What is Populism?", maar ook dat schiet tekort, net als Michael Signers "Demagogue".

Zijn er nog intellectuelen in België om hier echt eens diep op in te gaan?

Maarten Boudry - Waarom De Wereld Niet Naar De Knoppen Gaat (Polis, 2019) ****

Wie Stephen Pinker's 'The Better Angels Of Our Nature' en het meer recente 'Englightenment Now' heeft gelezen, of nog Hans Rosslings "Factfulness" of Bob Duffy's "The Perils Of Perception" zal één en ander herkennen in dit boek van filosoof Maarten Boudry. De thesis is dezelfde: het gaat beter met onze wereld dan in het verleden, en alle feiten ondersteunen deze vaststelling. Alleen staat onze gebrekkige perceptie in de weg om dat te zien.

Mijn vakterrein is de gezondheidszorg, en wat we op dat gebied in de voorbije decennia hebben gezien als vooruitgang, zouden mensen zelfs dertig jaar geleden niet hebben kunnen geloven, en niet alleen bij ons, maar ook in ontwikkelingslanden.

Boudry vertrekt vanuit eenzelfde bezorgdheid voor het kennen van de juiste feiten en die ook correct te interpreteren. Hij richt zich tegen de intellectuelen (en anderen) die een positieve houding tegenover de vooruitgang als te snel wegwuiven als een naïef gebrek aan kritische zin. Boudry verdeelt deze vooruitgangscritici in vier groepen: de nostalgische pessimisten, de doemdenkers van de 'wacht maar'-school, de cyclische pessimisten en tenslotte de tredmolendenkers.

Hij behandelt de grote thema's van vandaag: ongelijkheid, racisme, islam, de globalisering van de media, ons milieu, en de grote boeman: het neoliberalisme. Zijn ontwarring van deze thema's is verfrissend (waarschijnlijk omdat ze ook sterk aanleunen bij mijn standpunt hierover).

Mijn opinie hierover: mensen hebben vaak een verkeerd beeld over de grote onderwerpen als ze die moeten evalueren op een abstract niveau. Maar als je aan mensen vraagt hoe hun leven er vandaag uitziet, wat ze doen, of ze doen wat ze willen, of ze zien wie ze willen, enz, dan merk je al snel dat het heel goed gaat met de mensen. We kunnen vandaag waar onze grootouders nog niet aan dachten te kunnen doen. Ze leefden in een uiterst bekrompen wereld van kleine dorpen met versmachtende sociale controle, pestgedrag en machtsmisbruik, een verstikkende godsdienst en als je het slecht had ook geen enkel perspectief om het ooit beter te hebben.

Boudry geeft een brede en diepe analyse van onze wereld, zowel internationaal als in Vlaanderen en Nederland.

Een aanrader!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Skin In The Game (Allen Lane, 2018) **

Ha! I couldn't keep thinking throughout the book that mathematician and stock broker Nassim Nicholas Taleb was contractually bound by his publisher to write a book yet had no idea what to write about. "Skin In The Game" is about people making choices that influence other people's lives without having 'skin in the game', and therefore are also not impacted by the choices they make. By itself this seems like a good angle to comment on today's society, but the book never delivers on its promise. Rather, it is a long and repititive tirade about how clever he is, and how dumb the rest of the world, especially the Intelligent Yet Idiots (IYI), which include people such as Stephen Pinker and Noble Prize winners for economy Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz. He complains that his papers against the rhetoric of Thomas Pikkety on capitalism never got the attention they deserved.

Taleb's fascination with his own self is so omnipresent in the book that you start wondering which childhood trauma lies at the basis of it. He has to show off that he speaks and reads in several languages, that he is as comfortable in quoting Aristotle, the bible and quantum physics, that he understands all aspects of religion, history, philosophy, economy, psychology and finance better than anyone else. Taleb is able to judge everybody in every discipline of thought because clearly he is the cleverest of them all.

You find quotes like this on almost every page: "For it looks like you need a lot of intelligence to figure probabilistic things out when you don't have skin in the game. But for an overeducated nonpracticioner, these things are hard to figure out. Unless one is a genius, that is, has the clarity of mind to see through the mud, or has sufficiently profound command of probability theory to cut through the nonsense".

In contrast to "The Black Swan", which I can highly recommend, this book is more a collection of musings and unrelated ideas and accusations with no immediate use in daily life, and yes, his starting point is interesting and true, but not really elaborated upon in a systematic way.

That being said, many of his ideas are thought-provoking and give a different angle to many assumptions that are at least worth considering. Personally, I can agree with many of his ideas, including about Krugman and Stiglitz, but please, do something about your self-obsession.

Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind (Vintage, 2011) **

I should warn you. This is not a history book. It is a pamphlet. A 500-page pamphlet. Its author, Yuval Noah Harari, professor of History at Jerusalem University has a point to make. And he makes it over a lengthy volume. He may have a point. He may be right. Only, he never gives any evidence for it. And that's a pity.

It starts well, with the facts about our origins on this globe. No real new insights are produced, but it's a nice overview of how humans created communities, dispersed, made myths, and procreated. Then, somehow, historical facts start to disappear for the bigger narrative that Harari has in mind. My first question mark appears on page 122 when he starts discussing the lack of equality of all humans, in my opinion making an error of logic by comparing biological differences with social hierarchy. Question marks start filling the margins as of Part Three - The Unification of Humankind. Harari just makes one claim after the other. For instance, he writes "Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality". Says who? What are the facts underlying this claim? It's not mentioned. It's never mentioned.

Or : "We should note that belief in gods persists within many modern ideologies, and that some of them, most notably liberalism, make little sense without this belief". Hu? Why? Where is the evidence? .... but then at the end of the next page he comes with what might be a possible reason : "The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the tradition Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls". It is hard to find where this claim comes from and what the basis is of thoughts like this one.

I think he's also wrong when he compares the way the rich spend their money now and in the Middle Ages, without understanding that in those times "power" was generated by having vasals in geographic regions that were under submission. Today, "power", is no longer determined by conquering land, but by having influence in political circles. Because the underlying power-generation is different, so does the spending of wealth. And in a very bizarre way, he sees the evolution from absolute power of monarchs as a better alternative than the current capitalist version of investing in projects that offer a return on the capital invested. It's never made clear why that should be worse. In my opinion, it's a form of emancipation from archaic powers. It's not too difficult to turn the argument around in the other direction.

Gradually, it becomes clear where his sentiments are lying. Capitalism, liberalism, social humanism, communism, consumerism ... all 'isms' are being attacked, often with bizarre statements such as "Consumerism sees the consumption of ever more products and services as a good thing". What does that sentence even mean? Is there a "Consumerism manifesto" which makes this statement? Or is it a definition? Unfortunately, the more the book evolves, the more such empty statements are made, and the more the pamphlet nature of the "history of humankind" drives the fact-based history away.

He gives the following example of an advertising text for a snack called Health Treats :
"Health Treats offer lots of grains, fruits and nuts for an experience that combines taste, pleasure and health. For an enjoyable treat in the middle of the day, suitable for a healthy life style. A real treat with the wonderful taste of more" ... and then Harari reacts to it : "Throughout most of history, people were likely to have been repelled rather than attracted by such a text. They would have branded it as selfish, decadent and morally corrupt". Really? My first reaction is to wonder what he gets so excited about, but then you wonder what his evidence is, and why? Why does he need to articulate his personal opinion by forcing "people throughout most of history" to accept it, like any populist politician would do.

His ranting against the consumerist-capitalist ideology keeps getting stronger and stronger, and evidence and facts completely disappear. It's no longer termed an ideology even (if that ever was the case in the first place) and it now becomes a religion. "The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money, and that the masses give free rein to their cravings and passions - and buy more and more". If you thought you were reading a "brief history of humankind", you'll be disappointed.

"All of the upheavals (of history) are dwarfed by the most momentous social revolution that ever befell humankind: the collapse of the family and the local community and their replacement by the state and the market". Again, says who? Where is the evidence? Is this happening all over the world? Last time I checked, there are still families, and most people still think their families and friends are the most important things in life, much more than the state (not trusted according to most opinion polls) and the market. What makes him make claims like this?

In short, the title is misleading. It starts with history, and it ends as moralistic personal view on society. In creating his view, Harari works from extremes, as if the value of a democratic society with liberal ideas and state-governed services does not work. His attacks are against ideologies, not against realities. You can agree with some of Harari's viewpoints, as do I. That's not the problem at all. The problem is that his book is as cleverly sold as the Health Treats that he so rejects on grounds of moral corruption. And that is not good. It gives the surface intellectual a quick snack to satisfy the demand for something meaningful, but like the Health Treats, it is quickly digested with little nutritional value.

Jan-Werner Müller - What Is Populism? (Penn, 2016) ***

Jan-Werner Müller is professor of politics at Princeton University. In this short book (approx. 100 pages), he describes populism in one of the best, concise and balanced reviews I've read on the subject.

He describes what populism is and stands for, in its many forms: the only true representative of "the people", the true representatives of moral values, against the immoral elites, against the establishment, waging an apocalyptic war against the secret and oppressing forces. Their enemies are the press, intellectuals and civil society.

He explains how populism is created by the strong democratic deficit of open debate and the rule of technocrats whose language not only doesn not appeal to the general population, but which is also not directed to them. Specifically in the US, the economic interests of a significant part of the population is underrepresented in Washington.

When populists gain power, they will, interestingly enough, not bring politics "closer to the people" or even reasserting popular sovereignty.

He mentions a number of solutions, which is of course a much more open and public debate on the topics that are on people's minds, including a good democratic representation (but not through referenda!).

Luckas Vander Taelen - De Grote Verwarring (Houtekiet, 2016) ***

Luckas Vander Taelen, documentaire-maker, ex-politicus, columnist en vrijdenker durft het zoals gewoonlijk aan om zijn mening te uiten over één van de heikele thema's van het moment: hoe omgaan met het toenemend fundamentalisme in de islam, en dan met name in België?

Als atheïst is hij tegen elke vorm van indoctrinatie door religieuze instanties, hoewel hij uiteraard niemand het recht ontzegt om te geloven.

Hij klaagt de houding aan van politieke partijen en opiniemakers die het verschil niet kunnen zien tussen iedereen gelijke kansen geven aan de ene kant, en religieus fanatisme aanvallen aan de andere. We leven in een samenleving waarin mensen kansen krijgen, en het eindeloze verwijt dat het "de samenleving" is die verantwoordelijk is voor de problemen, of dat het "Westen" de oorzaak is van alle problemen - zowel lokaal als internationaal - houdt geen steek.

Hij verwijt "links" dat ze mee gaan in dit discours, wat leidt tot een soort blinde verdediging van "de migrant" zonder dat de problemen worden aangepakt die sommige migranten creëren of waar ze ook zelf het slachtoffer van worden.

Hij pleit voor betere en meer integratie (maar geen assimilatie) met respect voor de waarden en vrijheden waar deze samenleving eeuwen voor heeft gevochten. Het probleem durven onderkennen is een eerste stap om tot een oplossing te komen.

Ik hou van zijn logica, zijn rechtgeaardheid en zijn echte bekommernis om er iets aan te doen. Jammer dat iemand als hij de politiek de rug heeft moeten toekeren.

Steven Pinker - The Better Angels of our Nature - A History Of Violence And Humanity (Penguin, 2011) *****

It took me some years before I actually starting reading this book, because its size, close to 1,000 pages in small print, meant that I needed to have time, also to put aside some other books I wanted to read.

Trust me, this is a must-read ... and more than worth to make time for. Its author, Steven Pinker is a well-know psychologist from Harvard University, and he became famous with his books about the workings of the mind: "The Language Instinct" and "How The Mind Works", both highly recommendable books. Pinker is not only a scientist, he is a very gifted writer, able to synthesise gigantic quantities of studies in a very readable format for an educated lay audience. The breadth of his knowledge allows him to give a very big picture of the broad scientific areas of cognitive sciences, neurology, linguistics and psychology.

In this book, "The Better Angles Of Our Nature", Pinker goes even further in the breadth and scope of his vision, giving an amazing overview of the nature and the size of violence in history, with the remarkable conclusion that we currently live in the least violent period ever in humanity. It is remarkable because we are bombarded on a daily basis with scenes of horror in the Middle East, in South Sudan, in the Sahel, with terrorism apparently on the rise and daily stories of homicides and rapes and brutal aggression.

But Pinker breaks through this bias by presenting us figures from anthropologists, paleontologists, historians, economists, sociologists and other specialists that are truly eye-opening. One of the most striking figures is that in pre-historic times, not less than one third of all the people living in small tribes were killed by other humans. Death by disease, accidents and animal attacks have to be added to this figure. Dying of old age was almost unheard of.

Pinker guides us through history, and the horror of incessant fights and brutal killings among the conquered nations. But he also looks at modern times, at warfare and homicide in the 19th century and the 20th. Sure, not all statistics can be trusted, but even then the results speak for themselves. The rise of human rights, the global agreements on codes of warfare, the increased respect for minorities, the acceptance of societal diversity have led to a significant reduction in rape and murder, also in the most "civilised" societies.

But Pinker wouldn't be Pinker if he didn't delve into human nature and what can be done to improve things in the future. He believes - and he gives the evidence for it - that because the scope of our world has increased, through globalisation, international commerce, travel and tourism, the thinking about "the other" has changed. Global views and policies take consequences about the out-group into account. The financial interests of international commerce make politicians think twice before declaring war on other states. He also sees the importance of women in leading functions as an evolution towards more dialogue and less violence. He introduces some elements of game theory - changing the Prisoner's Dilemma into the Pacifist's Dilemma - to explain how an attitude of non-violence is always the better choice, and as a consequence also one of biological survival.

The amazing thing is that view people perceive our world as such, and think about former times, when everything was peaceful and calm. That past is as much an illusion as anything else of course.

Pinker's book gives hope. It is encouraging for all people who fight for more democracy, human rights, peace and tolerance. He demonstrates that we are moving in the right direction, even if the news of the day may show otherwise.

A must-read.

Michael Signer - Demagogue (Palgrave McMillan, 2009)

I read this book because I looked for books on demagoguery and populism in political, and apparently there aren't many, so I ordered this one through Amazon. The reason why I read it is because of what is happening in Russia, Turkey, The Philipines, the United Kingdom, the United States.

Populist politicians, whether left-wing or right-wing, win votes because they manage to deceive people, not by logical and fact-based arguments, but by appealing to the most basic emotions of fear, complemented with outright lies. They can do that of course, that's the risk of democracy. The question I had how we can make sure that these demagogues, once in power, do not undermine the very foundation which brought them to power by installing a totalitarian system that is utterly anti-democratic, as we have witnessed in Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Tunesia.

And that was exactly how this book presented itself. And even if it starts well, with good definitions of what a demagogue is, and giving a good historical background from the ancient Greeks to today, with lots of attention to the United States' Constitution.

Yet then it fails miserably by the bizarre assumption that the United States is the world's leader in democratic thought. It zooms in on the United States as if there was no other democracy in the world. The outside world only exists to give the negative examples, such as why in the US a new Hitler would never be able to come to power.

Michael Signer is a Democrat, as in an active member of the political party. And maybe his book was written with a US audience in mind, although he keeps emphasising a lot that the US has other countries' best interests in mind, so I guess he's also expecting some foreign readers.

The US still has a long way to go. President Trump is the best example that even the US are not exempt from being ruled by a demagogue, despite all the checks and balances that Signer says the US system has in place.

If anyone can recommend a good book on the subject, please let me know.