Alex

Erudite but informal and takes political swipes

Revisado: 04-05-25

This is a very impressive and informative book, even for people who are already familiar with the subject. A bit overly biographical perhaps, but very valuable in busting myths and misconceptions about the Renaissance. I van't do justive to its breadth, but a main theme is the use and abuse of the Renaissance for politics.

The narration could be better when it comes to Italian names. And the tone is very informal. Ok, I can live with that. But there is also some political bias. She makes no secret of her very left-wing politics, and brings up things like colonialism to attack it when completely uncalled for. That can get a little annoying. But it's almost always side matters, the history is generally solid (even when it goes against her politics).

If you critically evaluate the book and Ignore the politics, it can be a great book.

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Extreme bias

Revisado: 02-14-25

The anti free speech bias is overwhelming, so much that they unironically use the word 'misgendering' and make the laughable claim that left-wing journalist Matt Taibbi is a 'reactionary partisan' and 'right-wing journalist'. How could I possibly believe anything they write after that?

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Russian perspective on Ukraine

Revisado: 05-23-24

The people repeating political phrases miss the point. This article is written by a member of thr Russian government. What is striking is how much more moderate and sensible this perspective is than the tirades emanating from 'western' leaders. They ask for respect for Russian interests and security. If only 'western' leaders had listened instead of gunning for total domination in Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of deaths would havve been prevented.

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Not about cities, but about the author's politics

Revisado: 06-15-21

Most of this course is the speaker's personal opinion masquerading as analysis. It makes sense that he would do this, as he is a political radical and has been a political operative for quite a long time (and in fact, he names a Philadelphia mayor who was his boss as 'one of the most consequential mayors in Philadelphia history'). But that does mean that he is not the best choice to give this course, especially if he's not even going to try being objective and give the facts, rather than his own opinions.

In the most supreme irony of them all, Hughes approves of the widespread rioting and looting that has resulted in dozens of lives lost and billions in property damage, making a lot of cities quite unliveable. He also asserts racism in the case that was the pretext for this rioting, which is an unsubstantiated claim not even the prosecutor made in that case, and the equally radical Attorney General of Minnesota denied explicitly that it was a 'hate crime'. It must be nice to be a college professor and not a prosecutor, so one can make such claims without even a white of evidence.

Other assertions are also made without any foundation, like the claim that "automobiles have driven people out". All those automobiles are driven by people, so I am not sure what he is even trying to say, let alone what the foundation for this claim would even be.

The substance is also quite weak. Even though he does mention that definitions of cities go back to Plato and Aristotle, all the works that he actually cites are from 2018 or more recent. I find it hard to believe that nothing intelligent about cities was written about cities between 350 BC and 2018 AD. It seems to be either the professor being ill-informed or just lazy. One of those works even excluded any city that does not have 'ethnic diversity' from the definition of city, which is just bizarre.

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Very interesting, but also a bit out of date

Revisado: 03-27-21

I read this after listening to Burnham's fascinating book 'The Machiavellians', from which I barely got the sense that he is conservative (perhaps a classical liberal). I did not expect a polemic against (modern) liberalism based on the title.

There are some very interesting and original ideas in the book. The book was written in 1964, but the author remarked on the sense of guilt that liberals have. We now see this in new forms, but originally it was based on class and in attitudes towards the Third World. A lot of things that people think are new, are not really new, but have just really spread, while manifesting itself in new ways.

Another very interesting idea is that liberalism is an ideology that reconciles people to the decline of their civilization, by reframing it in a way that can be seen as positive.

Now, some notable issues on which it may be out of date. Some people view this work as racism. But that is being blinded by presentism. Burnham did not say that no change was necessary on racial issues, only that this change should not be sudden and revolutionary, but steady and in a way that allows people to adjust. That was a perfectly legitimate point of view, in fact, the conservative point of view in 1964. In fact, he takes a very empirical stance on racial issues, and attacks both people who exclusively attribute racial differences to one race being worse, as well as people who exclusively attribute them to victimization.

What has aged most poorly is the attitude towards the Cold War. The Kennedy administration is criticized in the book for having been soft on communism. In retrospect, we knew how close we came to a nuclear war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, so I would say it was just soft enough. All the more reason for historians to stick to history, instead of trying to comment on current events.

All in all, an interesting listen, and not just for its historical value. But realize that it is a critique. It focuses almost exclusively on the negative. It does not even pretend to be even-handed, objective or to give liberalism credit for the good things that it has done.

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"Morals" from an extreme reactionary

Revisado: 10-20-12

His previous course was reasonably good. Only one out of eight lectures was political - he claimed that affirmative action was fully equivalent to segregation. This course is different. Fully one quarter of the course is spent on propagandizing the professor's radical position on abortion. Another quarter is spent attacking the idea that there is right to privacy, and defending laws banning contraception. 1/8 is spent defending the Vietnam War and claiming that South Vietnam was a democracy (an absurdity). About 1/4 of the course is non-political and non-religious. Frankly, I felt cheated. I did not buy this course to have Arkes force his extreme political-religious views on me. His own students at Amherst have also noticed what his main concern in class is. A representative example from Rate My Professor: "Very redundant and obsessed with imparting his own political views on his students."

Dr. Arkes is a convert to Catholicism, though he won't tell you that, preferring instead to pose as an independent, objective observer. Just by coincidence, all his views just happen to coincide with what the Catholic Church teaches. Same for his position on abortion, which he hides: he refers to pro-lifers as "they", even as he takes the Todd Akin position on abortion. It turns out that he has made the exact same argument in the past. I quote from his book: "[T]he fear induced by rape may interrupt the normal operation in hormones in the body of the woman, which in turn may prevent ovulation and conception." Except that unlike Akin, he won't even allow an exception for the life of the mother. He asserts his belief that it is not necessary, but actual experts disagree. He has even justified the murder of abortion doctors in the past.

Having certain beliefs would not be a problem if he were objective (like Peter Kreeft, another Catholic and conservative), but he isn't. He propagandizes his own religious beliefs, and dismisses out of hand any position that is in disagreement with his. He doesn't bother to refute them, he just puts a negative label on them, his favorite being "strange", and proceeds to assert his own (religious) belief.

More oddities: He claims that people are marrying dogs, but then contradicts himself by stating that even in the future "we will still not be signing contracts with dogs and horses". He asserts that a progressive income tax is fully equivalent to having a higher tax on Asians. He also believes that the president can overturn Supreme Court decisions that he doesn't like.

This is not philosophy, it's thinly disguised political and religious propaganda.

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