On the Beach: The most disturbing novel I have ever read

Remnants of Chernobyl [Photo: CC0]

On the Beach by Nevil Shute
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spoiler Alert: This novel is about how to die. Forget the reviews that wonder how people could conduct themselves so serenely and not go off like crazed rats. If I had the knowledge that I - and everyone else - would be extinct in a matter of weeks, how would I want the end to be?

I finished reading this novel last night with a powerful rush of emotion followed by involuntary tears and a horrible feeling of powerlessness. I tried to shake this off with a start on some absurd Nabokov (Despair) but it didn't work. All night I dreamt about how I would die in this situation.

In the first dream, everyone was scrambling into a cave. I was following a loved one. Deeper and deeper into the earth we burrowed. I wanted to stop and go back but I also wanted to be with the one I love. They went on. The effects of radiation began to tell on me and I wanted to be near my loved one but not in the dark, buried under ground. We died there and I felt so disappointed that I hadn't gone my own way. I awoke in a state, realised it was the novel and a dream.

My subconscious wasn't satisfied, so back into the dream state I go and the dream runs again. And again. And again. Finally, I wake and realise that life is not so serious. Dying well is more important than running on the rollercoaster of others' ideas. Trust the process. And off into the deepest sleep I go.

No art has ever affected me so. Arriving at this novel and discovering such powerful emotions was a fortunate accident of circumstance. Dilectio Libertas et Doctrina. Love, Freedom, and Learning. Such a powerful way to live.

My choice of books is often a result of random events that open an entirely new world of thought. On a recent road trip, my girlfriend selected the podcast The Cold War Vault, and we listened to the episodes about the Net Evaluation Subcommittee and how it painted an increasingly gloomy picture of the United States' ability to win a nuclear war in the late 1950s.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was President at the time, and Nevil Shute's novel was published in 1957, followed by the 1959 film starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins, Donna Anderson, and Fred Astaire. The novel and the film painted a bleak picture that almost materialised during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. By then, Robert McNamara's strategy of "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) was gearing up, and the Net Evaluation Subcommittee had made itself obsolete. 

In 1983, Carl Sagan's warnings of a nuclear winter following even a limited nuclear war would ramp up the scientific debate about the end of the world. But Nevil Shute, a Brit-turned-Aussie (and author of A Town Like Alice and Beyond the Black Stump), had set it out already in On the Beach.

I had no idea about Nevil Shute. The connection to Australia came out in the Cold War Vault podcast, which referred to the film and "Anthony Perkins' non-existent Australian accent". I was intrigued and the next thing I notice, the book is staring at me in Elizabeth's Bookshop in Newtown.

These random connections in my various readings are wonderful. Even while writing this up, I looked for a link to Nabokov's Despair and discovered that it, too, had been made into a film starring Dirk Bogarde. Much like Shute, I knew nothing of Bogarde until I read Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and watched the 1971 film. I've since read several of Bogarde's autobiographical stories, opening up another world of French gardens and country living.

Back to On the Beach. Unlike the horror of dying from radiation exposure as thousands of people did after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Shute tells of the various approaches to death taken by the characters left in Melbourne as nuclear fallout following the short World War III in the northern hemisphere slowly engulfs the rest of the planet.

The hopelessness of it all is symbolised by a trip in a nuclear submarine to test an optimistic theory that radiation levels are decreasing closer to the north pole and to investigate the origin of random morse code transmissions from near Seattle. Yeoman Swain escapes the submarine off the coast of his hometown and is later seen in his boat with an outboard motor fishing. He refuses to die in a strange land in a few weeks' time, preferring to die in a few days at home. It's the individual choices that make this story so vividly disturbing.

One character decides to remain faithful to his dead wife (unlike Gregory Peck in the movie version!). Another buys a Ferrari race car and pushes himself to the limit in scenes where several drivers die brutally in an ad hoc Australian Grand Prix. He takes his prescribed suicide tablets (provided free by the local pharmacy) while sitting, victoriously, in his well-preserved car.

A couple and their daughter decide to just get it over with. A farmer worries about his cattle and makes sure they have enough feed. The naval officer goes down with his ship outside of territorial waters, and Ava Gardner's character gets sloshed and takes her suicide pills just as Gregory Peck's character (she doesn't shag him in the novel) sails off into the sunset and before diarrhea strikes her again. She's on the beach. Hence the name.

This novel demonstrates how stupid it all is - going through the motions because we don't know how to live, let alone die. I am still disturbed when I think about the novel, but differently than in my first nightmare last night.

Much like my literary idol Professor Harold Bloom said, as we age we read against the clock. But we might also prepare to die well. That starts now. And that, I believe, is what Nevil Shute was trying to say.

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Learning About Buddhism from Dr Sax: Jack Kerouac's Surprisingly Erudite Biography of the Buddha

 

Jack Kerouac. Photo by Tom Palumbo [CC BY-SA 2.0].

Wake Up by Jack Kerouac
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I began reading this book back in 2016 but it was out of my depth back then and is only now something I can appreciate after much reading and research. Jack Kerouac has been a bit hit-and-miss for me. I loved On the Road and I didn't like Doctor Sax so much. But this biography of Gotama Buddha was as surprising for me as it was for Robert Thurman who penned the introduction to this Penguin Modern Classic.

I didn't know what to expect and although I had it bookmarked well into the main text, it had been so long I had forgotten everything I'd read so I had to start over. I find it interesting that some books, Like Tolstoy's War and Peace, I can pick up at any time and continue on as if I hadn't put it down so long ago. (Of course, one can do this for years it is so bloody long!) But this one I had completely forgotten so I began it all over again.

I was surprised by the style of the introduction by Thurman. It is very thorough, but he also doesn't hold back on his sense of surprise and wonder at Kerouac's expertise. I, too, am in awe. (Especially after reading Doctor Sax, one of Kerouac's less than appealing attempts at stream of consciousness writing!)

I have read some works that cover the basics, such as the Dalai Lama's How to Practise, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha (yes I know it is a fictional history of one of Gotama's contemporaries), and also to some extent Osho's Empty Boat, but I did not expect to receive so much "direct knowledge" from Kerouac!

I was introduced to Taoism and Buddhism by a friend in Shanghai in early 2019. I was fascinated by the similarities with Stoicism but also with Confucius' teachings. After commencing the Shiva Sutras and Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, I have also had some discussions with a colleague about Hinduism. He refers to Buddhism as "the daughter of Hinduism". This is an appropriate description, as I am learning while reading Karen Armstrong's Buddha right now. 

What I find most interesting is the concept of "perception" which appears equally important in Stoicism. The bottom line is that our ability to perceive is based on our senses which are subjective and we perceive objects according to our pre-programming. Transcending this knowledge requires other types of knowledge if we are to be at peace with oneself.

While I am still grappling with many of these ideas, I found the following helpful from Kerouac (2008, p. 88):

Perception is our Essential Mind; the sun's brightness or the dim moon's darkness are the conditional ripples on its surface... the phenomena that the sense-organs perceive does not originate in our Essential Mind but in the senses themselves.

The senses are changeable in that we can see space or a wall, lightness or darkness. But our Essential Mind is "neither changeable nor fixed" (p. 90). And from p. 91: 

Do not be disturbed by what has been taught, but ponder upon it seriously and never give yourself up either to sadness or delight.

I am grappling with the idea of perceptions from the senses in that this empirical knowledge is an illusion, like ripples on the sea, but our Essential Mind is pure. Or (p. 92):

...it is the eyes, not the intrinsic perception of Mind, that is subject to false mistakes.

So what is this Essential Mind? It is not any one perception of our individual senses, but some kind of whole:

There is neither Truth nor Non-Truth, there is only the essence. And when we intuit the essence of all, we call it Essential Mind.

I have many more notes on this work, but it has enlightened me to much of Buddhism that I did not know. In particular, the sense of individualism was surprising (p. 137):

...prepare quietly a quiet place, be not moved by others' way of thinking, do not compromise to agree with the ignorance of others, go thou alone, make solitude thy paradise...

And to echo James Allen's idea of conquering oneself, Kerouac writes of the Buddha:

As I am a conqueror amid conquerors, so he who conquers 'self' is one with me.

If I am learning anything from my philosophical and theological studies over the last three decades, it is that I am increasingly a Transcendentalist in the fashion of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his "Self-Reliance", and also his idea of finding one's "nature". 

But all of the philosophies and religions I am familiar with have, outside of the theological questions they address and the answers they provide, a requirement for self-knowledge. Kerouac's biography of Gotama Buddha demonstrates just how difficult that can be. 

If only we could "Wake Up".

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Video Recording: Process Tracing in Comparative Politics: Operationalising Historical Institutionalism.

 

Process Tracing in Comparative Politics: Operationalising Historical Institutionalism

Draft paper presented to the Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society via Zoom, University of Canberra, 28 September 2020.

Abstract

Historical institutionalism (HI) is often regarded as the least rigorous and the more tautological of the ‘new institutionalisms’, but this reputation is undeserved. I argue that HI, when viewed as a method for, rather than a theory of, examining institutional stasis and change, can provide a rigorous approach to process tracing that is useful in examining the impact of institutional legacies on contemporary political issues. Famous HI scholars, including Kathleen Thelen, suggest that systematic approaches to comparative temporal analyses can help to overcome the shortcomings of the inductive method in comparative politics. While for Karl Popper the inductive method is, in effect, hopeless in its scientific utility, my contention is that the nature of the social sciences means that falsifiability is, for the most part, a bridge too far for comparative political research. Plausibility, as opposed to falsifiability, can be achieved using systematic HI processes that are more sophisticated than simply rummaging through the past to find evidence that supports a given hypothesis. In this seminar, I aim to present a method that is not only useful in conducting comparative political analysis over time, but that can also address some of the inevitable shortcomings inherent in the conduct of inductive, comparative political science research by providing a systematic and rigorous system of process tracing over time.

Are you a scholar or a subject matter expert? Some thoughts...

Lord Shiva Statue in Murdeshwara (Photo by Vivek Urs / CC BY-SA).

Recently I've been struggling with academic seminars where people are subject matter experts in health or refugees or some other specific topic. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but it struck me how little scholarly content there is now in "academic" presentations.

I have always had an interest in the use of the general versus the particular and how scholars often use these approaches interchangeably to suit their purposes. I am fascinated by such rhetorical tactics but I must admit that I have not seen much of this sort of debate in academic circles for some time. Is it a case of the short-termism that has arisen in academia?

Reading the Siva and Yoga Sutras had me thinking back to the concept of "varieties of particularism" that I developed in my doctoral thesis. Strange as it may sound, the idea came to me in a dream. To explain the concept (and to remind myself), I quote at length from my thesis (de Percy 2012, p. 28, Box 1.3):

A major finding of this research is that, in an era of technological convergence, providing a single technological solution to solve various connectivity problems is slower in addressing the diverse connectivity-related issues associated with various communications technologies in the near term. Similarly, grand, long-term approaches overlook regional and local opportunities and, in the pursuit of standardisation or quality/equality of service, ‘lock-in’ users to a technological solution designed to solve yesterday’s communications problems. Over time, the process of central control prevents the development of community expertise, or cultural capacity (see Hughes 1993), which leaves citizens as passive recipients of communications services, rather than being an integral component of these systems.

In his study of electricity systems in Germany, the US and the UK, Hughes (1993 : 405) found that local conditions resulted in distinct technological styles, defined as ‘the technological characteristics that give a machine, process, device or system a distinctive quality’. Hughes defined the local conditions external to the technology as cultural factors: ‘geographical, economic, organizational, legislative, contingent historical, and entrepreneurial conditions... factors [that] only partially shape technology through the mediating agency of individuals and groups’. However, electricity systems are passive networks where users have limited choices about how the network is deployed or used, whereas modern communications systems provide suppliers and end-users with a variety of choices about the means of delivery and the use of such networks respectively. For the purposes of this thesis, the various ‘cultural factors’ (as defined by Hughes) and the various connectivity requirements of users present particular circumstances which must be taken into account to enable greater penetration of a particular technological function.

In the absence of a term to describe the connectivity problems dictated by the varieties of particular individual, organisational, geographic, demographic and infrastructure situations that policy makers may need to address (while attempting to predict the current and potential uses of communications technologies in such various conditions), the term ‘varieties of particularism’ is adopted here to encapsulate these diverse circumstances. The term is borrowed from moral philosophy where it is used to explain a form of morality where particular circumstances dictate particular approaches to morality, on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to a single moral principle that dictates all action (see Sinnott-Armstrong 1999).

During the present period of institutional disruption (created by technological convergence), attempts to address these varieties of particularism have been referred to elsewhere as technological neutrality, where the technology used to achieve a particular function is left to supplier or consumer choice, rather than being predetermined or directed by the state. In Australia, however, the policy preference for delivering communications technologies over time has been to offer centrally-controlled, limited technologies in an attempt to create a sense of universal, standardised service. Canada, on the other hand, has attempted to achieve universal service through a mix of technologies devised and deployed at the regional and local levels to work within the regional and local varieties of particularism. Further, Canada’s approach provides greater access for citizens to the political process at the provincial and local levels, whereas state and local politicians in Australia have limited ability to influence centrally-controlled communications technology systems. This leaves citizens waiting until the federal government enables the deployment of infrastructure, as is occurring with the NBN today. 

Hughes (1993: x) found that the policy issues in deploying electricity networks were more regional than national in three different national contexts. The present study finds that the same principle applies to communications networks. Therefore, a major explanation for the divergent communications technology outcomes in Canada and Australia, and indeed, for Canada’s faster speed in achieving greater penetration of new technologies over time, is that decentralised institutions are better able to address the regional and local varieties of particularism, hence providing greater citizen involvement in the policy process and faster penetration of new communications technologies.

The above was a major finding, but it was readily dismissed by subject matter experts at the time who continue to provide political explanations for shortcomings of the NBN. Technical experts using politics as an excuse. Where is the scholarly thought in such explanations?

Consider scientific reasoning in the utility of the universal versus the particular (or in this case, local) from Shapin (1998, p. 5):

...post-Popper philosophers were willing to acknowledge that the production of scientific ideas was thoroughly bound up with the psychologically idiosyncratic and the culturally variable, they nevertheless insisted that the context of justification - the transformation of idea into knowledge - was a matter of context-free reason and logic.

Context-free reason and logic. And here is the first issue with being a subject matter expert rather than a scholar. See how I did that? Above I argued that the particular was more important than the universal in communications technologies, but now I am going to argue that the universal is more important than the particular. Let me explain.

This is rather abstract but there's something in the argument by Stilpo of the Megarian School about the universal being separate from the individual and concrete and the Siva Sutra 1.16 about the Great Point and the One Reality which is our consciousness and universal. There's also something from James Allen (2007, p. 24) about our environment being our mirror, whereas Sutra 1.16 admits that environment can help or hinder the process of union with the divine (see Worthington 2016, pp. 27-28).

In my "varieties of particularism" explanation above, I used the techniques of scientific method in a quasi-experimental, most similar systems design comparison of Australia and Canada holding communications technology outcomes as the dependent variable with institutions as the independent variable. I also adopted a consistent method of process tracing to compare the two countries over time. I used context-free reason and logic to arrive at a conclusion. I did not have a preconceived conclusion, although I did have a hypothesis that I tested using the above approach.

Now consider the subject matter expert. All of my work is poppycock and if only the Coalition had kept the original NBN model introduced by Labor then all would be well.

Subject matter experts have their place and some subject matter experts have their place in the academy. But I am increasingly concerned that we are all being forced to become subject matter experts who can provide a simple answer to a complex problem for people who are not subject matter experts.

My point is that the bureaucratic pressures of the contemporary academy are influencing our thinking, and it is hard to resist. The three-minute thesis competition is the antithesis of scholarly behaviour. Three minutes? Please! In an era of complexity, such parsimony, or "Occam's Razor", if you will, is tantamount to the stupidity that we are seeing played out in daily global politics.

There are parts of me that want to excel and other parts that want to rebel against the system. But what am I bucking against? I keep thinking there is no temporal aspect, the past has been forgotten, the classics are but facsimiles of misinterpretations, and that scholars are pretending to be journalists. So what is it to be a scholar?

When I went searching for the "scholarly tradition", all I could find were references to Confucianism. Interestingly, the Scholarly Tradition is what Confucianism ought to be known as, but the European neologism has stuck!

I then turned to the Enlightenment Tradition, and I was surprised to find I have been fooled by the myth of the "hidden hand" (Anchor 1979, p. xii):

This myth assumed that there was a basic harmony of interests among men in the long run, and it was only necessary to release everyone to pursue freely his own self-interest in order to realize a harmonious social order, similar to that which reigned in nature... that unity resulted "naturally" from diversity...

As I tend to do, I favour Rousseau's approach (Anchor 1979, p. xvii): 

...if a man wanted a better life than he had, he could not depend upon some transhistorical agency to provide it for him; he would have to create it himself, in pain and suffering, and on behalf of a morality that honored the inner man as well as the outer.

Here I find myself getting closer to my issue with the bureaucracy. How do I honour my inner self? Is it even relevant if as a political scientist I ought to be using "context-free reason and logic" in my work?

I turn now to Emerson and the Transcendentalists:

They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each person find, in Emerson’s words, “an original relation to the universe”... The transcendentalists operated from the start with the sense that the society around them was seriously deficient...

This is what I see. In architecture, the gig economy, in medium to high density living, in food production, in having to physically be at work to ensure one's mental health. I see unthinking conformity and unoriginality. 

I went on one of my most comprehensive journeys of self-discovery recently and found three things I value most: love, freedom, and learning (Dilectio Libertas et Doctrina). I think I can honour my inner self using these values as a guide.

But I can also use reason and logic to change, either myself or my perception. If success is being promoted in the current academy, then I will have to stop honouring my inner self. If I want to honour my inner self, then my perception of success must change. I have the freedom to choose!

If I were to be a subject matter expert in, for example, transport and telecommunication policy, then I would not need to travel on this journey of self-discovery. Instead, I choose to use reason and logic to dispel the myth of the "hidden hand" as a justification for the way I choose to work. I can also choose to work in accordance with my own sense of purpose.

Would a subject matter expert need to think through all that? Could a subject matter expert, using their knowledge of a particular subject, encourage transformative experiences in their students? Could they guide a student in honouring their inner self? Or would it be in accordance with their expert opinion?

I would rather be a scholar.

References

Allen, J. (2007/1920). As A Man Thinketh. Mineola, NY: Dover.

Anchor, R. (1979). The Enlightenment Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

De Percy, M.A. (2012). Connecting the Nation: An historical institutionalist explanation for divergent communications technology outcomes in Canada and Australia. Doctoral Thesis, The Australian National University, Canberra. DOI: 10.25911/5d514f57acdb6.

Shapin, S. (1998). Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the Location of Science. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 5-12.

Worthington, R. (2016). A Study of the Siva Sutras: Finding the Hidden Self. Allahabad: Himalayan Institute India.