Stockton’s Comments (group member since Jun 30, 2017)

Stockton’s comments from the A Very Short Reading Group group.

75 years since VE Day. As time passes does the historical, societal and cultural impact of World War II change?

It was quite readable and didn’t get bogged down in detail, but I was looking for more of the science behind the diseases rather than just the historical perspective. That said the sociological perspective did offer some pertinent insights about the less immediately obvious factors involved in the spread of a pandemic. “The very simple point is that there is a relationship between disease and social conditions, conditions that do not exist everywhere and that will not be alleviated with biomedicine.” The differences between countries and within countries highlight that it isn’t just a matter of science halting a pandemic but also fundamental societal efforts to improve inequalities and injustices across the board.

"...very often history is forgotten or rediscovered only when we confront contemporary epidemics and pandemics, and thus patterns from the past are repeated thoughtlessly."

It will be interesting to see how pandemics of the past were experienced and dealt with compared to our current situation.

""You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant."

In a 21st-century world saturated with written information and surrounded by information technologies of astonishing speed, convenience, and power, these words of Socrates recorded by his disciple Plato have a distinctly contemporary ring."

A very interesting reflection giving the current state of things...

Like many groups we'll be following current government advice and not holding a face to face meeting. All our library events are suspended until the end of May. Decisions in relation to any events after this time will be made as information/guidance changes. In the meantime, you can still enjoy the VSI collection and discuss the books here virtually. Head over to www.veryshortintroductions.com and log in by typing SBC and your library card number.

Hi all - unfortunately due to an event taking place in the library next week we're having to cancel this month's meet up. We'll be talking all things writing and script next month, Tuesday 31st March.

"This could so easily have been a rather dry book, like the same series' book on Linguistics, but it covers quite a bit of ground with admirable cogency and without descending to academic nit picking or classification for its own sake. It is gratifyingly human in it's approach to the subject, well appreciating that all writing has a human context."

Sounds hopeful - the Linguistics VSI was a bit of a struggle.

If you're tempted to check your psychopathic traits online maybe skip the ethically irresponsible dodgy science...


https://www.theguardian.com/science/h...

We're thinking about Descartes so we've proved we exist, right...?

A civilised debate about the EU last night, who’d have thought….

It may have been that the people attending the group had a similar view on certain ongoing events and anyone with a stronger view on either side might have made for a more challenging evening. But the consensus was that the book emphasised what a dry and somewhat boring topic the EU can be. 50 years of treaties and trade negotiations have somehow divided the nation and aroused passionate engagement. Or merely acted as a catalyst while the actual issues are lost in traditional cultural antagonisms. Rarely in the media or on social media are the relative merits or otherwise of the Lisbon Treaty, Maastricht, the European Council, European Commission etc etc discussed in an informed manner. What the book did a good job of was removing emotion and emphasising fact and detail. An approach which has been rather lacking for the past three years.

A blast from the past. Author Simon Usherwood discusses the idea of a referendum on membership of the EU in 2013:

"In the (still unlikely) event that there is a referendum, I would doubt that there will be much informed discussion. Instead we will have some headline facts and figures, together with some celebrity endorsements and a couple of half-hearted TV debates, watched by few and cared about by fewer still. Whatever the result, it would not solve any of the long-term questions about Britain’s relationship with the rest of the Continent, nor offer a constructive agenda for the future."

https://blog.oup.com/2013/06/european...

Any opinions on this little discussed topic?

I agree this was a well-structured and accessible introduction, despite the acknowledged bias which also aligns somewhat with my own. The opening chapter outlining the moral positions concerning animal rights was dense and lengthy but provided a solid framework to examine the more tangible issues such as meat eating, experimentation, pets and zoos.

The difficulty as I see it are the practicalities of extending a moral framework to something (someone?) who does not have a comparable moral framework themselves. As pointed out in the book, appeals to moral agency and reciprocity fail at an individual level, but how is this achieved at a societal level? When the system in which we live is one where in order for something to live, something else has to die. More or less.

I do find the definition of veganism useful here - a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose. This could give enough wriggle room to be useless, but “as far as is possible and practicable” seems to me a perfectly valid approach to living with other animals. A simple, possibly simplistic, approach. If we have the choice to kill something or not kill something, let’s generally go for the not killing option where we can.

There are many people who would strongly disagree with DeGrazia’s contention that that eating animals is not essential for human health and well being, that plants and “carbs” are the enemy. Also, there is the view that a meat heavy diet results in fewer animal deaths when deaths of field animals are considered. This is of course disputed and definitive numbers are difficult to come by. However, having a system in place where animals that feel pain and suffer are literally stock to be consumed cannot operate alongside claims to be a compassionate, empathetic and understanding species. Once humanity has figured that one out it can work on the next set of problems.

The canned hunting example is an interesting one. I’m definitely no expert but have read conflicting accounts of how useful it is in terms of conservation (if at all) – but the emotions it brings out are extreme and hugely contradictory. Some humans delight in killing an animal and displaying their handiwork, while others are repulsed and enraged by this act despite many of these people buying and eating other dead animals. I can only conclude that we humans are a pretty odd bunch.

From Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens:

Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.

From a review of the book:

"while the philosophical arguments regurgitated in the book aren't worth the paper they are written on, the practical examples of the inappropriate treatment of animals, factory farming, animals in cages or killed for human pleasure, certainly are."

Can animal rights be easily dismissed if favour of animal welfare, or is there space to consider what rights an animal can posses?

If the short introduction isn't short enough there's always the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsaBt...

One of the more accessible VSIs, this title covered the ground well and concisely. The more technical side of things was present, but for those not all that interested the bigger societal picture was there, with Wikileaks, Snowden, hacking and the influence of the big internet companies nicely introduced. It was very effective in putting across the sheer scale of how much data is now present in the world and the speed of development. A little more on the sustainability of such a scale - the raw materials needed to preserve the data and the power needed to keep it functioning - would have been useful, but overall a very good and thought provoking addition to the series.

I'm sure we can trust Goodreads to look after all our reading data....

A revolutionary discussion at the library last night. William Doyle got a general thumbs up for his VSI – a very readable and well-structured Introduction. The opening chapter was particularly strong. Framing the revolution through key cultural representations set the scene nicely for the detail and analysis to follow. Topics that cropped up:

the point when history starts to become myth, the contrast with the Russian Revolution, a VSI we discussed way back in October 2017. Conditions for revolution then and now – decisions made by those in power led to starvation 200 years ago, does relative wealth insulate us from political upheaval? The cultural differences between the English and the French. Did England get its civil war out of the way early? The attachment to the concept of monarchy. Is terror / dictatorship inevitable with revolutionary events? And also the influence of technology on history. As Doyle pointed out, publishing influenced public opinion in the lead up to the revolution. How does social media affect public opinion now and is revolution more or less likely with our current technologies and the influence they can have on us? Which might just lead on to our next title for June…

Many thanks for the comments. It was a very stoical discussion on Tuesday in the library. Overall the book covered interesting ground but maybe focused too much on the author’s specialist interests – it did seem a little heavy on the Plato. Nevertheless it was a very fruitful discussion. The starting point for a stoical approach to life seemed to be knowing what was good or in tune with nature as it was understood at the time. Interrogating this is presumably part of the philosophical cannon but it did leave the question of who decides what is actually good or right unchallenged. It’s fascinating that the two main proponents of stoicism the book uses – Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus – are placed either end of a societal spectrum, being emperor and slave. Can an emperor have the same approach to life as a slave? Apparently so if we use these two figures as an example. Also cropping up in the discussion were the fallibility of reason, free will and the nature of evil. Increasingly familiar topics in the Very Short Reading Group!

Some positive reviews for this, apart from "it's not what it was like in les miserables"...