Politics 114B - UCLA political science course

This is a guest post written by Saeed Ahmed

Politics 114B, "United States Political Thought; 1865 to the Present," taught by Brian Walker in the spring 2008, available in both video and audio formats in the UCLA Bruincast website, is divided into two parts (or units), which Dr. Walker refers to as American Political Theory, Here and Now and The Roots of Contemporary American Political Theory, respectively. The first comprises of lectures covering political philosophies starting with conservatism, neoconservatism, religious conservatism, libertarianism, and moving leftward to Rawls' ideas of justice, and eventually Chomskyisc progressivism. This unit is meant to describe, in summary fashion, what makes up the foundations of different schools as they exist today. Unit two is essentially a history of political philosophy from the post civil era to the present.

In the first lecture, Dr. Walker starts by listing major issues and social challenges that have caused political struggle over the last 150 years: Slavery, race and inequality; the women's movement; the importance of the military in American politics; the growth of the US as a hegemonic power; and the role of technology. These are some of the issues that provide the material of political philosophic dispute, which the course covers.

Much of the course is spent discussing subtleties. For example, it is emphasized that in US political thinking, nearly all intellectual traditions are essentially "liberal" (including conservatives), in that they believe in equality, justice and law. So the dichotomy is not between liberal and conservative, but rather consists of more nuanced distinctions based on what are considered proper responses to social challenges.

Conservative schools are distinguished: traditional (think William Buckley, George Will), neo- (e.g. Irving Kristol, William Kristol, David Fromm), religious, and liberatarian. On the other side are "progressive liberals", "welfare state liberals," and "anarchists".

Two key thinkers, who in many ways optimize the two streams of thought that the course is trying to contrast are John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Rawls elucidates a very complex notion of liberalism and justice, and Nozick persuasively advocates a individualistic, liberatarian philosophy. While not opposites, and not exhausitive in their coverage of all prior political philosophers, these two thinkers synthesize many of the key elements of the progressive liberal and conservative liberal traditions.

Absent from this course is the type of conservatism which is exemplified by certain elements of American media today, such as right-wing talk radio, and certain hosts on Fox News such as Glenn Beck. I think one or two lectures covering the liberal and conservative media would have been good to add to this course. That is because most people get more exposure to these, than the more heady journals, books, and manuscripts which are discussed in this course.

This is an upper division course, so to fully appreciate it, considerable attention, effort and diligence is required. Listeners should know some basic US history, and if they don't, probably could benefit by listening first to Gretchen Reilly's course on post-civil war history (currently available in Itunes). The reading list for the course (which can be downloaded from the course website) is quite extensive. Sampling some of these readings may also contribute to a better understanding of this challenging material.

More Political Science
Political Science 10 (UCLA),
Political Science 179 (Berkeley).

More UCLA
History 1c,
Israel Studies.

Feed me bubbe - Jewish food and culture vodcast

Can you make your grandma a new media star? Avrom, producer and host of the vodcast Feed Me Bubbe seems to come really close to achieving just that. He follows his 'bubbe' while she cooks traditional Jewish food and on the side chatters about her memories, about Jewish customs and about Yiddish.

The whole show has a carefully cultivated air of charming amateurism, that is played out very well. This makes the show informative and extremely entertaining. I personally find it hilarious and I am sure to a certain extent this is intended. If you have followed my recipes and found them too oriental, you will love bubbe and her Ashkenazi dishes. There is chopped chicken liver, chicken soup (in various editions), latkes, tzimes, varnishkes and of course blintzes - see video; does Bubbe call them 'blintlach'? Never mind.

Feed me bubbe is a wholesome, kosher, Jewish food and culture show of seemingly old-fashioned style brought with the latest of new media. It couldn't be better.

New Books In History - quick glance over the backlog

The podcast New Books In History is my new favorite on the block. I have been listening to several episodes, nearly back to back and I do want to go on and hear more. So I am do not want to review them all, but pack them together. Especially now that Marshall Poe has fixed the feed and the whole backlog has become available. (feed)

Kristin Celello wrote a history of marriage counseling in the US. In the interview she gave to Marshall Poe we come to see the origins of marriage counseling: worried conservatives who couldn't stop divorce becoming legal and stepped in by trying to save marriages. One consequence of this was that marriage counseling is not an exclusively psycho-therapy field. Another thing that struck me is that the counseling predominantly speaks to women, as if, until today, it is mostly the task of the woman to maintain marriage. An old nineteenth century concept of woman being the responsible figure in the home...

Yuma Totani studies the Tokyo war crime trials after World War II. Poe asks her to compare with the Nuremberg trials and pays a lot of attention to the question how the trials were received in Japan and are still seen today. After Totani's first book on the subject, she feels there is more to be done and she explains how she is expanding on the first study.

Tony Michels is invited to speak about Jewish socialists in the US. His book on the subject is not new, but came out as a paperback. His tales show the intricacies of how Jews dealt with Judaism, with various other cultural influences and how they decided in terms of assimilation upon arrival in the US. It is my impression the flirt with socialism is a part of this struggle. In any way, with Michels you come to see this particular aspect in its many different colors.

More NBIH:
Jews in the Russian army,
Who will write our history?,
Sentiments in International Relations,
Ronald Reagan,
Prokofiev.

Life Changing Lessons - Shrink Rap Radio podcast

Shrink Rap Radio had an old guest come back for a second interview. I also loved the first interview with prison psychologist Dana Houck when he spoke of his work with prisoners and his use of Jungian Psychology and archaic tales to help them deal with their issues.

Although Houck has had to leave the prison system -more about that below- he has spent time laying down his experience in a new book about Life Changing Lessons that his prisoners learned and that we can learn from them. It turns into a fascinating interview in which Houck retells how he managed to help hardened criminals to open up to their issues and get along in life. Some of these lessons are not so evident to the extent that interviewer Dr. David van Nuys is genuinely surprised and asks for further explanation. Houck achieved all this through a qualitative approach in group therapy. By nagging the clients, by applying tales such as the Odyssey and Three Little Pigs and digging into the prisoners' dreams.

The reason Houck has had to leave the institution is because his therapeutic approach is not as hard as CBT and other evidence based therapy methods. Tax payers and policy makers demand, probably rightfully so, some accountability for the services rendered to prisoners. But Houck and Van Nuys mark the dilemma this poses towards seemingly effective approaches such as Houck's and how to evaluate those creative and qualitative styles among the quantitative measures of main stream science. A highly recommended issue of Shrink Rap Radio - as per usual.

More Shrink Rap Radio:
Shrink Rap Radio - 200 great podcasts,
Technology and The Evolving Brain,
Nova Spivack,
Relationships and the brain,
Psychologist writer.

Magna Carta - In Our Time

With a true history item BBC's In Our Time was back its usual self after last weeks science escapade (Vacuum of Space). History is its main object and usually gives the most accessible items.

The Magna Carta was discussed and mostly how it came into being. Any attempt to revisionist history was stopped immediately and bad king John was at once characterized as 'an absolute rotter'. But this did not mean the Magna Carta got a lazy middle of the road show. Though it was more historic than legal, if political in points.

Only by the end it was pointed out how the Magna Carta opened the way to constitutional thinking and the remark was made that it is more thoroughly studied in the US than in England. This neatly connects to the first series of chapters in the the podcast Binge Thinking History, that lays out exactly this: the English roots of the American constitution. With ample attention for the Magna Carta. It is a nice idea to listen to this IOT episode and these BTHP episodes together.

More In Our Time:
BBC's In Our Time - always recommended,
Brave New World,
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle,
The Boxer Rebellion,
The library of Alexandria,
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.

Previously about BTHP:
It rules the waves,
Royal Navy,
Win, lose or draw,
Blitz on London,
Battle of Britain
and The American Constitution's British roots.

Medieval Islamic Medicine - University of Warwick podcast

Thanks to the Podcast Parlor, I have found out about the podcasts that the University of Warwick puts out. From the site of Warwick you can access all podcasts (feed), but I have not yet figured out how to access the separate subjects in separate feeds from there. It is possible to go through iTunes U though. Seek out the University of Warwick (under U in the universities and colleges list) and there you will find various history subjects laid out to you.

The first series I took up was Islamic Medicine (iTunes feed) by Peter Pormann. This series consists of seven short podcasts (10-20 minutes. Monologues by Pormann) about medieval medicine in the Islamic tradition. In many respects this is a continuation of classical Greek Medicine on which the sages in the Islamic world continued and to which they added. Among these sages are not only Muslims. There are Christians and Jews involved in the activities as well. The Jew Maimonides (Rambam) is part of this culture and in the translation movement that delivered a huge amount of Greek texts to Arabic, are quite a few Syriac Christians.

The importance of the Islamic Medicine is that eventually it is the bridge from the Greeks to the modern west. In spite of the fact that modern scientific evidence based medicine has been added to this tradition, some of its basics are still alive today. In culture and in various practices.

More history of medicine:
Four Humour Medicine (BBC's In Our Time),
Pain (Missing Link),
Medical History (medicalhistory podcast).