Walther Rathenau - OVT in 1922

Eindelijk hebben we de Eerste Wereldoorlog afgesloten, maar nog lang zullen we de demonen van dat cataclysme met ons meedragen. OVT neemt ons naar het tweede station in de reeks monsters (het eerste, Versailles, wordt overgeslagen): de Weimar Republiek.

Het was Duitslands eerste poging tot echte Democratie en zoals ik het ook altijd geleerd heb: het was een poging die gedoemd was te mislukken. Niet alleen de dolkstootlegende maakte dat de republiek een doodgeboren kindje was. Toch benadrukt het aanwezige panel (Hermann von der Dunk, Annette Birschel) dat de sentimenten niet alleen maar vol doem waren. De republiek was niet alleen het decor van de waanzinnige inflatie en de strijdende milities en de aanhoudende politieke moorden. Het was ook het toneel van een ongekende opleving in kunst en cultuur. Het was een tijd van wanhopige ellende en tegelijkertijd van geweldige dromen.

Kan de vraag dan omgedraaid worden? Op welke manier had in Duitsland de rust en eenheid bewaard kunnen worden, zonder in de klauwen van Nazis of wellicht bolsjewieken te vallen? Geert Maks held in dit verband is buitenlandminister Walther Rathenau. Hij had het charisma en de visie om de boel bij elkaar te houden. De andere panelleden wijzen dit af. Volgens Birschel was het een tijd van te grote wanorde en schreeuwlelijkerds - geen fatsoenlijk mens had dat in de hand kunnen houden, zonder bombarie en demagogiek. Von der Dunk vindt dat de persoon van Rathenau, de geassimileerde jood - een mens is met teveel innerlijke tegenstrijdigheden en te weinig representant van de grootste gemene deler der Duitsers. Het moest haast wel fout gaan. Dus toch.

Voorafgaand aan deze aflevering van OVT, in dezelfde serie naar aanleiding van In Europa:
1900 - Het begin,
1906 - Keizers en koningen,
1914 - Het licht gaat uit,
1915 - Een ander soort oorlog,
1916 - Het neutrale Nederland,
1917 - Het oostfront,
1917 - Russische Revoluties.

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The Nicene Creed - IOT

In Our Time had host Melvyn Bragg and the distinguished guests surrounded in order to discuss the Nicene Creed. The creed came in a moment in time, Christianity had been evolving from a small sect to a large and diverse multitude of inspired followers and the next station was to institutionalize the faith.

Part of this was theology, to discuss the various opinions among the churches and part of this was politics. Constantine became the first Christian emperor of Rome and he felt he needed a united church behind him. Thus the council gathered in Niceae and a creed was hammered out that attempted to address both the theology and the politics. It meant to resolve the disputes, throw out the heretics and unite the Roman world around one imperial faith. It seems it was more of an attempt and a first one in a series of such.

It is argued how the creed, apart from not exactly achieving what Constantine had hoped for, did manage to stamp out the diversity from Christendom. How modern is In Our Time when this is worded in the form of a regret. Just as it is so much of our time to see an appraisal of Arius. Arius was the major heretic of the time who'd been exiled after the Nicene Creed was accepted and who might have been the most important target. Arius in any case has been vilified throughout the ages, so it is said.

The exciting news is: next week In Our Time will discuss one of my favorite writers, Albert Camus.

Previously on In Our Time:
Four humor medicine,
The Sassanian Empire,
Mutations,
The Fibonacci Sequence.

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מי אוהב את השבת?

Normally I try to post at least once a day, but today I am going to have to disappoint you loyal readers. I have decided to genuinely enjoy my Saturday and take time off off everything including my iPod and blog. I wish you a peaceful Saturday just the same and will be back on Sunday with posts about Berkeley's History 5 (European history from the renaissance until today) and possibly In Our Time about the Nicene Creed.

Sorry to disappoint you today,

Anne

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (3)

On September 27, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt were invited to the University of Chicago to speak about their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. On October 8 they were invited to deliver the same speech at Columbia University. On November 26, they arrived at Princeton with the lecture accompanied by Robert Keohane of Princeton University. All three lectures were recorded and published in the University Channel Podcast. (Chicago. Columbia, Princeton) The talk is the same, obviously the questions by the end are different, but I cannot vouch for those in the second (or third) lecture as I couldn't sit through the same lecture again. It needs to be pointed out that audio quality of the second (Columbia) lecture is substandard. I will repost the review I wrote on the first appearance:

The University Channel Podcast published the audio of a lecture by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, about The Israel Lobby in the US, after their book about the same subject. This is a very vivid lecture with a good question round in the end. The authors get to make their point that there is a very effective Israel Lobby. The Lobby is not a lobby of the Jews, neither of the State of Israel, but rather an American interest group, backed by Jews and also Evangelical Christians. They claim that the lobby has a great influence on the US foreign policy and that this influence at times turns out to be neither beneficial to the US nor to Israel.

The Israel Lobby neither reflects the opinion of the vast majority of American Jews, nor, so it seems to me, represent the opinion of the Israeli government or even the majority of Israeli's. The lecture confirms my impression that those who are actively lobbying for Israel in Washington - or claim to do so - tend more to the hawkish, nationalistic side of the spectrum. This goes as well for the Jews involved as well as the Christians. It means for me, as an Israeli in favor of a peaceful Middle-East policy a lose-lose situation. Either one has this hawkish lobby or there is no lobby at all and in both cases my interests are not served. It calls for a lobby inside the lobby.

My stomach turns especially when I hear Mearsheimer and Walt claim that the Lobby was not particularly in favor of the Oslo agreements. They say that the Lobby 'grudgingly' went along. I would expect that an movement that grudgingly goes along with a certain development, will jump of the train at any moment. Was that what happened when Rabin was murdered? How bad was the grudge of the Lobby for the peace process at that turn of events and in how far could it have saved the process afterwards and maybe chose not do so? I would have loved to ask THAT question.

Other posts on Israel:
5 Lessons for Peace,
The greatest threat to Zionism,
Israel, Iran and Terrorism,
The US and the New Middle East.

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The Popperian Pathway

In a lecture before the London School of Economics, the University Channel Podcast presents Michael Baum, professor emeritus of surgery and visiting professor of medical humanities at University College London. He speaks about the logic of science and alternative medicine. In addition to the philosophy of science he has a passion for the visual arts and consequently he illustrates his lecture with some works of art, two of which I have included in this post.

Baum emphasizes in the lecture the weakness of medicine as far as it can claim to be based on evidence: it is mostly inductive. Which, he proceeds to show (or attempts so) is still better than the alternative medicine, which is not even that. Alternative medicine relies on anecdotal evidence. For example, if life expectancy for a certain type of cancer patient is limited, we must know the curve has an abnormal distribution. The incidental long living patient provides the anecdote. I'd say that is induction no less - evidence based medicine induces from larger figures.

Baum is a specialist on breast cancer and uses this field in an attempt to show how science as laid out by Karl Popper generates a slow advance towards knowledge. For example, when he started out (1965), it was held that the cancer needed to be treated with radical amputation. New evidence showed cancer would have spread by the time it was shown, hence the mastectomy was largely superfluous, or at least too late. Then the disease must be systemic. A 1985 meta analysis showed surgery and chemotherapy to be efficacious together. A steady decrease of mortality was reached when systemic therapy was combined with amputation.

Baum perceives a conceptual revolution. Everything suddenly looks totally different, after the meta-analysis (and he illustrates it with the Dali above). True science is being open to refutation and new conceptual approach. Evidence based medicine allows these revolutions and hence is the way to progress; one allows for proving to be wrong. So when originally you looked at the facts (look at the picture) and it seemed surgery was the way to go (you see nuns walking through a gate), new evidence allows you to see otherwise (discover the bust Voltaire) in the same facts.

It is a very ideal picture Baum paints and it seems to me it gives a little too much credit to Popper (though a lot of credit is due). Lakatos and Kuhn already showed how the Popperian method lacks the standards by which falsifying data, will do anything other than refute hypothesis. It does not indicate when the situation needs this 'conceptual revolution' and more so, doesn't help finding the new concept. If the shift needs to be made from the 'nuns' to the 'bust' a creative leap is needed and the Popperian pathway neither identifies the moment it is needed nor how it can be made.

More UChannel podcast on this blog:
Less Safe, Less Free (Losing the War on Terror),
The Greatest Threat to Zionism,
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
and Multiculturalism in the Netherlands.

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Anne is a Man! -- The podcast sources

This blog is all about podcasts. Not about how to make them or any other technical implication of podcasting. This blog is about the podcasts that are out there. More accurately, this blog is about the podcasts I found and mostly about those I like. Even if you do not agree with my views and even if you have other preferences as far as styles and content is concerned, I still hope this blog can be a source for finding new podcasts to listen to. Please feel free to contact me, if you want to draw my attention to a certain podcast, or anything else.

List of Directories

• History Podcasts
• Psychology Podcasts
• Writing and Language Podcasts
• Science Podcasts
• Economics Podcasts 
• Religion and Spirituality Podcasts
• News & Politics Podcasts
• Arts and Culture Podcasts
• Geography Podcasts
• Philosophy and Thought Podcasts
• Dutch Podcasts - Podcasts in het Nederlands
• Hebrew Podcasts - פודקאסטים בעברית
• German Podcasts - Podcasts auf deutsch

Great Sources of Great Podcasts

• DIY Scholar
• Open Culture's Podcast Library
• Webcast Berkeley University
• UC San Diego
• Stanford (feeds)
• learn out loud
• 359 podcasts reviewed (On the first this month)
• More podcasts reviewed (Upcoming on the first of next month)

Specific Recommendations

• History 5
• In Our Time
• Shrink Rap Radio
• Historical Jesus (Stanford on iTunes U)