Books and Ideas (31)

I read for ideas. Here are some of the ideas I have found in books.

V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture During WWII. John Morton Blum.
Why read it? Politics did not disappear in World War II. Blum discusses how war was sold to Americans. Propaganda was used to produce popular images of our own fighting men, or allies and the enemy. Other topics: The return of prosperity after the long depression and its effect on consumers, business and government. How we treated Italians and Italian-Americans, Japanese and Japanese-Americans and our attitude toward Jewish refugees. The growth of black self-awareness and its results. Party politics of the time, with special attention to Wendell Wilkie and Henry A. Wallace as well as to Franklin Roosevelt. The coming of victory and what it portended for the nation and the world. Blum uses generous helpings of irony.
Quote: “Little boxes on the hillside,/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky,/ Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same;/ There’s a green one and a pink one/ and a blue one and a yellow one/ And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.” Malvina Reynolds: “Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs.”

Walden, Or, Life in the Woods. Henry David Thoreau.
Why read it? Walden is a “you-are-there” book. Want a period of solitude in your life? Read Walden. You not only read about Thoreau’s living alone in a cabin at Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts, from 1845 to 1847, you live it with him. You actually experience Thoreau’s solitude This book I have read several times, usually when I need a break from the pace of modern American living. Each time I come away relaxed and determined to live my life as intensely as did Thoreau.
Quote: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected….”
Quote: “Things do not change, we change.”

Walden Two. BF Skinner.
Why read it? The message of the book: organize society using positive reinforcement. I’ve read the book, but I still do not understand entirely what ‘positive reinforcement’ means in a practical way. Frazier, the founder of Walden Two, does give examples, but I’m not sure they are very significant. One thing it does mean: don’t use punishment or negative reinforcement. How would I translate a situation in which I instinctively wanted to use negative reinforcement into positive reinforcement? I’ve done it in small ways with the dogs. But what about people?
Frazier, the founder of Walden Two is very good at describing what is wrong with society. Much of what he describes is full of half-truths, but they are half true as well as half wrong: part of the problem is true.
Quote: Education. "The fixed education represented by a diploma is a bit of conspicuous waste which has no place in Walden Two. We don’t attach an economic or honorific value to education. It has its own value or none at all.”
Quote: Heaven: “Could you really be happy in a static world, no matter how satisfying it might be in other respects? We must never be free of that feverish urge to push forward which is the saving grace of mankind.”

Watchers at the Pond. Franklin Russell.
Why read it? This book describes the changes in the pond during the cycle of the seasons. Gerald Durrell in the introduction says, “This book will show you that the world you live in is a rich and wonderful place and it will show you how little we know about it.”
Quote: “The lightning burned through the air and created a huge vacuum, into which the vapor-packed air hurtled…created an explosion that rocked the earth, and the concussion fled along the line of the lightning strike and ended with a crackle far beyond the marsh.”
Quote: “What makes the sky blue? Each space of air the size of a robin’s egg contained more than a million of these particles, and they were filters that reduced the sun’s heat and cut out the reds, violets and greens of light from space, allowing only the dominant color of blue to reach the pond.”