Browsing PBH By Articles

How The ‘Right’ Brain Works

The Article: How the Right-Wing Brain Works and What That Means for Progressives by Chris Mooney in his upcoming book ‘The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality’.

The Text: If you’re a liberal or a progressive these days, you could be forgiven for being baffled and frustrated by conservatives. Their views and actions seem completely alien to us—or worse. From cheering at executions, to wanting to “throw up” over church-state separation, to seeking to “drown” government “in the bathtub” (except when it is cracking down on porn, apparently) conservatives not only seem very different, but also very inconsistent.

Even the most well-read liberals and progressives can be forgiven for being confused, because the experts themselves—George Lakoff, Jonathan Haidt and others–have different ways of explaining what they call conservatives’ “morality” or “moral systems.” Are we dealing with a bunch of die-hard anti-government types in their bunkers, or the strict father family? Are our intellectual adversaries free-market libertarians, or right-wing authoritarians—and do they even know the difference?

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The Shadowy Relationship Between The Military And Video Game Developers

The Article: Are video games just propaganda and training tools for the military? by Alex Rayner in The Guardian.

The Text: It’s Monday night, the kids are in bed, and I am trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I stalk through his Abbottabad compound and I aim my rifle at the first person I see, only to discover he’s my brother in arms, aka “OverdoseRocks”. So I walk downstairs into a prayer room, at which point my gun accidentally goes off. Then the mission is over. We were victorious.

Next, I join US servicemen during the 2007 surge in Iraq. For about three minutes I kick about a palm-lined boulevard, strafing apartment buildings. I am ambushed. In my dying moments, I am presented with an advert for a game in which I can embody a cheetah and kill an antelope, but I have had enough bloodshed for one evening.

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Walmart’s Chinese Factories: As Bad As Apple’s?

The Article: Are Walmart’s Chinese Factories As Bad As Apple’s? by Andy Kroll in Mother Jones.

The Text: On a warm, sticky winter morning, I waited nervously in a parking lot in Foshan, a city in southeastern China’s smog-choked Pearl River delta, for a man I’d never met. His name was Mr. Ou, and he ran the sprawling factory in front of me, a jumble of offices, low-slung buildings, and warehouses. Though the factory was teeming with workers, a Subaru SUV and BMW coupe were the only cars in the lot. Drab, gray worker dormitories loomed nearby, and between them ran a dusty road that led to the factory. At last a young man emerged from an office building. He motioned for me to follow him in.

I settled onto a plush leather couch and absorbed the decor. Framed awards and certificates covered the walls. A shopping-cart-size wooden frog stood sentry in the center of the room. Ping golf clubs leaned against one wall; a Rolling Stones commemorative electric guitar gathered dust behind a chair. And there were grills: a small kettle grill on a desk, a brushed-steel gas grill on the far side of the room, grills stacked atop other grills. This was Mr. Ou’s trade: supplying Western retailers with the cooking apparatus of patio parties and Fourth of July bashes.

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Structural Crisis? Fix It With Structural Change

The Article: Structural Crisis Needs A Structural Change by István Mészáros in The Monthly Review.

The Text: When stressing the need for a radical structural change it must be made clear right from the beginning that this is not a call for an unrealizable utopia. On the contrary, the primary defining characteristic of modern utopian theories was precisely the projection that their intended improvement in the conditions of the workers’ lives could be achieved well within the existing structural framework of the criticized societies. Thus Robert Owen of New Lanark, for instance, who had an ultimately untenable business partnership with the utilitarian liberal philosopher Jeremy Bentham, attempted the general realization of his enlightened social and educational reforms in that spirit. He was asking for the impossible. As we also know, the high-sounding “utilitarian” moral principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number” came to nothing since its Benthamite advocacy. The problem for us is that without a proper assessment of the nature of the economic and social crisis of our time—which by now cannot be denied by the defenders of the capitalist order even if they reject the need for a major change—the likelihood of success in this respect is negligible. The demise of the “Welfare State” even in the mere handful of the privileged countries where it has been once instituted offers a sobering lesson on this score.

Let me start by quoting a recent article by the editors of the authoritative daily newspaper of the international bourgeoisie, The Financial Times.

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Joseph Stalin: The Real Author Of American Exceptionalism

The Article: How Joseph Stalin Invented ‘American Exceptionalism’ by Terrence McCoy in The Atlantic.

The Text: Rick Santorum and the rest of GOP presidential gang all have a man-crush. Considering he was an outright intellectual elitist, a shaggy-haired liberal, and — horror of horrors — French, the object of their adoration seems a bit surprising, but the French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville and his 1835 United States travelogue, Democracy in America, have surged into national politics this campaign cycle — often linked to the nascent expression “American exceptionalism.”

Across the nation, from Plano, Texas, to Keene, N.H., Santorum has brandished Tocqueville, lecturing on how America got revolution right while France didn’t. Last year Gingrich published A Country Like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters, a book overflowing with praise for the Parisian writer. Going further still, the former speaker narrated a 2011 documentary called City Upon a Hill, which is produced by Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United). If you guessed that it leads with Tocqueville, you’re right.

The trailer opens like something out of Lord of the Rings: inspirational music, horses galloping through verdant terrain, and the soothing voice of the biggest hobbit of them all — Gingrich. “During his travels in 1831, French writer Alexis de Tocqueville observed that America was an exceptional nation with a special role to play in human history,” he intones. “American exceptionalism has been at the center of our nation’s experience for nearly 400 years.”

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