A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford, 1900-1960 (2023) by Nikhil Krishnan

 Book Review

A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford, 1900-1960 (2023)

 by Nikhil Krishnan

  I knew I had to read this book based on the title- how often does one see a personality driven book about the rise of analytic philosophy at Oxford during the early and mid 20th century?  Not often, I'll tell you. Broadly speaking, Oxford was the home of the "linguistic turn" in philosophy in the Anglo-American world.  The "linguistic turn" basically describes a philosophical movement that started in Europe and then migrated into the English speaking world.  The idea was to abandon the philosophical obsession with the unknowable, broadly called "metaphysics" and to replace it with an approach that focused on the relation between, "language, language users and the world." 

  Krishnan tells a modestly entertaining tale about this world.  Prominent figures include J.L. Austin, author of How to Do Things With Words, A.J. Ayer and philosopher turned novelist Iris Murdoch.  Austin assumes an almost heroic stature, both in terms of his achievements in the field and his war-time service, where he played a huge and important role in organizing the D-Day invasion.   It's pretty incredible that he could be both a pragmatic and theoretical thinker, echoing the contribution of scientists like Oppenheimer and Einstein, who most certainly could not have organized the D-Day invasion. 

  As a lawyer, I've always been partial to words and their meaning. It's an irony that the impact of this philosophical movement within the law has been largely conservative- it's hard to imagine the textual approach of the current Supreme Court without the influence of analytic philosophy.

Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right (2023) by Matthew Dallek

 Book Review

Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right (2023)

  by Matthew Dallek

 I hadn't thought about the John Birch society in a while before I saw the NYT review of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.  Before reading I was broadly familiar with the outlines of the Birch Society- a group of staunch anti-communists who pioneered many of the tactics embraced by the far-right today, but I didn't know the details.  For example, that the founder of the Birch Society was a Massachussets based candy-maker.   Like many pioneers who were ahead of their time, the Birchers faced challenges and ridicule in their then near quixotic attempts to steer the American Public (and the Republican party) to the far-right.

     They were mocked by the media (all the media were mainstream media in the 1950's) and countered their influence by becoming dedicated early on to making their own propaganda materials.  Like the far right Republicans of today, they were more likely to actively target members of their own party- their leader called Eisenhower a Communist during his Presidency- then members of the opposition.  Again, like the far right of today, they had little to say to their actual opponents, who they basically saw as Satan-affiliated, and became obsessed with the perceived inauthenticity of their own representatives. 

  Richard Nixon, in particular, was a target- really THE target, for his flexible centrist policies.  Nixon, for this part, hated the Birchers, despite the fact that they represented an important part of the Republican coalition.  Eventually they would be co-opted by Barry Goldwater, starting with his landslide defeat to LBJ after Kennedy was assassinated.  Reagan would finish the job of bringing the Birchers fully onboard- he figured out the same thing that Trump figured out:  If you talk the talk what you actually DO is less important.    Another take-away from Birchers is that like today's far right, they weren't particularly interested in questions of morality- their are brief mentions about anti-Abortion, but that is essentially a different book.

   It's also interesting that while the particular policy concern of the Birchers:  The communist conspiracy for world-domination, has fallen by the way side, their style has found a home on the internet.  The paranoid style in American politics has never been more popular and Donald Trump is quite easily the most Bircher-esque President in American history.  Unlike Reagan, who was a mainstream pol who co-opted radicals with his savvy communication style, Trump seems to actually be a descendant of the Birchers.