Random Variable

Frustration over the way Creative support podcasts in their software means I am about to embrace the dark side and get an iPod Classic.

I admire the openness of American universities to publish their lectures online, and even publicise them through the Apple store.

In fact, I ought to mention a number of podcasts that were perhaps crucial in getting me to apply to Birkbeck.

First, Greg Niemeyer’s “Foundations of American Cyberculture” course at Berkeley made me rethink the material I was teaching Year 9’s on web design – i.e., the National Curriculum Framework materials are hopelessly illogical and outdated, not to mention just plain boring.

Mainly, it was Nathan Sayre’s “Natural Resources and Population” lectures, also at Berkeley, which made me bite the bullet and quit teaching and get a great job back in London that also provides me with the flexibility to embark on a degree in Politics & Sociology (having previously done Computer Science).

Sayre’s course on “World Regions, Peoples and States” also ties in excellently with my first year courses. He also joint lectures on my other favourite topic, climate change.

In fact, I had to personally thank Nathan Sayre in an email just because I think he is that good and been that influential in my change in track.

I had the pleasure of attending a very interesting lecture this evening at the London School of Economics entitled “Neo-Conservatism and the Origins of the New American Empire” given by Dr. Stefan Halper and Professor Anne Norton.

By coincidence, I was holding a copy of Adbusters “The Big Ideas of 2006” which had an article by Anne Norton entitled “Is it fascism yet?”

Anne Norton is particularly concerned about the growth of anti-Semitism against Muslims. She says she often finds herself scrubbing out anti-Arab statements on walls and trucks. Stefan Halper disagreed that this was particularly harmful, and said this is an expression of the regular, but regulated dislike for “The Other” which has also been recently similarly displayed in Europe.

So what did I learn? Leo Strauss referred to his students as puppies and would often get them to pick up his laundry for him. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld aren’t neoconservatives, but classical conservatives who allied themselves with the influential people. That the neocons have largely abandoned Leo Strauss’s idea of restraint and prudence in foreign affairs. Finally, that neo-conservatism rose to prominence during a period in history where “American Exceptionalism” – the notion of the US as the unique chosen nation – rears its ugly head, and is linked with a affinity with Israel not based on religion, but on the basis of another “exceptional” nation fighting against the odds.

The question I would have liked to ask was whether or not this exceptionalism may die out, or change in character as the ethnic character of the USA evolves over the next few decades. I hope that US realises as Europe did after a millennium, that religion and war are bad allies of the state.

In any case, I should look more into this concept of The Other posed by Lacan, Žižek and Badiou (hint to anyone looking for useful Christmas presents).

Do check out the partial podcast. It’s a bit messed up at the moment, but I’ll clean it up tomorrow.

The bit where an audience member boldly proclaims that 9/11 was an “inside job” and that everyone in the audience knows it, is especially funny.

When I got home, I decided to check out BBC’s This World series with the programme The Last Stand, about a family willing to take up arms against the Israeli army to stay in the Gaza strip. The parents portrayal of Arabs was particularly disturbing, and more so the number of people who agreed them, especially the kids.

Shocking stuff, and I found myself exclaiming “fucking idiot” at the screen several times.

Dr. Stefan Halper is the Chair of International Studies at Cambridge University and Anne Norton is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.