Author: Reid

Notes on To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson

This book surveys the development of Socialism by summarizing and analyzing various thinkers, starting with Michelet and ending with Lenin. I became interested in the book after reading about it on NPR’s You Must Read This series, which has provided me several good recommendations over the years. This book, so far, looks like it will be added to that list.

As other threads like this one, I’m going to use it to jot down rough thoughts and impressions.

One more thing, for what it’s worth: Wilson is a good writer, both in terms of his prose and insights.

Notes on The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz

Along with Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, this was one of the books that individuals I respect recommended during Trump’s presidency. I finally got around to reading it.

Milosz, a Polish poet and writer, wrote this in 1950, and he draws on his experience living in a Soviet controlled country. I came into this wanting to learn about authoritarianism and the way individuals psychologically accept or even embrace this. The book does address this by profiling four writers, describing the (mostly psychological) path they took to work for the Soviet-controlled government.

But their journey’s didn’t stand out to me. What stood out more is what I learned about Soviet-style Marxism, which I guess could be described as Stalinism? (Or Leninism?) While I don’t know enough about Marx, Communism, or Socialism to make precise distinctions between them, some differences did come to light, and this interested me the most.

I want to use this thread as a way to crystallize my thoughts and absorb the book.

A Critique of Bonhoeffer’s Notion of Stupidity and How This Relates to America in 2021

I saw a video on a passage from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s letters from prison. If you don’t know, Bonhoeffer was a German Christian, who was sent to prison after an attempt to kill Hitler. The passage in the video makes the claim that a stupid person is worse than an evil person. While watching the video, and later reading the passage, I found myself disagreeing at several remarks. I want to explore and explain the remarks I disagreed with. (Note: I haven’t read Bonhoeffer’s letters, so it’s possible that I’m missing important information regarding his ideas on this matter. Indeed, I’m not entirely clear what he means in some sections of the passage. Also, I’m unfamiliar with the youtube channel that posted this, “Sprouts,” so I don’t know their agenda or reliability.)

Here is the video I watched:

Neutrinos and Other Matters Involving Particle Physics

I’m current reading Project Hail Mary, written by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian, which was made into a movie I enjoyed quite a bit. Like The Martian, real science is at the heart of Project Hail Mary–specifically, science used to solve problems the protagonist must solve. Overall, I’m enjoying the book, but there are moments when I don’t understand the science or scientific terms. One example of this involved neutrinos.

To gain a better understanding of neutrinos, I just watched a NOVA episode (“Unknown Particles”) on it, as well as Standard Model in general. I’m going to use thread to write some thoughts, “thinking out loud” as it were. Oh, I also watched this TED-Ed video clip that was helpful. (Hopefully, TED Ed is a reliable resource; for what it’s worth, It seems consistent with what I learned in the NOVA episode.)