Stephen T. Asma

He's a good writer, but completely off the rails. One of his early examples not only has a tavern owner hiring his brother's mediocre band over better entertainments because of nepotism, but the brother then skims off the top of the payment for his own needs (his daughter needs braces) before splitting with his band members. Asma thinks both the tavern owner and his brother are acting correctly. I'm prepared to think the tavern owner is within his rights (but his business will soon fail for consistently having awful music, so how does that advance his nepotistic interests?), but the brother cheating his fellow musicians (maybe they also have children needing braces) is wrong by any ethical standard. He also believes politicians should guide public monies to their relatives and friends because they have "history."

To put this perhaps in terms closer to the author's interest, if Asma was the editor of a prestigious philosophy journal, his argument puts the world on notice that he will choose his friends' and family's mediocre squibs over the superior work of strangers. And believe he is acting correctly and morally while doing so. Such favoritism exists in the world, but he hopes it becomes dominant, prevalent, and admired. All this he justifies by arguing that in elementary school children are not friends with everyone, they must discriminate, and therefore the ethos of "fairness" is a lie.

It doesn't help his case that he can only make his argument by lampooning what simple fairness demands. For most of the book he assumes "fairness" means everyone gets the same thing, no more, no less. That's naive, and suggests if nothing else he's never heard of Rawls. Because it fails this test, Asma says Occupy Wallstreet was not about fundamental fairness, but only about "justice," not fairness (cue Rawls). He offers no theory about why justice is not grounded in fairness, especially given he already concedes that fairness should prevail on questions of law and order. But not justice, it seems, leaving us to wonder that justice actually is, if not fairness. We're not told.

We always have favorites, and it is natural to want the best for them. Handing them unearned opportunities over others, even if better qualified, not only in private situations but public, as when a politician gives sweetheart deals to a nephew, though, does not follow from that simple observation. But such corruption is his ideal world.

That Asma views such dreadful self-interest as how morality ought to work says quite a bit about him, at least, but very little about how we should think about moral philosophy unless you favor some Ayn Randian self-interest as the highest good. Despite an early claim that he is adverse to Rand's objectivism, it is oddly ironic that he winds up in much the same place: my duties extend only as far as me and mine; everyone else can go to hell. This book, whatever his intention, will be warmly received by white supremacists who want to believe they're morally upstanding when restricting all privileges and benefits to people like themselves. Even Rosa Parks he rewrites to be someone who was not fighting for basic fairness, but only advancement of her own in-group, like all good nepotists ought.

The best that can be said is that Asma is a good writer. He is a provocateur, though, and not a careful or deep thinker.… (more)

I'm really not sure what I was expecting when I dived into this, but it wasn't what I got. Not necessarily a bad thing. Asma digs into every sort of monster, from ancient Greek and Roman, through the Universal monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.) to the Jeffrey Dahmers and Charles Mansons of the world.

It's a smart, literary dissection of all the monsters in the world, real or imagined, and he does dig into why we consider these characters as monsters and whether they actually should be considered as such.

Illuminating.… (more)

This was the last of my batch of library books and probably the one I was looking forward to the most. I left it until last to break up the non-fiction I was reading and hoping that it lived up to the expectations that I had. I was drawn to the blurb on the back especially Asma's non tradition outlook on Buddhist.

The book starts promisingly enough and initially his writing style is pretty engaging with some good humour thrown in. However after that his style becomes very 'educational', this is probably due to the fact that he is a professor but I felt that it slowed the book down and it became too wordy. In particular the first few chapters on the nature of humans craving sex and our interactions with each other felt like I was wading through glue. There were some interesting points introduced but it felt very laboured and I really had to concentrate.

There is a chapter on raising children and this was a far better chapter. It felt as though Asma fell back into a more relaxed style complete with amusing anecdotes. I could completely identify he assertion that small boys in particular seem to spend there time finding ways to hurt themselves.

Two other chapters stood out to me, one on the beat generation of writers and one on music, in particular jazz and blues. I found the beat section very interesting but then I suspect that I would find this interesting regardless of who wrote it. There seems to a be magic that surrounds that particular group of writer and beatniks that makes any writing about them absorbing. As a fan of blues I also found this part interesting although I suspect that non fans wouldn't find it that interesting at all.

Although it is portrayed as a book for beginners or people who don't like the tradition or religious parts of Buddhism I would disagree. There is a lot of info crammed into the 'educational' sections and a bit of background knowledge goes a long way here. I followed it fine but I have read about Buddhism extensively over the years. For people who are looking for a non-dogmatic look at Buddhism I would heavily recommend Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Bachelor. This is a much more relaxed book which assumes no prior knowledge and takes a much better look at the subject in my opinion.… (more)