The Old Testament is not only law; it is history, poetry and philosophy of the highest order. After making every deduction for primitive legend and pious fraud, after admitting that the historical books are not quite as accurate or as ancient as our forefathers supposed, we find in them, nevertheless, not merely some of the oldest historical writing known to us, but some of the best. [..] The stories of Saul, David and Solomon are immeasurably finer in structure and style than the other historical writing of the ancient Near East. Even Genesis, if we read it with some understanding of the function of legend is, (barring its genealogies), an admirable story, told without frill or ornament, with simplicity, vividness and force. [..]

[The Psalms] are marred for us by bitter imprecations, tiresome “groanings” and complaints, and endless adulation of a Yahveh who, with all his “lovingkindness”, “longsuffering” and “compassion”, pours “smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth”, promises that “the wicked shall be turned into hell”, laps up flattery, and threatens to “cut off all flattering lips”. The Psalms are full of military ardor, hardly Christian, but very Pilgrim. Some of them, however, are jewels of tenderness, or cameos of humility . “[..] As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more”.

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

Moral progress in history lies not so much in the improvement of the moral code as in the enlargement of the area within which it is applied. The morals of modern man are not unquestionably superior to those of primitive man, though the two groups of codes may differ considerably in content, practice and profession; but modern morals are, in normal times, extended – though with decreasing intensity – to a greater number of people than before. As tribes were gathered up into those larger units called states, morality overflowed its tribal bounds; and as communication – or a common danger – united and assimilated states, morals seeped through frontiers, and some men began to apply their commandments to all Europeans, to all whites, at last to all men. Perhaps there have always been idealists who wished to love all men as their neighbors, and perhaps in every generation they have been futile voices crying in a wilderness of nationalism and war. But probably the number – even the relative number – of such men has increased. There are no morals in diplomacy, and la politique n’a pas d’entrailles; but there are morals in international trade, merely because such trade cannot go on without some degree of restraint, regulation, and confidence. Trade began in piracy; it culminates in morality.

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

When to this natural basis of custom a supernatural sanction is added by religion, and the ways of one’s ancestors are also the will of the gods, then custom becomes stronger than law, and subtracts substantially from primitive freedom. To violate law is to win the admiration of half the populace, who secretly envy anyone who can outwit this ancient enemy; to violate custom is to incur almost universal hostility. For custom rises out of the people, whereas law is forced upon them from above; law is usually a decree of the master, but custom is the natural selection of those modes of action that have been found most convenient in the experience of the group.

Law partly replaces custom when the state replaces the natural order of the family, the clan, the tribe, and the village community; it more fully replaces custom when writing appears, and laws graduate from a code carried down in the memory of elders and priests into a system of legislation proclaimed in written tables. But the replacement is never complete; in the determination and judgment of human conduct custom remains to the end the force behind the law, the power behind the throne, the last “magistrate of men’s lives.”

- Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo is about how to live in a world that keeps changing in dramatic and unpredictable ways. The world has always been complex. But we’re beginning to understand more about how and why.

Ramo uses the metaphor of a sandpile. Drop one grain of sand on it, and nothing happens. Drop another, and you trigger a small avalanche. Maybe. There’s no way to predict the outcome, or even the size of the avalanche. Translated to our world: Small and indirect action may cause big results, and big and direct action may have no effect at all.

This means that, whether you work in finance, technology or national security, you can’t prepare for specific events. You have to be adaptable, resilient, multi-layered. Leave slack, room to manouver. Expect to be surprised.

These are more or less the ideas of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Hayek, and other thinkers of the unpredictable and unknowable, presented in the anecdote-heavy style of Malcom Gladwell. That’s not really a good thing, but as such books go it’s deep enough, and the entertaining style doesn’t get in the way of the overall lesson.

I especially enjoyed Ramo’s description of the adaptive and creative skills of Hezbollah, which he calls the Google of terrorism. I’m not sure what I learned from it, or any of the other anecdotes, expect maybe “be excellent!”, but it’s really fascinating.

All in all I liked it, but it’s shallow compared to, say, The Black Swan.

I Ingen skal tenke for meg forteller Tor Bjerkmann om sin tid som forlagssjef i Pax, fra 1964 til 1972. Pax var forlaget som introduserte Norge til samtidens venstreradikale ideer. Det ble dannet av militærnektere og atomvåpenmotstandere, men bygget opp et bredt repertoar: Orwell og Bjørneboe, marxisme og erotikk, Sør-Afrika og Vietnam.

Pax befant seg alltid på randen av konkurs. Det har aldri vært penger i politisk litteratur. En gang ble det også rettsak. Bjerkmann og forfatter Lasse Efskind ble i 1971 tiltalt for å ha utgitt Soldatens lille røde, som lærte soldater opp i klassekamp. De ble frikjent.

Pax-miljøet på 60-tallet er spennende på en måte senere venstreradikale miljøer ikke er det, fordi de stod i opposisjon til sine omgivelser. Er ikke ideene de samme? Jo, men det er kontrasten til omgivelsene som skaper tankevirksomhet. Uten kontrast får du bare rettroendhet. Omgivelsene kan være samfunnet, eller folkene du omgir deg med. Å gå i en annen retning har verdi i seg selv, om ikke annet for å trene opp muskler du mister når du går i flokk.

Pax slapp imidlertid ikke unna den marxistiske rettroendheten. Og Bjerkmann tar selvkritikk for å ha vært for sen med å oppdage miljøvern og feminisme. Mitt største ankepunkt: Det var dette miljøet Johan Galtung kom fra, de venstreradikales Nostradamus.

Verdensbildet de stod for fikk senere mer innflytelse enn fortjent, men jeg synes vi skal være takknemlig for kampen Pax kjempet mot norsk ensretting.

Mm .. Televerk-ostalgi:

“Verre var det med sentralbord. Da de ansvarlige i telefonetaten i Oslo hørte at det var Folkebevegelsen som skulle ha ny telefon, ble saken meget vanskelig. Det var lang ventetid for sentralbord, vi måtte stille oss i køen. Vi forklarte at vi måtte ha telefonen nå, før folkeavstemningen, men det hjalp ikke – jeg hadde nær sagt: tvert imot. Men Kopreitan visste råd. Han mobiliserte våre kontakter i systemet nedenfra, og der var innstillingen en annen. På null komma null fant de frem et utrangert sentralbord, av eldre modell riktignok, men fullt bruktbart. Og etter en prat med den ansvarlige formann var det ikke vanskelig å få stokket litt om på ordresedlene slik at vår kom høyt opp. Dette skulle bli det første lille lærestykke for meg: Det var morsomt å se at det nesten gikk sport i å finne løsninger når man nærmer seg saken gjennom en annen innfallsport. Jaså, var ledelsen imot? Det skulle nok bli en råd allikevel!”

- Tor Bjerkmann, Ingen skal tenke for meg