To the Editors: Benjamin Friedman explains well the concept of, and the problems with, universal basic income, as proposed by Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght. But I found it curious that he never discusses a similar proposal, made fifty-five years ago, by another Friedman: Milton.
Books
No, They Didn’t
To the Editors: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, et al. absolutely did not order Frank Olson killed because “he knew too much about US biological warfare during the Korean War” because there was no biological warfare carried out by any agency of the US government during the Korean War, or for that matter by anyone else. The false allegation was disproved as long ago as 1998.
A Caribbean Literary Renaissance
In recent years there’s been a renaissance in Caribbean letters. At this year’s Key West Literary Seminar, “Writers of the Caribbean,” Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, author of Island People: The Caribbean and the World (2016) and a regular contributor to the Review, interviewed Marlon James, the Jamaican novelist whose most recent book, A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), a sprawling portrait of modern Jamaica told through the lens of a 1977 assassination attempt on the reggae legend Bob Marley, made James the first Caribbean writer since V.S. Naipaul to win the Man Booker Prize.
How ‘the Kingfish’ Turned Corporations into People
Although Huey Long was a populist who championed the little guy over big business, his attempt to muzzle the press ultimately empowered the very corporate interests against which he so often inveighed. When Long imposed a punitive tax on Louisiana newspapers to stifle criticism, it was not at all clear that for-profit business corporations had free speech rights—indeed, the prevailing law was on Long’s side. But in 1936, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspaper corporations and struck down Long’s advertising tax. Instead of a shield for persecuted dissenters from government orthodoxy, the First Amendment was transformed into a sword used by business to strike down unwanted regulation.
Satyajit Ray’s ‘The Hero’ Revisited
The train, in which nearly all the action takes place, is a hive of designs. The compartments frame a latticework of plots as intricate as anything in Graham Greene’s novel Stamboul Train. Almost everyone has a scheme and almost every character, in this film about acting, is more than ready to pretend to be something that he or she is not. Everyone, essentially, is reflecting back the movie star’s concern about how much selling yourself to the Devil may, in fact, be the right and selfless thing to do, if it can offer those who are suffering a respite from their plight. The result is a festival of ironies.
The World Must Act Now on Syria
While there are no longer any illusions about the role of the UN Security Council, every member state has nevertheless adopted and pledged to uphold the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine under the UN’s Office on Genocide Prevention. For the agony of the people of Syria to come to an end, it must be forcibly stopped. The perpetrators of these colossal crimes against humanity must be halted, once and for all. Today, appealing once more to the ethics and the codes of moral conduct on which democracy and international law are built, we ask those members states to act now to stop the Syrian genocide: demand an immediate ceasefire, an immediate lifting of all sieges, immediate access for relief aid agencies, release of political detainees, and immediate protection for all Syrian lives.
The Impossibility of Being Oscar
Had he ever allowed himself to be the equal of what was required by the excess of literary talent that had been bestowed on him? Had he lived up to his own austere demands, which he set out so dogmatically, despite the lightness of expression, in the preface to Dorian Gray and “The Decay of Lying”? Certainly the plays are great, in their way—Salomé in particular shows him for the subversive artist he could have been, had he had the nerve for it—but somehow they are not quite enough, not quite the fulfilment of his genius. He had, throughout his life, talked away too much of his talent; as one observer put it, “He wasted himself in words.”
On the Deployment of Simile to Understand Good Marriages
Clothes stiffening into position overnight
on chairs or on the backs of chairs—
that is like a marriage too
and so is the rain crowding the window
so hard I can hardly see through…
Imagining Violence: ‘The Power’ of Feminist Fantasy
In one of her most quoted lines, Margaret Atwood quipped, “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.” Her protégé Alderman takes this epigram seriously, to show readers how women’s lives would be different if they were not afraid. Yet she also forcefully dramatizes the futility of violence, and its inevitable escalation ending in Armageddon. So why this fantasy now? Alderman is reflecting and channeling the anger of a young generation of feminists who will not forgive, excuse, cover up, and accept male abuse.
Hamlet, My Prince of Pigs
What, another Hamlet? There must be a zillion already: Slang Hamlet, First Folio Hamlet, Compressed Hamlet, No Fear Hamlet. Into this field, I toss Hamlet: Prince of Pigs, a Tragicomic. Why a comic? Because comics and plays are twin arts. Both use visual cues as much as words. Both have abrupt breaks between scenes. And their words are mostly dialogue.
Sig Nordal 