James Bond as Radical Centrist The best way to explain a philosophy is to personalize it. Who, for example, epitomizes libertarianism? There are a number of worthy possibilities but H.L. Mencken seems most relevant for the 20th century. American 'classical' liberalism clearly is best thought of as reflecting the ideas of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Conservatism in its modern form rests on the shoulders of Barry Goldwater. There are a number of distinguished people from history who can be said to exemplify Radical Centrism. There are examples from the historic past who might be cited, going back to Marco Polo. ------------------------------------------ Marco Polo Radical Centrist Hero
He lived a life of adventure; he was a man of action. He understood that experience is necessary for any kind of valuable education. He sought wisdom from almost all the countries of the world He sought to help the East understand the West and the West understand the East He tried to observe everything he saw as objectively as possible for a man of his era He was a committed Christian but someone who could see value in Buddhism and Hinduism and at the same time, while he was open to co-operation with individual Muslims, he recognized the criminal nature of Islam and the fact that it was founded on anti-Christian principles. He had few biases toward Jews; for his time he was very tolerant. He was a merchant who sought profit in what we might call a free trade market; at the same time he saw the advantages in the state system at the center of Kublai Khan's rule. He researched everything he could. He thought for himself. -------------------------------------------------- We can go further back in history than Polo, as far back as the Roman emperor Julian, or even Constantine in some respects, and all the way to Socrates, or Pythagoras, or Hammurabi. Also on the list might be the Sassanid thinker Burzoe, Asoka, and Lao Tzu. And there are American exemplars, the honorary father of Radical Centrism, Ben Franklin, Washington himself (in his first term anyway), James Madison, James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and especially Teddy Roosevelt. We can add futurist designer Buckminster Fuller as well. However, let us consider a contemporary British hero, someone well known to possibly everyone in the United States, of all ages, James Bond. This is to discuss a fictional creation, of course, but nonetheless a "personality" with universal recognition. There are four articles in James Bond and Philosophy that are most relevant, these are: Suzie Gibson, "Bond and Phenomenology: Shaken, not Stirred" Matthew Tedesco, "The Moral status of the Double-O Agent: Thinking About the License to Kill" Jerold Abrams, "The Epistemology of James Bond: The Logic of Abduction" Robert Arp and Kevin Decker , "The Fatal Kiss": Bond, Ethics, and the Objectification of Women " I read several additional articles in the book, others seemed beside the point of my research. Not every article that I did read impressed me, and one, comparing Nietzsche to Bond as a sort of Übermensch, was very unconvincing inasmuch as the writer made much of Will to Power, a text long known to be a pastiche strung together by Nietzsche's anti-Semitic sister, with her edits being highly suspect, and making a case for Nietzsche as precursor to the Nazis. This viewpoint was discredited long ago by Jewish scholar Walter Kaufmann, the world's leading expert on the philosopher for many years. After all, Nietzsche was vehemently opposed to anti-Semitism, about which there is no doubt whatsoever. The following comments derive from the four sources indicated. What we can safely say about James Bond is that, like a Radical Centrist, he is well aware that things are seldom what they seem. Indeed, his life depends on this awareness. All of our lives do, but in Bond's case the fact is that not recognizing illusion for what it is could result in his death at any time. For him it would be utterly foolish to be naive about the world. And hence he focuses his attention on experience; it is something he must know as thoroughly as possible. And this goes far toward explaining his lifestyle, in which he plunges headlong into one adventure after another, virtually non-stop. He must learn from every kind of experience imaginable, his life depends on it. Hence Bond has, as Suzie Gibson said, "insight [into the] invisible realm of latent dangers, concealed plots, and terrible intentions." He has "the ability to see what others can't," which derives from his special philosophy. Matthew Tedesco explained something of the basic working principle of this outlook, a principle that he calls "Consequentialism." This says that an act should be judged by its consequences. What is moral or immoral depends on the results that are produced by some action, at least concerning intended results. Something is not "moral" if it was not your purpose to be moral; if your goal was stealing a car in order to sell it to a chop shop and it turns out that the vehicle was a getaway car and, hence, the bank robbers were caught, you really shouldn't expect civic honors. Consequentialism is an alternative to the utilitarian principle of the greatest good for greatest number, or to Kant's deontological view of morality as a matter of duty, you are supposed to act rightly, it is part of being a civilized human being. Bond cannot possibly accept that worldview -most of the time. The exception concerns the point he is asked to accept an assignment, which he sometimes does as a matter of duty to the British crown. But once in the field that kind of consideration no longer applies. The "greater good" may apply but it requires a calculus that Bond may not have time for and, in any event, may be beside the point: If he doesn't kill the evil villain the evil villain will kill him. Consequentialism asks: What are the intentions of a lie? Then it asks: What are the actual results? Nothing justifies a well-intentioned lie when the results backfire and innocent people are hurt. Not that such outcomes can always be foreseen, but the point, now, is that you need to do your best to foresee results because if you guess wrong the consequences could be horrible. The fact is also that there are clashing moral standards in the world and it is impossible to always be right in predicting outcomes. The viewpoint of consequentialism is that if you focus on results your chances improve dramatically that you will do the right thing. It also says that the lesser of two evils may be the best you can get. In any case it is imperative to ask the right questions, for which you need all the knowledge you can get, especially knowledge that is based on experience. This principle also says that there may be no immediate good answer even to pressing and important questions. But since results are what count, you have the responsibility to work at it until you come up with a good answer. On this subject Jerold Abrams' essay is especially valuable. His interest was abduction, a type of reasoning along side of deduction and induction, but different than either because it does not produce trustworthy conclusions but probabilities based on incomplete evidence. In other words, there is a type of logic that concerns best guesses simply because there isn't enough evidence to be sure. The concept of abduction was the brainchild of C. S. Peirce, the creator of the philosophy of pragmatism in the later years of the 19th century. While each made very different uses of pragmatism, William James and John Dewey based their systems on Peirce's work. What Peirce was interested in was how the mind formulates guesses when there is a need to make some kind of forecast despite not having enough facts to feel confident in the result. That is, sometimes we must base our actions on good guesses. Some people do a reasonably good job of it, they are successful more often than not, and they are achievers. How is this possible? People are familiar with something of the process from watching any of the CSI television dramas. What is involved, i.e., for the most part, is formulating scenarios, then testing these scenarios as quickly as possible, gradually refining them until a highly likely answer to a question emerges, such as: "Who was the murderer and why did he (or she) do it?" The process may be far more complicated than this, however. An accomplished criminal, or simply a smart law breaker, may try and lead investigators astray through false clues, bogus evidence, or subterfuge. Moreover, these diversions may multiply over the course of time as a criminal seeks to evade detection and cover his tracks. Hence, a plausible scenario early in an investigation may need to be junked after new (but still incomplete) evidence surfaces, rendering early conjectures worthless. That is, abduction consists of making yourself clear about the possibilities and then narrowing them down until each new scenario has fewer and fewer loose ends. As well, there is the recognition that no good scenario may be possible without further investigation, which can be looking for clues at a crime scene or hitting the books in a library or analyzing photographs or video clips. Basically a detective reaches the point where he says : "I'll have to do some more investigating if I want to get to the bottom of this matter." Knowledge is an essential part of the process, which is why Bond has an encyclopedic mind -both in terms of academic background and real world experience. Further, the process is necessarily fluid and evolutionary. You start in ignorance, or only with very little knowledge, and gradually build a case for one conclusion rather than any other conclusions. To do this it is essential to have a flexible mind, to be able to use your imagination effectively, to be perceptive, to be creative, and to be -"playful" isn't quite the right word but it is close enough. All of which fits in with Radical Centrism. There isn't one "correct" way to be a Radical Centrist, there are no preordained answers to questions, RC is before all else a process for reaching conclusions. You can use it as if it is an ideology, a source of intellectual identity, a mode of explaining yourself to others, but it really isn't an ideology, it is a way to get things done, or a journey toward a goal. James Bond, in every movie and book has a task to perform. He does not have all the information he needs. He necessarily will have to operate on the basis of best guesses, certainly for a good part of the action. Yet he cannot afford to be wrong where it counts the most -the penalty for some mistakes is death. And to get to where he is going he must rely on the best knowledge at his disposal and seek out new experiences that can teach him new lessons he needs to learn. This is what explains some of the parallels between Bond and a Radical Centrist -even if, in real life, a Radical Centrist may not look remotely like any of the actors who have portrayed Bond, may never indulge in furious shoot-outs with monstrous villains, and may not own a customized sports car that can operate under water or send streams of blazing naphtha out the exhaust pipes to discourage pursuing vehicles. Still, there are parallels. We can start with the need to have an encyclopedic mind. Although answers to some questions may be found through use of computer apps, apps don't even exist for most of the situations that Bond finds himself in. Besides, it is far more efficient to have the information you need in your head, instantly accessible and ready to use in the form of juxtapositions, puzzles you want to solve, hypotheses you want to test, and the opportunity such knowledge may give you to seduce Miss Pussy Galore -or her sister. Not that any Radical Centrists I know have had that kind of luck, but just saying..... The point is that there is no obvious way to know that any given set of political positions will fit together, cohere, make maximum good sense. We are not discussing an algebra equation, or even a chemical reaction, although there may be some relationship to chemistry. We are discussing a series of judgments based on incomplete knowledge. To arrive at a political position that involves ten -or more- highly complicated issues, not to mention the fact that they may be emotionally charged, you must use a process of abduction. Still, this isn't operating in the dark, at least it isn't if you have a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw upon in making judgments. Various Bond movies make it clear that, while he isn't a scholar in any conventional sense, has a scholar's interests and serious capacity for research. Sometimes he is an expert on arcane subjects, he can pull facts out of thin air it would seem, except that how he does this is unmysterious: He studies. He reads a lot. He is curious about the world of knowledge. He memorizes facts because he finds them interesting and potentially useful. He obviously values education and never stops learning. But you don't have time for that? Other things have priority in your life? Very well, it is your prerogative not to do research, to do other things instead. And sometimes it would be foolish to spend your time in a library, even your own library. But if you never do so, you don't have a chance to be competitive in politics. And the goal of Radical Centrism is to outthink all of the competition. The idea is to make yourself so good at what you do, and in terms of the quality of your ideas, that you can speak with authority on a wide range of issues and be respected for your views because, whatever else may be true, no-one can deny that you are well-informed. Part of the process that makes this possible was explained by Suzie Gibson in her article. At issue is the matter of style. Most people think that style is an incidental. Or even an affectation. Window dressing, or an "add on." For "practical people" it isn't necessary to think about style, indeed, it is a waste of time to be concerned. However, as Gibson makes clear, style is vital. Think of James Bond; you can't begin to understand the character unless you focus on his style. Bond "is exceptionally acute and meticulous in his tastes;" he places emphasis on such seemingly trivial matters as how to mix his drinks. But about nearly everything he is obsessed with details. And he expects the best. It is his style. Part of the fascination with Bond is his style, it is one reason people watch his movies or pay money to buy Ian Fleming's books. In other words, style sells. Is style important otherwise? As a matter of fact, yes. Gibson cited philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty to the effect that "style and manner of conduct is not an affectation that conceals a deeper nature, ...it is the means by which we interpret and access the world. Style is procedure, it is a method of operating, it creates the conditions for learning. In a sense it is also how you process information so that, so to speak, "it looks right" to your brain. It is a survival art. Moreover, even for hard shell engineers or rationalist economists it is an art. Everyone has some sense of style, however much they may be dismissive of any such thing. But it is there -in an engineer's style, which may be to focus on discreet facts and ignore everything else, which might be to overlook such essentials as how to best interact with other people on the job so that they do their best work. Which is manifestly unfair to any number of engineers, however, such as Buckminster Fuller, who took pains to study, like an engineer, each dimension of his life so that everything be did contributed to the kind of results he wanted. On this subject, mention should be made of a feature in Publisher's Weekly for July 13, 2015, entitled "Think Like an Engineer: PW Talks with Guru Madhavan." Which, by the way is his name; he may be a guru in some sense but this is the name he used as author of Applied Minds: How Engineers Think. Madhavan's purpose is to show how lessons from engineering "are useful in everyday life." This is because, as the feature quotes him saying, "you see, at some point everyone is an engineer (or for that matter, an artist); for some reason, most of us just stop cultivating and carrying forward those attributes to improve our lives and society." PW asked Madhaven how an engineer writes a book; his reply was: "I developed this book more or less similarly to how I would build an electronic circuit. I had to fully understand all the inputs (characters), specifications (plot line), connections (transitions), and the expected outputs (message). As good engineers (writers) know, every component (sentence) in the circuit (book) should be useful and serve its purpose." . He was then asked how an engineering mindset effects someone's worldview. His answer is instructive: . "The engineering mindset enables you to bring structure amidst abstractness or disorder. It also helps you effectively deal with constraints and trade-offs of life. You are always running a logical model in your head. What happens to the system when you change something? How are things connected? How to fix and prevent failures? It’s a mindset rooted in continuous learning and improvement." As someone who once was a student of architecture I can appreciate Madhavan's approach. What is involved is thoroughness, not just concerning a technical problem, although it is crucial to get that right, but toward an entire system -toward the people who work with you who help make completion of the tack possible, toward those who pay the bills, toward vendors, toward craftsmen or women, and so forth. All the parts matter, not just the technical side of things; we are always talking about whole systems. Which not all engineers understand, nor all architects, but here is the principle is high relief, for all to see. . This applies to rationalist bankers of finance people just as well, and many others. Which is one reason why individuals like Carl Ichan are so deadly, and immoral. All that such people care about is the bottom line. What happens to everyone who is part of the entire system does not matter as long as the money rolls in -even if this way of doing business ruins lives, generates strong political opposition, alienates other professionals, creates frictions in society, and causes people to lose all respect for you. That kind of approach is not only short sighted and unethical, it is perceived as epitomizing evil. There is no excuse for any such thing and if Ichan has gotten away with it as long as he has, that is no assurance that his past won't catch up with him. And not only him, personally, everyone who has played his game for him, or who has regarded him as a model for how to make money and to hell with the consequences. . Such people deserve to be publicly humiliated and ostracized from society. A day of reckoning would also be in order in which each and every sick thing done for the sake of making money regardless of the effects on people's lives, should be prosecuted to the full extent allowable by law and hopefully end up losing everything. . To return to Suzie Gibson, style "not only reflects vision, it also enables vision." Style is your distinctive way of doing things. . This necessitates a deeper understanding of epistemology, theory of knowing. Which was why, said Gibson, Merleau-Ponty rejected the views of Des Cartes about mind-body dichotomy. That way of looking at things distorts reality because "thinking did not come before existence and existence did not come before thinking -both were interlocking and reversible." That is, in the lives of each of us, we cannot separate our existence from our thinking, the two go together. Which, of course, is what all schools of psychology also assert. Aristotle once said that "man is a rational animal." Both parts of the equation are true; we are rational but we also are animals and that means we are collections of desires, fears, ambitions, irrationalities, quirks, and everything else you can imagine. If you have any pretense to systems thinking all of this must be taken into account. . What is especially interesting about James Bond, said Suzie Gibson, is that he "thrives on conflict." You can also say that Radical Centrism is conflict driven, that Radical Centrists thrive on conflict. However, it is important not to go too far with this principle. Bond is a single male, he does not have a wife and kids to think about, he can live his life "on the fly" and, if need be, forget about creature comforts and responsibilities like on-time mortgage payments. Most people are not in his boat. Besides, not everyone has the kind of psychological constitution that permits them to find conflict energizing, a challenge to be inspired by, a call to arms to prove one's worth, or anything of the kind. This is understood. But it is to say that an attitude of "conflict avoidance at all costs" is incompatible with Radical Centrism. Sometimes you need to fight, and fight hard, for what you know is right. You need a backbone. Courage may be demanded of you at any time and you need to be able to respond when that happens. . James Bond epitomizes the principle. . Which is to say that Radical Centrists, in effect, as much as it may be possible, seek to be like James Bond. However, there is a catch. . Bond's adventures, said Gibson, "have taken him deeply into the heart of a world unfettered and untamed by convention and rule. He cannot return from the dark and invisible quarters of such a sphere to the conventional reality (and morality) of civilian life because he knows and has seen too much." In so many words, he needs a new kind of philosophy if not a new kind of religion, in order to deal with all of reality as it exists in the world. . How well James Bond manages this in his life we can never know because he is a fictional character and does not need to suffer through all of the uncertainties and heartaches and anxieties that this kind of transformation requires. Ian Fleming and a host of film producers and writers since this all began a half century ago, have simply assumed that it can be done and there is no point in worrying about it. Bond is a duck, everything runs off his feathers like water from a mallard or merganser. But that is only true for the Bond of adventure stories, a made-up Bond who is infinitely resilient. No real human being can possibly be like that. . Radical Centrism is a philosophy for people who want to be as much like James Bond as it may be in them to be -but with the upfront understanding that (1) it won't be easy, (2) it will compel you to re-evaluate many, many qualities of your life, and (3) will require inventing a new philosophy of life unlike all other philosophies of life. . Radical Centrism is in the process of being invented, it is not a completed system of thought. Much work needs to be done to make develop its guiding ideas to best effect. And there are possibilities ahead for artists, writers, political people, scholars, journalists, and many others. Radical Centrism itself has only been in existence in its early forms since about 1995, and its modern form as described here only since the first years of the 21st century. Those of us who take RC seriously, radically, know perfectly well that there is no last word on the subject. But this is part of the appeal of RC, it exists on the frontier of political thought, or thought more generally. It is something that is being created and that invites new ideas and new insights, by design. But by definition this new philosophy cannot be at all like 'orthodox' political philosophies as we know them today. There are altogether different assumptions to make, altogether different perspectives to internalize. . To use one example, the Radical Centrist view of feminism is unlike the outlook of either the Left or the Right. Some feminist principles we regard as essential but others we regard as some kind of bad joke, not to be taken seriously. Our understanding follows from Christina Hoff Sommers 1995 volume, Who Stole Feminism?, but there is more to it than that. This may be made clear by looking at the final essay from James Bond and Philosophy, Robert Arp and Kevin Decker's "The Fatal Kiss": Bond, Ethics, and the Objectification of Women." . The problem with Arp and Decker's view is that it assumes some version of Left-wing feminist values as normative when discussing women and their relationships with men. Hence there is discussion of misogyny and dehumanization as intrinsic to the stereotyped "male gaze" that objectifies women. And, the authors said, this gives us a set of pop culture values that are perpetuated in James Bond movies. However, to their credit, they acknowledge that there are other forms of feminism than the "standard issue" version promoted by NOW or other conventional feminist organizations. When all is said, "different people are born with, and have to live with, different psychological dispositions." >From the perspective of psychology, what Sommers called "gender feminism" simply does not resonate with many -probably most- women. It does not meet their needs or square with their perspectives on life. Indeed, we can go further and say that conventional feminism of this type reflects accommodation with female homosexuals to the detriment of normal women who have biologically natural interest in the opposite sex. . The authors cited a different kind of feminist, anarchistic Wendy McElroy, who has said that "a woman's ability to use her sexuality for money, power, or control of her own life is just as much of a legitimate consequence of sexual freedom as are feminism and worries about objectification." . The point to make is that not only is this statement as right as right can be but that it doesn't say enough. Just how simple-minded are people that a concept like objectification is sometimes -or often- taken to mean that men, or the great majority of men, can only think of women as sex objects? And even when this is the case, does this necessarily mean that exploitation is the necessary consequence? Why isn't it possible for a man to look at a woman as a sexual being one minute and as a person with a whole range of legitimate needs and concerns the next? These attitudes toward women are not mutually exclusive. . The issue comes up in the context of James Bond films because he is more-or-less obsessed with sex, which, while he may need to kill a score of bad guys and manage to escape from an island fortress first, is his real raison d'etre. Not only that, there are few (very few) relationships with women beyond a romp in the hay, or several romps in the hay, since the impression we get from the content of the movies is that this is his reward for a job well done but there are no messy love relationships for him to worry about, no trampled feelings for him to be concerned with since he has his fun and women who have "served their purpose" should be satisfied with the memory of James Bond. . This way of framing the issue can be characterized as neo-puritanism. As if unless a sexual encounter results in a lasting love relationship it is morally unjustifiable. Except that feminists have low regard for love and primarily think in terms of "respect" or maybe friendship, or simply a negotiated power relationship. And "what does love have to do with it?" . It is entirely possible to reject this kind of outlook as unrealistic, opposed to every valid lesson of psychology, and basically crabbed. For sure it reflects total ignorance of the lessons of sociobiology which tell us that the sexes are hard-wired (predisposed) to certain values and behaviors. Feminism seeks to impose an ideology on biology and the effort is futile and often is personally damaging. It also is unscientific, or anti-science, all the while as it is immune from all rational criticism on grounds that can only be characterized as closed-mindedness in defense of an anti-love set of sick values. . It so happens that male psychology reflects survival needs that follow from biological imperatives. From a male's perspective it is good to impregnate as many women as possible so that his genes will be perpetuated in the human species. Hence the universal phenomenon of polygyny, harems of one kind or another, in just about every historical culture you can name. Along with this goes prostitution. Women have different priorities since their number one goal must be security for themselves and their offspring. There is no symmetry between the sexes, in other words, which is why polyandry is rare (and only works well when blood brothers share a wife in common) and there is no such thing (except as a very unusual phenomenon) as women customers for male prostitutes. The only sustaining example of note historically were men who provided the equivalent of "stud service" to women in childless marriages; an anonymous father would numb a husband's sensitivities if he was sterile. . What Bond exemplifies is sexual realism even if, yes, now and then he can be criticized for over-doing things, for occasional insensitivity, or for too much ego. What audiences appreciate -and most Bond fans are men- is the honesty about sex that they see portrayed. . Women are different than men, or haven't you noticed? Any ideology of strict equality between the sexes is false by definition. What is needed is a philosophy of complimentary sexuality. Partnership between the genders can never be 1:1 for each and every dimension of life. Women deserve certain advantages and have certain limitations but you can say the same thing about men -about different matters. Whatever it takes for a woman to successfully raise children should be done for her, for example. Since this entails the need for a man to assume maximum financial responsibility in marriage, the social system should reflect this fundamental fact of life. Equal pay for equal work, sure, but only when the work is really equal and such things as interruptions in a woman's career for maternity is factored in. Breaks in employment necessarily have negative effects on professional competence levels, there is no way around this fact. . Any doctrine of strict equality between the sexes is stupid beyond belief. . James Bond reminds us that biology and destiny are strongly linked. . . This brings up a related issue, the place of women in Radical Centrism. About this there are two ways of answering at the question, "why are there so few women Radical Centrists?" . The first reply to make is that this depends on which kind of RC you are talking about. . The Quivira coalition is as Radical Centrist as it is possible to get, yet it is non-political and a different species than either the Centroids version, aka West Coast RC, which is the primary concern here, or the East Coast version epitomized by the New America Foundation and the Atlantic magazine. Quivira is all about non-political action to create more livable communities mostly in the mountain and interior West, and clean, productive environments. It is essentially local but can also be regional in the sense of reforms that may involve a cluster of counties, or environmental actions that may involve a watershed area. In any case, this is to discuss thousands of people scattered over about 20 states. To judge from photographs of Quivira meetings there is a gender mix that approaches 50 - 50 even if the majority consists of men. East Coast RC, which is bankrolled with millions of dollars, is also mixed. To guess from authors of articles and names of staff personnel, men outnumber women far more than 2:1 and the ratio may be more like 5:1. The much smaller Centroids version, at most 30 people scattered over a dozen states, an active core of no more than a half dozen, includes no women at all -not because of exclusion, but because no women have shown any interest. Regardless, to speak of political Radical Centrism, East Coast or West Coast, women are in a minority, or simply are not to be found. And there might be hardly any on the East Coast except for the money that is available. Cash has a way of attracting people to any cause. . Why is Radical Centrism unattractive to women? It would be nice to know because women are attractive to normal men and RC would surely grown far faster if women were a magnet for "the Cause." . My best guess is that women, about some things, are naturally conservative in ways that are far less common among men. "Show me the money" is women's unstated mantra. This is also a working principle among men but more often than not a better mantra is "show me the potential." Men seem far more likely to invest in opportunity even if it means deferred gratification than are women. And despite a track record of more than a decade of existence, RC.org, as we identify ourselves, still has little tangible to show for its efforts. A wealth of material has been written, and there is graphic art in the archives, but that remains pretty much the whole "product" even though we have discussed creation of an online RC newspaper and the possibility of a Radipedia. . Yet, as I see it anyway, nothing else has the promise of Radical Centrism for American politics -and even for personal philosophy. . What should be noted is that there are exceptions among women. Most prominently this refers to Marilyn Ferguson's 1980 book, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Her conception of Radical Centrism, which she called simply the "Radical Center," while it is different in various particulars to contemporary RC, is nonetheless similar in other respects, especially in her stress on educating the whole person (see page 287 for starters), denying any body-mind dualism (page 317), priority of social values over dollars and cents economics (page 327), and development of a new middle way that makes use of polarities rather than trying to smooth them out (page 381), is distinctive to modern Radical Centrism. Yet there was only one notable writer who followed Ferguson's lead, Mark Satin, who pursued an independent Radical Centrist course for many years until eyesight problems sidelined him not that long ago. Otherwise there has been no-one else. And no women. . This being the case there is no reason not to emphasize the value of James Bond as machismo warrior, so to speak. Radical Centrism does appeal to men and maybe the best thing for us to do is to make the most of it. Enough James Bond swagger and women are sure to materialize because, for all the crap manufactured by feminists, most women like real men, not wimpy Leftist males who basically are sissies. . . A few facts about Bond may be useful to know. This is from the Wikipedia article about the action hero: . The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born." . Bond's appearance derives from that of Hoagy Carmichael, a famous band leader, pianist, and songwriter who gave us four of the best known hits of all time, "Stardust", "Georgia on My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul." Carmichael also was a screen actor although none of the movies he acted in were box office sensations. The most well known were Johnny Angel of 1945, The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946, and Young Man with a Horn, 1950. But Ian Fleming seems to have enjoyed these films and found them inspirational in his writing. . The character of Fleming's novels derived from his experiences during WWII when he worked in foreign intelligence. Bond, the man, is a composite of several espionage agents Fleming knew in those years, all of whom were risk takers and good at what they did; they also were self-assured and brave. Each was a man among men. . The names and place names in Fleming's stories usually reflect people he knew in school, relatives in his family, and places he knew as a kid growing up. Women in Bond adventures were often named after damsels whom had been the author's lovers in past years. . Music for Bond films has sometimes become part of popular culture. Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better", Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only," are best known. . Soundtracks have been produced by musicians with the stature of Burt Bacharach. As a rule theme music reflects a Jazz idiom sometimes associated with Hoagy Carmichael although it is hard to generalize and much of the music is -or was at the time- cutting edge. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
