The Manifold

Last night I dreamt a phrase. It repeated itself over and over in my dreams and I woke up with it imprinted in my mind. I repeated it, "You need to change the manifold."

I don't know what a manifold is, but I've heard the word before, related to a car engine. Still, I have no idea what an engine manifold looks like, or what it does, and why it would need to be changed. I've had my brakes changed, and even my muffler. One time the catalytic convertor was stolen from under my car. But I have no idea what a manifold is.   

According to Google an engine manifold is related to the car's exhaust system, typically a series of  pipes that feed into one, or vice versa, one pipe that feeds into a series of others. The term manifold comes from the combination of two Old English words that mean "many" and "repeated". In the sense of intake and output pipes of an engine, a manifold can either separate or combine the products of chemical interactions produced by the engine. An intake manifold evenly distributes the combustion mixture (air and fuel) to optimize the efficiency and performance of the engine. An output manifold feeds the exhaust system, separating the liquid residue from the fumes. So why is my subconscious dream-mind thinking that I have to change my manifold? My car engine seems to be working quite well, which in fact was something I had on my mind during our recent 30 hours of driving to and from Cape Breton. I was thinking about the long drive, dreading the possibility of being stranded on the highway somewhere in the middle of sparsely inhabited New Brunswick (not that there's anything wrong with beautiful New Brunswick.) Fortunately, the manifold (and all the other engine parts of my car) worked smoothly. 

But maybe the manifold of my subconscious had something else in mind, other than engine related. 

Further research reveals there's another kind of manifold. A mathematical concept used in geometry, physics and topology. It refers to the depiction of 2D and 3D space. I'm no mathematician - something my subconscious mind knows just as well as my conscious one. The simplest explanation of a manifold that I can grasp (from Mathematics for Dummies of course) is that it's "a curved space that is locally flat." The example of the Earth is given, where the curvature of the planet can be illustrated as a series of points - that's the 'curved space' part - but when you get close to it, zooming in like the part we're standing on, it appears flat. Planes, surfaces and shapes are described as manifolds, which can be further described in mathematical terms as well. That's about all I am capable of telling you about that. The gist of a topological manifold seems to be that what it describes is a question of perspective. The nature of a manifold at the 'local' (small) level, is different from the larger fuller picture of the shape.

So what does any of this have to do with the manifold of my dream? Add to the above, in my mental universe, that I've recently discovered and started exploring the ideas of the Indian sage Ramana Maharshi about non-duality and the practice of self-inquiry. Further add that I've been reading Plato's Apology ("a life unexamined is not worth living") and Phaedrus ("things are not always what they seem.") And layer on top of that, thoughts about the "I" of the mind, and it's relationship to the model of the outside world that we build internally in order to conceptualize the narrative of our existence: The so-called 'theatre of the mind' that is the stage of our consciousness projected onto the external world in order that we may function (and survive) within it. As the saying goes, "We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are." I'm thinking about how to better experience the world as it is - to "Let It Be" as the Beatles sang. 

So maybe that's what my mind had in mind when it told me I needed to "change the manifold." The manifold was not only mechanical and mathematical, but also spiritual and philosophical. It's the manifold of existence, the shape of life in which we operates on both a day to day (local) level and a universal level. It's a manifold of consciousness that, like a machine of pistons and valves, has sensory inputs and perceptual outputs. A manifold that results in greater presence of mind, and produces a sense of gratitude and appreciation that opens us to each other and the experience of being; the I am-ness of existence. 

Lightning strike

Do you need a lightning strike

to see in the dark?

*

When the movie is over

do you not sit still for a moment

in front of the blank white screen

to recover yourself? 

*

Do the dog,

the cow, the bat,

and the whale

inhabit the same world?

*

Does the medicine 

that alters the mind

not enter through the belly?

*

Is there ever choice 

beyond ones limited range

of understanding?

*

Are not the past and future

creations of imagination?

*

Is not the conflict

between what is

and what you desire

the source of your confusion?

*

Do you live in a fortress

or a field?

*

Does breaking it apart

ever truly provide understanding

for how it works together?

*

What is the name

of the game that you play?

The Debt

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You will pay the debt

For the life that you get.

It’s a matter of interest

The heart compounds.

You are a loan of flesh and bone.

And when the body is done

Interest is accrued in breath,

Until all is foreclosed in death.

Just as you were made,

The debt will be repaid.

Terms and conditions

Said and unsaid.

Agreement tacit or willed,

Signed by you, 

Filed away and forgot,

Until the day it comes due.

A Nuclear Iran

Iran is on the cusp of having nuclear weapons. I think it's fair to say at this point it's inevitable.

I've said for years now that the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was worth keeping. Under the agreement Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. It also included regular monitoring. 

I've disagreed with Netanyahu, who fought against the agreement, and then with Trump for withdrawing from the agreement. But now all that is moot. The agreement is now for all intents and purposes dead. There is no going back. 

A little background: The only country in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons is the United Stated in 1945, and they did it twice. Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel (undeclared), and North Korea. In total, the global nuclear stockpile is estimated to be 13,000 weapons. Nuclear weapons have only ever been used rhetorically by the nuclear powers for the past almost 80 years. Most recently, we've seen how effective that can be with Putin in his war of aggression curtailing the West's level of military support for Ukraine.

Reality check: A few years ago North Korea achieved the status of a nuclear power. Before Trump was exchanging love-letters with the dear leader Kim Jong-Un, I remember experts saying that the greatest threat to the world was a nuclear North Korea. Well, that happened. Haven't heard anything about it lately. I wonder why. Is the world any less secure? Well probably, but only because more nuclear weapons anywhere will always raise global risk of a mistake. Now, many experts are saying that the greatest threat to the world is a nuclear Iran. That would certainly raise security concerns in the same way. But let's face reality. If any regime, no matter how malign and autocratic, is hell-bent on achieving nuclear weapons, it's impossible to stop them. North Korea was hellbent on getting nuclear weapons, starving its impoverished population in the process. It did so not to strike its bitter enemy the US preemptively, but because the regime is fundamentally paranoid and defensive, like all brittle autocratic regimes. Much the same can be said about Iran. 

Iran is slightly different from North Korea. It is an openly stated ideological pillar of the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khameini to destroy Israel. But the threat isn't that as soon as it gets a nuclear missile that can deliver catastrophic destruction to Tel-Aviv they will launch it. They know that Israel already possesses nukes aimed at Tehran, so any preemptive move against Israel would be nuclear suicide. It's true, as most people by now understand, the ideology of jihadism glorifies suicidal death in the act of destroying infidels. But that's only for the lowly expendable soldiers of radical Islam. It would make no sense for the leadership of the caliphate, in an effort to create and strengthen a caliphate, to take an action that would destroy the caliphate and its leaders. Therefore, in this sense, even they are politically rational.    

As with most iron-fisted dictatorships, the Islamic regime's strategy against Israel is long-term. We see it today in the implementation of what is being called the 'Ring of Fire'. The goal is to surround Israel with armed proxies that will engage in constant hostilities to make life in Israel unlivable, essentially choking the life out of the country in a war of attrition. Nuclear weapons would only be used as a political tool, with threats and posturing, and of course as the ultimate insurance policy against existential military attack. In other words standard practice.  

No one should cheer a nuclear Iran, but we should also not be in denial about it. Nothing can stop malign regimes from eventually getting nuclear weapons, and the most malign paranoid autocracies are the most hungry for them. We know that to oppose such regimes by saber-rattling doesn't work, and imposing sanctions only has a marginal impact. Those tactics only tend to make already paranoid and defensive regimes even more paranoid and hungry for a nuclear insurance policy. Treating such regimes as actors in good faith is also fruitless. Negotiations with these regimes only tends to kick the inevitable down the road, as the JCPOA did. 

The only realistic and effective way that a nuclear Russia, a nuclear North Korea, or a nuclear Iran, can be defeated is from within. It will not happen quickly, and it won't happen militarily. We in the west need to use our economic advantage to apply long-term, concerted pressure against these regimes, and encourage the politicization of internal opposition by providing access to resources for them to expand their operations. We need to reward moderates and maginalize and isolate extremists. Iran has many vulnerabilities that can be exploited, chiefly a new generation of millions and millions of modern Iranians who despise the regime. But it will take time. Our greatest weakness, stemming partly from the relative frequency of government turnover in the west, is our impatience and inability to think and act strategically over the medium and long-term. And we make our own position weaker when we support our own divisive leaders who undermine our international alliances. We should acknowledge that sometimes our political leaders have helped our enemies by leveraging nuclear fears to consolidate their political domestic support. Those politicians should not be rewarded for such rhetoric at the ballot box.  

Speech or Expression

I may have mentioned that I've been making my way through Allan Bloom's 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind. The book is subtitled How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. I graduated university in 1986, so Bloom was essentially talking directly to people like me and my generation. Another reason I was attracted to the book at this time relates to the recent spate of anti-Semitism and moral confusion expressed on college campuses. I have the sense that Bloom's observations made almost 40 years ago have not only not been heeded, but maybe worse, have accelerated in the impoverishment of American morals and exacerbated America's political undoing. 

First, an anecdote to illustrate how I'd been infected with the virus Bloom was diagnosing in his book. After graduating McGill in 1986 with a BA degree in political science I attended a school called Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationale (IUHEI) in Geneva, Switzerland to obtain a graduate diploma in History and International Politics (like an MA). One of my teachers in a seminar course I took called 'The International Political System' was a fellow named Leon Gordenker, whose regular gig was as a senior Professor of Political Science at Princeton. The seminar surveyed the institutions created during the post-WW2 period designed to promote international peace and cooperation mainly through the United Nations. During the very first seminar professor Gordenker had us go around the table introducing ourselves, saying what country we came from, and naming the university we had graduated from (there were 300 post-graduate students at IUHEI from 70 different countries). Then he initiated a general discussion about international peace and cooperation in theory and practice. These were smart, well-educated young people, mostly from Ivy League American and elite European universities, you'd think they'd have something to say on the topic. I recall a lot of dumb silence. It's true Gordenker was an intimidating figure. A stately, gray-haired man with an athletic-build, piercing blues eyes and an air of steely seriousness. His reputation preceded him as a world renowned expert in his field who had served as an advisor to multiple US Presidents. No one risked offering an uninformed opinion for fear of being permanently marked by Gordenker as an ignorant fool. Rotchin to the rescue - because for some reason I have always found extended silences agonizingly painful. 

The question Gordenker had posed to us was about whether or not the international system as we understood it had successfully promoted 'peace, security and cooperation'. I piped up. "Well it depends on what you mean by 'cooperation'." Everyone looked dumbfounded at the Canadian foolish enough to speak. "How so," responded the respected professor, advisor to world leaders, with a doubtful smile. Rotchin, being his most clever, answered with a question, "Well, isn't war a form of cooperation?" I could sense how the silence in the room had instantly thickened with collective puzzlement, as if I had uttered a Buddhist koan in a room full of bankers. Gordenker glared at me, his smile getting wider. It was clear he saw me as an unprotected target. He took aim and fired. "Well aren't you a relativist.” He may as well have labeled me a warmongering crypto-fascist. I think I heard chuckles, but I'm not sure, because I was preoccupied with the wave of heat that suddenly swept over my entire body and formed fat beads of sweat on my forehead. "Totally," I muttered, not knowing what else to say, adding to my public humiliation. More nervous chuckles from the group. I sunk into my seat, hoping to somehow magically disappear from view. From that moment on I knew I'd be marked by the other students, and even worse by Gordenker, as an idiot. I had embarrassed my university and my country on the international stage. It felt that way anyway.

It turns out that I was a proud exponent of the corrosive relativism described in Bloom's book. Until Gordenker skewered me with his rapier retort that day, I hadn't the slightest clue I'd been shaped into a gelatinous relativist by my education, it had been so deeply and completely ingrained. The Gordenker moment stays with me, even today, and the feeling that I needed desperately to grow up and get a spine. And not just me but the whole world needs to get a spine, by which I mean acknowledge that there are enduring truths and moral standards that we must hold in the highest esteem and aspire toward.    

Bloom's book is not an easy read, so it's remarkable that it was a bestseller at the time. Maybe readers back then had an idea there was something amiss. The book is an odd admixture of memoir, pop-sociology and psychology, and heavy-duty political philosophy. Mostly it's a critique of university education and contemporary American values-based culture. Too often Bloom wants to demonstrate his erudition and his ability as a prose stylist, which sometimes obscures his point rather than clarifies it. Still, it's worth the effort. There are plenty of lines that I've underlined for repeated reading and reference, and of course, there’s the overall message of the book - that we suffer from an untreated sclerotic disease of moral relativism which has atrophied in the culture and body politic to the point of intolerance - that's profoundly prescient today.   

Bloom has a dislike for 'rights' based politics, culture and language. He talks about how our claim of rights is thrown around and abused so loosely - we have 'rights' to everything under the sun - and this serves to show how meaningless the idea has become, endemic of nihilism, intellectual laziness and a lack of standards. Related to this, about two thirds of the way through the book, Bloom makes an intriguing distinction between 'Freedom of Speech' and 'Freedom of Expression', terminology used interchangeably. He notes that young people tend to talk more about freedom of expression than freedom of speech, and he believes this preference relates to a certain distinction between expression and speech. Expression is a broader term. It is associated with the arts, everything from painting to dance, because one expresses feelings, while speech is more meant to convey thought and ideas. We all naturally have feelings, so expression is more democratic and egalitarian. Speech, by contrast, requires consideration and forethought, and in this sense has to reach certain standards of coherence. This distinction between expression and speech resonated with me, perhaps in ways Bloom hadn't necessarily considered, but I think is consistent with his meaning, and especially as it relates to public discourse nowadays. The ascendency of expression rights, the notion that our value as human beings principally rests on the way we feel about things and the rights those feelings confer, rather than on thought and the pursuit of reasoned truth, is why, I believe, universities have developed into crucibles of moral confusion, intolerance and anti-Semitism, that was manifest on campus this year.         

And not only do we see it manifest in the universities, but it also permeates our public political discourse. Former Republican arch political strategist Rick Wilson has said that if the Democrats want to win elections they have to realize that voters don't actually give a damn about policy. All they really care about is how the candidate makes them feel. Nobody knew Obama. He had virtually no political record when he appeared on the national scene seemingly out of nowhere. But nobody cared, because when he spoke he made them feel hopeful and optimistic. They voted for him without any coherent idea of how he'd govern. The same goes for Trump. They might have known who he was from television, but the fact that he had no political experience whatsoever had no impact on his electability. In fact it turned out to be an advantage. All that mattered was how Trump made them feel, aggrieved and angry. Now Kamala seems to have learned the language of political expression. She's heeding Rick's sage advice, and hardly ever talks about policy. Kamala and her new Vice-Presidential running mate Tim Walz are appealing to a sense joy and optimism in the electorate, like Obama did. I think Bloom would understand our current politics as the outcome of narrowing American minds - he uses the word 'soul' but doesn't mean it in a religious sense, rather as that aspect and spirit in human nature that is ahistorical and enduring. The more the soul shrinks the larger our whims and feelings loom. Bloom would understand the tribalism and the attraction to populist demagogues and the cult of personality in our politics as symptoms of the disease he was diagnosing in his book. Bloom's prescription to reverse the ravages of our illness of chronic moral relativism is education in the humanities and the classics. One thing we know for sure is that isn't happening any time soon.  

Our Cottage By The Lake

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I lie on my couch on the verandah, 

She on hers inside. We read our books, hers

About a daughter who suddenly falls

Into a coma and a mother's worry, written

By the mother biding time until the inevitable arrives. 

My book is about political philosophy - 

The meaning of the good life.

I get up from my couch, walk past her to the kitchen

To fill my glass as if everything's already been said.

The air is August thick;  

The fan's head whizzes back and forth NOOO NOOO.

Sailboats slice toward us and away through pixelating waves,

Fishing boats look for the right spot to anchor and wait. 

Thirty years we've done this together, or some version of it. 

Our kids say this is still their favourite place in the whole world

As they make lives elsewhere. 

My wife drifts off to sleep,

Her book splayed on her chest like a weary bird.

I sip my water, turn another page.

When she wakes my wife will say,

'I just had the weirdest dream',

and I'll ask, 'Was I in it?'

The Weight of Medals

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In the Middle-East

where games are played 

with bombs and bullets

a missile turns a soccer field

into a mass grave

for children.

A continent away

in the City of Lights

games are played 

with pistols, bows and arrows,

hammers, javelins and shot, 

epee, foil and sabre,

weapons of war 

from another time. 

On TV

I am watching a compatriot

step up on a podium

to accept her medal

for swimming

something called the Butterfly -

the anthem is played

as the flag is raised.

On another channel

I see a prisoner swap 

between America and Putin's Russia;

I knew my country would never abandon me

says the journalist

in the arms

of his mom and dad.

I knew my country would never abandon me 

says the trained-assassin

his chest pinned

with the hero's medal.

Games of Power

At the same time as we are watching the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris, we are watching the far more worrisome and dangerous game of power playing out in the Middle-East. The teams are Israel and the United States on one side, Iran and its terrorist proxies Hamas, Hizbollah and the Houthis on the other.   

Israel has just scored two huge points in these power games, the assassinations of Hamas political chief Ismael Haniya in Iran, and Hizbollah's most senior military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. This follows Israel's assassination of Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza, as well as a massive attack 1500 kilometers away on Hodeidah Port in Yemen in response to a fatal Houthi drone attack in Tel-Aviv. All of these operations were meant as much to send a message - namely to showcase Israel's superior intelligence and military capabilities - as to eliminate the leadership of the enemy. These games of power being played need to be seen within the wider framing of why October 7th happened in the first place, and that is the loss of Israeli military regional deterence and the perception of weakness by Iran and its terrorist partners. Power always comes down to a test of will and capacity to inflict damage. In this context, what Israel has done over the last few weeks has been both devastating and humiliating to Iran. In particular the assassination of Haniyah, in Teheran, where he was a guest of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini whom he had been with just hours before. The message Israel delivered to Khameini was heard loud and clear, we can get anyone, anywhere, including you. Khameini took the brazenness of Israel's operation personally, and ordered an attack in response, so one is coming for sure. But the damage reputationally to Iran has been done. No response can restore the impression of weakness. The US has reportedly moved 12 warships into the region, and there is word that diplomatic back-channel communications have gone into high gear through China to warn Iran to moderate its response. Israel's bold move also signals that operations in Gaza are winding down and forces and resources are being re-deployed for war up north. And perhaps the most notable part of all this? Is anyone talking about the Palestinians? No. Now that the college encampments in North America have been dismantled, the truth about these power games is surfacing in the media: It was never about the Palestinians, they were as expendable as pawns on a chessboard. 

Games of power, as opposed to wars for territory and resources (which obviously have a power aspect to them), do not typically erupt into all out war. Their sole objective is international re-alignment ie. to demonstrate the strength or weakness of leadership, military capacity, and international alliances. The current competition in the Middle-East is not much of a contest in this respect. Israel and the United States are in another class, and Iran knows it. A wider war is in no one's interest, but much less so, Iran's. Iran and its proxies has the capacity to devastate Israel militarily but not destroy it. Israel and America have the capacity to send Iran back to the Stone Age and potentially set off a process that could fracture the country and topple an unpopular represssive regime. The Ayatollahs in Teheran understand this. 

All this having been said, can signals get crossed? Yes. Can the ladder of escalation, attack and retaliation, take on its own momentum and be difficult to stop? Yes. Could one side make a move (like the unintended bombing of a soccer field in a Druze town that killed more than a dozen children) that  generates emotions that have a life of their own? Yes. That's why this is such a dangerous game. So far Israel and Iran have been able to measure their responses. But that's not any guarantee it will continue.