I have yet to read this book, but its blurb states:

Marlowe’s Counterfeit Profession presents the first comprehensive reading of the Marlowe canon in over a generation. The occasion for Patrick Cheney’s rereading is a primary discovery: Marlowe organized his canon around an “Ovidian” career model, or cursus, which turns from amatory poetry to tragedy to epic. Ovid had advertised this cursus only in his inaugural poem, the Amores, where its purpose was to counter the Virgilian cursus of pastoral, georgic, and epic. Marlowe was the first writer to translate the Amores, and thus the first to make the Ovidian cursus literally his own.

By discovering the original project organizing an otherwise fragmentary canon, Cheney aims to change the most basic lens through which critics have viewed Marlowe: ‘Shakespearean drama’. This lens cannot account for two of the most striking features of Marlowe’s canon: his scholarly use of translation and his writing of epic. Cheney proposes that a theatrical, Shakespearean model has prevented critics from discovering the original context within which Marlowe produced his art: a multimedia, multi-genre Spenserian model of Ovidian counter-nationhood.

I have yet to read this book, but its blurb suggests that it concerns an individual’s reaction against a rising imperium, be it Rome or England.

While Marlowe was a fascinating character in his own right ( too fascinating for me to discuss right now ), the image of Ovid as standing against Imperial tyranny appears to be most apt to our present discussion.

I’ll agree that the Repubic, at least in its capacity as hegemon of the Mediterranean world, was dead. But query whether Rome could have continued as hegemon when faced with not only internal political discord but external military defeat. This sort of setback not only would have demoralized Rome itself but also emboldened the East.

Ceasar was able to leverage a continuing Roman military expansion into an empire. Minus that sort of leverage, I suggest perhaps disintegration would have ensued. I cannot tell whether the Republic, in some serious sense, would have survived this implosion; but that would have been material only for central Italy. The rest of the Mediterranean wuold have proceeded elsewhere.

So it can be done, even at death’s door organisations can come back from the brink and onto success.

The concept behind the military change is that, in some sunny day in the future, an administration has the competence and guts to really tackle the issue. Rather than be prescriptive on the changes necessary, just clear out the deadwood, put in a good number of competent people (and I’d recall good retirees as well) and then place the organisation under extreme stress. It will rebuild itself better than before. This is using an organic approach, rather than an engineering one.

This is the theme of my series on Arrows in the Eagle’s claw — solutions to 4GW.
Part I: describing the different types of solutions
Part II: about 4GW analysts

Take cars. US workers seem to be able to build Japanese cars just as well as anyone else can. I don’t see Toyota, Honda, etc shutting down their plants. Its only the US owned companies that are failing. This gives a clue to the future turning around of the US, the scientists are amongst the greatest in the world, the engineers equal to the best in the world, the workers easily as good as anyone else.

So, why is the management so miserable. Some areas of the economy seem to able to consistently produce good management (Google, Appple, the commercial parts of Boeing, etc). Why not other areas? Why is the top levels in the US in Govt, military, finanace, health and much of manufacturing so bad? The answer to that question and the strategies to change it will be the key for the future.

There is hope in the existing and coming challanges (disasters?). Periods of high stress means that competent people come to the fore, though it may take time and there are dangers to this process. Darwinianism means that survival will depend on people that can deliver, not politic. As Stafford Beer once said “you can be acceptable or competent, not both”.

This is the strength of free societies. The SOB’s that rattle the status quo and are barely tolerated when things are going well are usually the same people who save the day when it all turns to custard. The Soviets jailed or killed all their talented people, so that they finally lost the adaptive capacity to survive as a system.

The greatest danger to the US now is if it becomes oppressive and moves towards a semi-totalitarian State, locking into power the clowns that got the place into the mess it is in now and locking up the very people with the talent, drive and vision to fix things. If this happens regeneration could take decades or even generations, rather than the (at most) 10 years it only really needs to rebuild. With good leadership hard times will bring out the best in people (and the converse is true as well).

Take a thought experiment: this being a military related site, with long discussions about the poor quality of the US military (and at DI, CDI, et al). Many discussions abound on how to fix it, none seem to work. There is a simple solution, fire every current General, cut the budget by 75%, pull out of retirement some proven people (e.g. Van Piper), trawl through the organisation for the radicals and promote them, get back the radicals who have given up and left, then let Darwinianism do the rest. In 10 years you will have one of the best militaries in the world.

“Elections were more vicious in the 19th C.” Agreed! As in this little ditty about Grover Cleveland’s illegitmate child.

Moma, moma, where’s my pa?
Gone to Washington, ha, ha, ha.

This ditty shows how we have changed. Cleveland may have accepted responsibliity for another’s baby — despite the damage to his career — because the other possible fathers were married. In today’s scandal, John Edwards *might* have had a married associate accept responsibility to avoid damage to his (Edward’s) career.

Also: I recommed reading Foust’s website, The Conjecturer.

I agree with you that the era of the rational voter seems to have passed, but I also wonder if it ever really was there. I mean, Presidential candidates and political parties were far more vicious to each other in the 19th century; if anything, we’re too tame, if you can believe it.

hunblestudentofthemarkets: the data I have seen shows little impact of the tax code on the distribution of income — and far less on that of wealth. The data does suggest (by itself it is not complete enough to prove) increasing concentration of income in the US. But the causes of this are disputed; I know of no expert saying that tax code changes are a major driver of this. Tax changes might reduce this, although history suggests this is more likely in theory than practice.

In reply to some of the above comments: if you do not believe in the American people, there is no point believing in Democracy. Also, no people have ever had access to uncontrolled information as do present Americans. “Increased propaganda” as a factor is very difficult for me to believe.

And even if this were true, so what? Ignorance and apathy are choices, both incompatible with freedom.

In Europe the dream of an engineer is to get a good job with Siemens. In America the dream of an engineer is to start another Google. In order for Google to succeed the old giants must be allowed to fail and that’s where much of the rest of the world fails.

Unfortunately, the recent changes in the tax code under Bush II is tilting power to the current holders of capital and thus entrenching the established interests. At the margin, these changes and others (e.g. making it much more difficult for foreign students to get visas) are eroding American competitiveness.

If allowed to continue, America will wake up one day and realize that its glory will have passed.