Balancing the universality of humanism with one’s specific ethnic heritage

I found this interesting short clip of the versatile physician, writer, director, documentarian, comedian, and public intellectual Jonathan Miller, who died in 2019 at the age of 85, talking with Dick Cavett about how he views his own Jewish ethnicity. I found completely relatable his views about subordinating the ethnic and religious heritage into which he was born to a more universal sense of humanity.

The exchange is well worth watching for anyone trying to navigate rejecting ethnic and religious sectarianism and embracing solidarity with the human race as a whole, without giving the impression that they are disowning or are even ashamed of being born into a specific heritage. As he said, the only time he feels it necessary to tell anyone that he is Jewish is when they turn out to be an antisemite.
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Steve Coogan blasts the UK Labour Party

Back in 1961, the ground-breaking British sketch comedy revue Beyond the Fringe featuring Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore took British comedy by storm, breaking old patterns and inspiring a new generation of comedians including the Monty Python troupe.

In the opening sketch, they had a commentary on America.

At the 2:57 mark, Jonathan Miller explains to Dudley Moore, who is on the eve of a trip to the US, the two-party system here, saying “They’ve got the Republican party, you see, which is the equivalent of our Conservative party and then there’s the Democratic party which is the equivalent of our Conservative party.”

That joke worked in 1961 because at that time there were significant differences between the Conservative and Labour parties in the UK, which were not reflected in the Republican and Democratic parties here.. It would not work as well now because, thanks to the neoliberalism of Tony Blair and now Keir Starmer, the Labour party is becoming indistinguishable from the Conservatives.

Actor Steve Coogan has blasted Starmer and the Labour party of betraying its supporters and warned that when angry voters see that neither party is looking after their interests, they will move towards Nigel Farage’s Reform party. His analysis rings true to what we see in the US as well.
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Trump must be looking like a paper tiger to China

It seems to be the conventional wisdom that the tariff war between the US and China is not good for anybody, least of all the two countries concerned. And yet, here we are with China having tariffs of 125% on US goods and the US having tariffs of 145% on Chinese goods, rates that would have been thought utterly preposterous before this trade war started. Trump must have thought that China would quickly come to him seeking to make a deal, but they have not, even though the tariffs will undoubtedly hurt their economy and their long range plans, according to Yasheng Huang, an expert on China who teaches at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management.

I think it’s clear they [China] don’t want a trade war. Their economy is struggling, and the export sector has been one of its few bright spots. Last year, they had almost a trillion-dollar trade surplus. The property sector is not doing well. The technology sector is doing well, but it’s not really adding that much to G.D.P. growth. So this was purely a trade war that was initiated by the United States, and not by China.

I don’t think they want to cave in. That would make the Chinese leadership look very bad. And, moreover, I don’t think they trust the Trump Administration. Even if they were to give concessions this time around, I don’t think they believe that the concessions would hold. So there are multiple motivations on their part not to quickly come to an agreement if that agreement requires significant concessions.
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I think, if I had to place a bet, my bet is that they still want to continue with the current model. They don’t trust Trump. They don’t believe that his tariffs are credible. And I have to say I agree with them. And they think that he is going to make concessions. If he is going to make concessions, then I think they prefer to stay with the current model, which is a lot of investments, a lot of production, and then relying on the export markets. I think that’s their preferred option.

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Larry David skewers Bill Maher for normalizing Trump

Bill Maher was invited by Trump to have dinner with him at the White House and afterwards said that privately Trump was different from the way he presented himself in public, that he was ‘gracious and measured’ and had a sense of humor.

Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher praised President Trump after their late March meeting at the White House, describing him as “gracious and measured.” 
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The talk show host emphasized that he did not turn “MAGA” and “to the President’s credit, there was no pressure to” do so during their March 31 meeting.   

“Just for starters, he laughs. I’ve never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including to himself, and it’s not fake, believe me. As a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it,” Maher said.
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The longtime comedian said he felt like he did not need to walk on “eggshells” while speaking to Trump, something, in his view, would be unlikely around former Democratic Presidents Obama and Clinton.

“I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days,” Maher said, later telling his viewers that Trump is different in public compared to his persona in a private setting.
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“Trump was gracious and measured. And why he isn’t that in other settings, I don’t know, and I can’t answer, and it’s not my place to answer.”

Maher is of course one of those people who calls himself a liberal even as he increasingly moves rightward, claiming smugly that he is being sensible and has not changed but that it is liberals and Democrats who have moved too far to the left and are going crazy.

Larry David was having none of this. In a hilarious New York Times op-ed titled My Dinner With Adolf, he skewers Maher without mentioning him by name.

I will not quote from David’s piece because one should really read the whole thing.