Orwell and Contraception

From the April 2016 Print Edition

I n 1954, four years after George Orwell’s premature death from tuberculosis, his friend Christopher Hollis recalled: “One of the most interesting and deepest of Orwell’s beliefs was his belief in the profound evil of contraception.” Near the end of his life, Orwell expressed the view that . . . . Continue Reading »

Not Quite Nihilism

From the June/July 2015 Print Edition

Believing in absolutely nothing is harder than it looks. The ultra-skeptical ­Arcesilaus, head of the Platonic Academy in the third century b.c., tried his best: When confronted with the saying “I only know that I know nothing,” which was attributed to Socrates, he is supposed to have replied . . . . Continue Reading »