First Things RSS Feed - Irving Louis Horowitz https://www.firstthings.com/author/irving-louis-horowitz en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:57:09 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/irving-louis-horowitz 60 Assaulting Arendt https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/02/assaulting-arendt https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/02/assaulting-arendt Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500 The honorable tradition of criticism carries with it a displeasing aspect. This is especially the case in the higher academic circles. Reputations are too frequently made when pygmies stand on the shoulders of giants and when iconic and sometimes heroic figures are symbolically cut down to size. The theory is that, if the critic saws off the legs of those who have managed to stand tall for generations, the midgets can win handily in face-to-face combat with the dead. This is not to deny that even the most talented are sometimes in error; criticism is a useful art. It is, however, a derivative art. Criticism finds acceptance in a culture that measures success by small errors rather than by large-scale successes.

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]]> Assaulting Arendt (footnoted version) https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/02/assaulting-arendt-footnoted-version https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/02/assaulting-arendt-footnoted-version Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500 The honorable tradition of criticism carries with it a displeasing aspect. This is especially the case in the higher academic circles. Reputations are too frequently made when pygmies stand on the shoulders of giants and when iconic and sometimes heroic figures are symbolically cut down to size. The theory is that, if the critic saws off the legs of those who have managed to stand tall for generations, the midgets can win handily in face-to-face combat with the dead. This is not to deny that even the most talented are sometimes in error; criticism is a useful art. It is, however, a derivative art. Criticism finds acceptance in a culture that measures success by small errors rather than by large-scale successes.

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]]> A Third Way? https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/05/a-third-way https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/05/a-third-way Tue, 01 May 1990 00:00:00 -0400 Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation
by alan wolfe
university of california press, 361 pages, $25

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