Freddie responds to my tweet on Iran, solidarity, and fashion: I could imagine that James’s refusal to show solidarity with the protesters (or at least his discomfort in the same) is the product of apathy or fear of the other. I think, applied generally and not specifically, that’s a . . . . Continue Reading »
A.O. Scott on the latest Woody Allen film: [ . . . ] Mr. Allen’s imagination has returned to Manhattan after that invigorating European sojourn afflicted by an extreme case of jet lag. In spite of a few up-to-date references — to Barack Obama, red states and gay people, for instance . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve said elsewhere that our vision of politics is being corrupted by a well-meaning but misguided epistemology of compassion: increasingly, we consider the person or group demanding a right to be the most trustworthy source of information about whether they deserve it. Anyone aggrieved, we . . . . Continue Reading »
The most important theme, I’d say, in the below. . . . . Continue Reading »
Since the mid-’80s, a long progression of doomsayers have warned that our declining market share in the patents-and-Ph.D.s business augurs dark times for American innovation. The specific threats have changed. It was the Japanese who would destroy us in the ’80s; now it’s China and . . . . Continue Reading »
Prof. John Hasnas is an excellent seminar leader, and, like Conor , I cheer on his clearsighted reiteration of the kinds of blindness to future or systemic consequences that a viscerally emotional approach to jurisprudence can bring. Yet Bastiat, whom Hasnas cites, seems to me vulnerable to perhaps . . . . Continue Reading »
Charles Taylor’s monumental (or at least huge) A Secular Age is, I suppose, old news already, but, as usual, it has taken me a long time to figure out how to undo Taylor with his own statements, and so now of course I have to share. Finally I’ve figured out this out, and I thought you . . . . Continue Reading »
David Brooks’ recent column on genius , which offered a portrait of the Mozart who excelled by logging his ten thousand hours of rote practice to get on sooner to the good stuff, seemed to gibe poorly with not only our romantic understanding of unique human excellence but our practical . . . . Continue Reading »
Do read Alan Jacobs on Obama at Notre Dame. Because the clump-of-cells argument is so crude and ‘final’, Obama, putting himself at the front of a long train, seeks refuge in bad postmodernity. Rather than overdetermining the abortion question as a question of science — and this, . . . . Continue Reading »
The latest issue of Modern Age (Winter 2009) is now available for general consumption and features a symposium on Remi Brague’s amazingly erudite book The Law of God . Besides a very fine lead contribution from Mark Shiffman (who blogs over at Front Porch Republic ) you’ll also find short . . . . Continue Reading »
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