. Happy day when theory can be considered in the light of immediate actual events. Let’s consider, shall we? First the theory. At The New York Times’ The Stone, philosophers Gary Gutting and Michael P. Lynch responded separately to psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent book, The Righteous Mind, in which Haidt argues for the primacy of […]
Faking Foreign Policy
. From David Sanger in yesterday’s New York Times: But beyond his critique of Mr. Obama as failing to project American strength abroad, Mr. Romney has yet to fill in many of the details of how he would conduct policy toward the rest of the world, or to resolve deep ideological rifts within the Republican Party and […]
How We Lived On It (54) – “Scrabble with Matthews”
. The kind of poetic conceit etymologicon that delights in the service of deep feeling. Scrabble with Matthews BY DAVID WOJAHN (Poetry magazine October 2002) Jerboa on a triple: I was in for it, my zither on a double looking feeble as a “promising” first book. Oedipal & reckless, my scheme would fail: keep him a couple drinks ahead, […]
Subversive American Conservatism
. Much talk of “red lines” these days. There are fine lines, too. That means their crossing is not always clear, and people of good will who wish not themselves to appear the creators of ill will, the stokers of social distemper, will refrain from stating that others have already crossed and created and stoked. […]
Conspiracies
. I was talking with my class the other day about the methodology of fully-developed conspiracy theories and my general skepticism toward them. The undeveloped conspiracy theory works off a form of radical skepticism. How do you know we really landed on the moon? Have you been witness to any of the reality of the […]