A collection of 233 posts
Brodsky said that when confronted by boredom we should “exact full look at the worst.” He said “When hit by boredom, go for it. Let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom.”
There’s nothing wrong with teaching Western Civilization or the Western classics alongside other cultural traditions. At the same time, the way Classics used to be taught is gone for good.
“Every human being worships something,” we’re told, whether it’s the movement of the planets, alien civilizations, a political cause, science, or even reason.
Listen onSpotify Associate editor Toby Young talks to Jeff McMahan, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford and co-founder of the Journal of Controversial Ideas, a new academic periodical in which contributors will be given the option of publishing their papers pseudonymously. Professor McMahan talks about why he believes the journal
The claim that the work of postmodern philosophers is a continuation of Marxism by other means is quite strange, both philosophically and politically.
No human institution can ever secure a definitive interpretation of goodness, and it is usually the ones that claim to have done so that betray their own purpose.
How much longer people are going to listen to these modern soothsayers. At this point, they are naked lobbyists for entrenched special interests.
Alternative explanations that focus on the freely made choices of men versus women are usually spoken of only in hushed tones.
The claim that “all politics is identity politics,” is not coherent. On one reading, it says something that’s true but irrelevant. And on another reading, it says something that’s false, but would be highly relevant if true.
The main problem with the quest for purity is that it is fine in one’s own home or church but it becomes a problem in the public square, which—by virtue of being inherently diverse and competitive—is configured to resist the wish to be pure.
Professor Hanlon argues that, far from independently causing Trump, many postmodern theorists can actually help us understand the rise of Trumpism.
Suspicious reading is applied to any and every medium as well as every form of individual expression.
The anti-theoretical tone of the service-learning movement, implicit even in the rhetoric of moderates, makes this worry reasonable.
Marx endures not for his relevance, but because his dense writings offer endless material for academic sermonising.
We must therefore be wary of social or political arrangements that offer us equality of status, without the corresponding burden of self-reflection and improvement.