A collection of 236 posts
Loury has taught at Brown University for over a decade, an institution where pleas for American patriotism are likely to be summarily dismissed. So why does he insist on making them?
Very few of us can actually deal with too much truth, so we rarely enquire too deeply into the justifications for our beliefs.
As Thomas Paine wrote, “To argue with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
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
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.