Cure-alls and Remedies
The internet can sometimes disappoint you, but sometimes it can be so very, very satisfying. When you’re quote-hunting these days, it’s usually just a disappointment. For instance: I have long loved a quotation from Gustave Flaubert that is translated as follows: “Be regular and ordinary in your life, so you can be violent and original…
What is the opposite of semantic satiation?
Rascal News is an exciting new venture in tabletop games journalism. Building on the 00s’ New Games Journalism for videogames, the editors/authors are Lin Codega, Rowan Zeoli, and Chase Carter. A recent interview with Kimi Hughes discusses “How Has Actual Play Changed Game Design?” Some sources and inspirations: Gen Con’s Ennies Elizsabeth De Kleer’s Vice Writing on D&D in prisons and Critical Distance’s Best writing on…
Nasreddin got himself into some serious legal trouble–the reasons are lost to time. Before the king sentenced him to death, Nasreddin asked for a delay because he was the only person in the world who could teach a horse to sing. The king was skeptical, but gave Nasreddin a horse and a year to teach…
I am teaching this course again. Every year it changes, and this year I hope it changes a lot. Here’s what I said about this today, our first day of classes: Any story about crime and punishment is bound to start with a few stylized facts. Until this year, I’ve started with the same number:…
The University of Toronto’s Sociology Department posts the reading lists for its PhD comprehensive exams.
For my money the notion of self-estrangement is the fundamental insight of psychology.
What worries me about Silicon Valley’s mindfulness stoicism is the sense that it combines all the worst elements of world mastery and manliness with the stoicism of the weak: acceptance of injustice, the embrace of a hostile natural (and social!) world to which we must conform, and a quietism that locates our agency in that compliance while praising it as mastery.
I wrote this little primer at the bottom of a long discussion of the Schocken Books editions of Arendt’s work, and then reposted it a while back on Facebook. It’s been popular, so I’m reposting it again here so I can easily link to it without feeding social media. Race-thinking precedes racism. Arendt’s analysis of…
“My child is dead, and someone must pay.” There are no words that make so much sense to me as these. People say “I can’t imagine what it would be like”—but I can. I do. It’s bound up with my love for my daughters, my joy at their growth, and my hopes for their future….