Cure-alls and Remedies
A showdown of sorts with Jonathan Haidt is brewing on The Stone. Michael P. Lynch gives us ” A Vote for Reason .” The judgment that reasons play no role in judgment is itself a judgment. And Haidt has defended it with reasons. So if those reasons convince me that his theory is true, then…
This weekend’s revelation that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple and Foxconn was partly fabricated has led some bloggers and journalists to return to the question of how we should interpret the relationship between something called “facts” and something Daisey is calling “higher truth.” This distinction seems spurious to me, though we often hear it described…
I tried to get tickets after I saw this New York Times piece , but no luck. “I am not throwing away my shot” is just an awesomely perfect refrain: it refers to ‘reserving and throwing away’ the shot in a pistol duel: deliberately firing into the ground in order to make a merely symbolic gesture…
Peter Levine’s post on Havel’s 1992 speech in Poland reminded me that I had planned to do some writing about Havel before he died. The New York Times titled his obituary ” A Melding of the Artist’s Politics and the Politician’s Art ,” and yet it focuses only on his writing career and offers not…
I’m taking stock of my reading. Almost every morning, I wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and log on to the internet. Unless I still need to prepare my class notes, I’ll generally click through what I’ve come to think of as a standard set of sites to stay abreast of news and ideas:…
A month without internet ? He writes like it’s an addiction, and it probably is: constant stimulation, freedom from reflection, instantaneous access to the opinions of others. Why think yourself? Why bother to formulate a position that’s anything other than a reaction to the latest rant? During weeks two and three, I watched the first…