On poltergeists, the tooth fairy, God-shaped holes, surprise arrivals at Pearly Gates, and 42.… Read the rest
How Many Kinds of Truth Are There? 
Feb 23rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Does the CIA know it when it sees it? Do UN inspectors? Truth commissions? Journalists, spies?… Read the rest
Down With Indifference
Feb 22nd, 2003 9:09 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s been an interesting convergence lately of worry about passion and its absence, detachment and its dangers, or on the other hand about the intrusiveness and intolerance of passion and engagement. The two stances – passion and dispassion – have been exemplified in two thinkers: Richard Dawkins and Louis Menand.
David Bromwich took Louis Menand to task in the New Republic in January for his lack of a ruling passion or driving enthusiasm, excitement or anger, for being too easily unimpressed, too cool, too responsible and distant.
… Read the restThe idea of a radical break in thought is alien to Menand. The leveling of distinctions also serves as an intellectual labor-saving device. Nothing is very new; nothing, maybe, ever was; nothing matters
What Working Class?
Feb 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
No fantasy is too extreme when one wants to build some luxury flats.… Read the rest
A Devil’s Chaplain Reviewed
Feb 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Kenan Malik says ‘an obsessive concern with reason seems to me to be a virtue not a vice.’… Read the rest
Ringing Tone Provokes Suspicion
Feb 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
John Gray reviews Daniel Dennett’s Freedom Evolves, and says the obsession with freedom is a leftover from Christianity.… Read the rest
Passions Rule
Feb 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Scholars in different fields are looking at emotion. (The list of books at the end of this article inexplicably omits Simon Blackburn’s Ruling Passions.)… Read the rest
Orwell Again
Feb 20th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hitchens, Menand, Wieseltier go to buffets over the Meaning of Orwell.… Read the rest
Analogies Don’t Work
Feb 19th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Historians consider various popular analogies for the Iraq situation, and point out the bad fit.… Read the rest
CHE Links on Michigan Case
Feb 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Chronicle of Higher Education gives links to articles relevant to University of Michigan’s race-conscious admissions policies, a Supreme Court issue.… Read the rest
Menand on Orwell
Feb 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Louis Menand says ‘Big Brother’ and ‘doublethink’ and ‘thought police’ are popular phrases because they prop up slippery slope arguments.… Read the rest
Miserable Apathy
Feb 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Leon Wieseltier tears a strip off Louis Menand’s perspectivism.… Read the rest
Playing the Lone Rebel Part
Feb 18th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Book on non-European contributions to science discovers what historians already know, Anthony Grafton’s review says.… Read the rest
Bioterrorism fears and censorship
Feb 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Should sensitive biological information be withheld if it might be used by bioterrorists?… Read the rest
Rodent Studies
Feb 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Education is about making more money so vocational training is the way to go so media studies should be fine but then what did Hodge mean by ‘Mickey Mouse’? It’s all so confusing.… Read the rest
All Hitler All the Time
Feb 17th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Students at UK secondary schools are being given too much Hitler and too little of all the rest of history.… Read the rest
Chaplains and Evangelists
Feb 16th, 2003 8:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo, we’re agreed then. Comfort and safety and enjoyment are not what’s needed, not unless one is ill or injured or a refugee from a war zone. We need our gadflies and lecturers and correctors and reformers, our troublers of the peace. We need our evangelists.
The Guardian has a review of Richard Dawkins’ new book, A Devil’s Chaplain, today. The reviewer (who, a correspondent tells me, used to be the bishop of Edinburgh) makes an interesting distinction between Darwin’s ‘classically Anglican’ atheism and the classically Evangelical variety Dawkins goes in for.
… Read the restA friend of mine once remarked that he liked Anglicanism, because it didn’t interfere with your religion or politics, whereas Evangelicalism couldn’t leave anyone alone and meddled
New Scientist Reviews Dawkins
Feb 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A brief review of A Devil’s Chaplain.… Read the rest
Annoyingly Snide Interview With Dawkins
Feb 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
All the dreary old accusations trotted out: he’s aggressive, intolerant, cold. Why? Because he doesn’t suck up to religion, apparently.… Read the rest
Not an Anglican but an Evangelical
Feb 16th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Richard Dawkins wants to share the good news, and expose fraudulence in the process.… Read the rest
