Imperialism is bad, yes, but we still like all the violence. So, do a revisionist version.… Read the rest
GM Explained
Jul 11th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUseful Guardian background article on the debate over genetically modified crops.… Read the rest
Islamists Against ‘Vulgar’ Literature
Jul 10th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJews, pro-Indians, lesbians…’we have been tolerant too long.’… Read the rest
Abused Child Makes Good
Jul 10th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDespite sexual abuse, imprisonment and religious persecution, Elizabeth I was no slouch as a queen.… Read the rest
The Other Side
Jul 9th, 2003 11:55 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd as long as we’re on the subject, why not add a few words from the Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, as well? Especially since it was his kind of atheism (as well as her husband’s) that Susan Greenfield was taking issue with in that interview.
There is ‘Snake Oil and Holy Water’ for instance, in which he quotes a classic bit of Wool in which a psychiatrist says that traditional African healers
… Read the restare able to tap that other realm of negative entropy–that superquantum velocity and frequency of electromagnetic energy–and bring them as conduits down to our level. It’s not magic. It’s not mumbo jumbo. You will see the dawn of the 21st century, the new medical
Postmodernism and ‘Vedic Science’
Jul 9th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMeera Nanda on the repackaging of Hindu obscurantism as ‘science’.… Read the rest
Inclusion and Wishful Thinking
Jul 9th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLiberals and conservatives put aside their differences to come up with a terrible idea.… Read the rest
People Do Change Their Views
Jul 8th, 2003 10:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonI found a rather odd interview with Susan Greenfield the other day. The site is some sort of Christian one, but some of Greenfield’s answers are still a bit strange.
My husband, Peter Atkins, is an atheist of the Dawkins stamp and so I’ve sat through many science-religion ding-dongs, and they strike me as a complete waste of time. No one is going to change their views. The Atkins-Dawkins stance treats science almost as though it were a religion, and evangelically try to convert other people. Meanwhile, the religious person can’t articulate why they believe what they do: they just do.
But people do change their views. Of course they do. Not all people of course, and not every time … Read the rest
Other People’s Rhetoric
Jul 8th, 2003 7:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonLet’s revisit Deborah Cameron’s article yet again, because judging by the comments on my comments, I didn’t make myself clear. Or perhaps I did and people disagree anyway, or perhaps I’m just dead wrong. But I want to try to clarify one or two points all the same. The disagreement is with what I said about the different value we place (the culture we live in places) on thoughts and feelings. I do think that difference exists, I do think there is a seldom-examined or -questioned assumption that feelings are good, authentic, spontaneous, real, honest, natural, and for all those reasons and perhaps more, better than thoughts. Some readers point out that the distinction between thoughts and feelings is not … Read the rest
Ersatz Magic versus the Real Thing
Jul 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA.S. Byatt ponders why adults are so smitten with Harry Potter.… Read the rest
A Book With Everything, Even Classy Prose
Jul 8th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAlas poor Joe McCarthy, martyr to the com-symp liberals and Ed Murrow.… Read the rest
Fallacies of democracy
Jul 8th, 2003 | By Julian Baggini"I don’t think we have been consulted as a democracy. It is the wrong
war. We need a bit more imagination. All we are saying is the country is mature
enough to sit down and have some kind of referendum."
Damon Albarn, lead singer of Blur (Source: the Guardian, 21
January 2003)
Readers of last week’s column will not be surprised to find a rock singer once
again cited as an authority on matters unconnected with music. The concern here,
however, is not with Albarn’s expertise but with the climate of opinion he reflected.
For during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, his view was one which was
held by a great many of the British public. Since … Read the rest
Private School or State School?
Jul 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAdam Swift and Anthony Seldon debate issues of fairness and positional goods.… Read the rest
Larkin Wasn’t Cuddly
Jul 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMisogynist, racist, hated children, pessimistic, and deeply drunk. So?… Read the rest
Rashomon is Fiction, the Friedmans are Real
Jul 7th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPostmodern ambiguity as marketing ploy, and how gullible reviewers help.… Read the rest
How to Avoid Pop Culture
Jul 7th, 2003 | By Christopher OrletIn these dark times holding out against the constant barrage of pop culture
has become more challenging than surviving a succession of carpet bombings.
Pop music seeps and swells from the ceilings and nooks of shops, offices, and
coffeehouses. Television sets are now permanent fixtures in airports, post offices,
saloons, and doctor’s offices – in fact, one dangled precariously above me as
I suffered a recent root canal, tuned to Oprah no less, which was far
more painful than the surgery itself. I commenced to pray the set would dislodge
from the ceiling and put me out of my misery, but Yahweh spared me – evidently
to continue His good work.
So much of popular culture is so indescribably bereft … Read the rest
The Weather
Jul 4th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe stuff of small talk and of survival, and all is not well.… Read the rest
Argument Over Academic Boycott of Israel
Jul 4th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOxford professor rejects Israeli student, and is now being investigated.… Read the rest
Private School After All
Jul 4th, 2003 | Filed by Ophelia BensonState school is better socially, but what of children who want to do sums now?… Read the rest