Author: Ophelia Benson

Investors need to know the truth, but voters don’t. Or not.

‘Developments take place in a world linked by ideas rather than by race.’

‘Indian history from the perspective of the Hindutva ideology reintroduces ideas that have long been discarded and are of little relevance to an understanding of the past.’

If you number your paragraphs, will people mistake you for Adorno?

Richard Dawkins on the cowardly flabbiness of the intellect that afflicts otherwise rational people confronted with long-established religions.

Most government-funded Islamic clubs ‘are run by deeply conservative men and perpetuate the segregation of women.’

Dissent is part of all cultures, Asian decidedly included.

Betrousered, two-eyed philosopher Ventre considers a world in which Things are Against Us.

Paul Krugman draws an interesting parallel with Stephen Jay Gould.

‘A Russian, an Italian, could not justify beating his wife to death by referring to the customs of dear old Moscow or Calabria’

Terrorists, freedom fighters, fundamentalists, postcolonialism, the Enlightenment – all contested, as usual.

When students are consumers, they want what they pay for.

‘There is nothing sacrosanct about any culture or religion’s rituals. Cultures are neither monolithic, unchanging, nor without internal critique and resistance…’

Scientists are humorless nerds, and crop circles and crystals are more fun.

If Lentricchia and Said have joined, the revenge of the emeriti may not be so regressive after all.

A scandal in anthropology is complicated by politics, emotion, prestige – the usual sort of thing.

‘We are in danger of losing our grip on the concepts of truth, evidence, objectivity, disinterested inquiry.’

It’s important to distinguish between necessary, useful technicality, and jargon or pseudo-mathematics substituting for genuine rigor.

What if you want to talk about an authentic self instead of an ‘authentic self’?

The new chauvinism receives official sanction from government and academic institutions.