Can’t prove a house is beautiful, so why make mediums warn their customers?… Read the rest
All entries by this author
The End of Political Pandering on Religion? 
May 28th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
No.… Read the rest
Radicalism as Reaction
May 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The revolution was repressive from its start, flawed with a programmatic illiberalism and anti-intellectualism.… Read the rest
Normblog on the ‘Post-left’
May 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Are apologists for Islamism more unleft than were apologists for Stalinism? No.… Read the rest
Jeff Sharlet Reads Martha Nussbaum
May 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Strengthening the hand of the theocons by underestimating the scope of the Christian nationalist challenge. … Read the rest
Another Agnostic Pipes Up
May 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It is music in general that must be tossed out when you refuse to appreciate religion. Eh?… Read the rest
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh May Be Safe
May 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hamid Karzai has privately assured Kambaksh’s campaign team that he will be freed.… Read the rest
Evidence is for conformists
May 27th, 2008 | By Tim Goot-BrennanI remember a friend telling me only a few days after the Sept 11 attacks that the World Trade Centre had been wired with bombs either by the government or by the owner. It was also pointed out to me that the dust around the World Trade Centre had fallen in the shape of Satan’s visage. I wouldn’t have predicted it at the time, but the crackpot impulse behind these ideas has become common currency. In one American poll, a third of respondents registered their belief that the Bush Administration either aided the attacks or declined to stop them.
More recently the cult of Zeitgeist: The Movie, made by someone called Peter Joseph, has been brought to my attention. … Read the rest
Strengthening the hand of the theocons
May 27th, 2008 11:05 am | By Ophelia BensonJeff Sharlet has some of the same qualms I have about Nussbaum on religion and freedom.
More worrisome are those liberal defenders of religious equality such as Nussbaum and Waldman, who actually do know better and yet strengthen the hand of the theocons by underestimating and even minimalizing the scope of the Christian nationalist challenge…The overlapping consensus model extends an assumption of good faith to all parties. That’s fine. But it fails when it rests too easily on assumptions about just what good faith is.
Precisely. That’s exactly what Nussbaum does – she backs up these assumptions about just what good faith is by citing easy examples, like Quaker non-violence, instead of hard ones, like raising girls to be subordinate … Read the rest
Passing for a Hagiographer of Freud
May 26th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The well-documented fabrications and fudges in Freud’s early case studies go unmentioned. … Read the rest
What Shameless Repetition
May 26th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Repetition can make promotional testimony seem eerily quantitative.… Read the rest
Morris Dickstein on Fiction and Political Fact
May 26th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Public life determines private life; exploring that link is the sine qua non of good social and political fiction.… Read the rest
Gene Robinson and Christopher Hitchens
May 26th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Robinson is patently kind and sincere, but he’s wrong; Hitchens can be rude and combative, but he’s right.… Read the rest
Scientology: Cult or Mirror to all Faiths?
May 26th, 2008 | By Carl AndersWhat is the difference between Jack the Ripper and the Suffolk Strangler? Apart from that we actually know Steve Wright is the latter and he was caught, what separates them?
Jack the Ripper rejoices in a whole tourism and franchise industry centred on him. He has films, television programmes, documentaries, books, cups, ashtrays, t-shirts and tours. How does one serial killer become so profitable? Why are there no Suffolk tours or films starring Johnny Depp?
Of course, timing would seem the obvious answer: with no living immediate relatives of Jack the Ripper; we feel it is safe to exploit his legend. It is just too soon to do the same for Steve Wright.
For Jack the Ripper read “recognised” religion. … Read the rest
Ethically dubious
May 25th, 2008 6:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonI sometimes notice an odd and unpleasant phenomenon: people on blogs and forums and discussion boards and the like will accuse other people of lying, and more than that, when shown to be wrong, will not withdraw the accusation, much less apologize. This is odd because in what is jestingly called real life, at least in my experience, that’s not done lightly. One doesn’t go around accusing people of lying when talking nose to nose; it doesn’t go down well. But when typing words on screen – people just step right up. Then if you tell them they’re mistaken and that they ought not to throw that accusation around so blithely, they simply vanish. Many of them do it anonymously, … Read the rest
A Spot of Freud-worship
May 25th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How Freud might help us to think about Nazism. … Read the rest
Michael Shermer on Alan Sokal
May 25th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Beyond the Hoax” is an essential text for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of science.… Read the rest
Mbeki Says Riots are a Disgrace
May 25th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Said the attacks were the worst acts of inhumanity South Africa had seen since Apartheid. … Read the rest
Austin Dacey Rejects the Gag Order on Ethics
May 25th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
By shying away from fundamental moral debate, secular liberalism has abandoned the field to religious voices. … Read the rest
Self-styled Atheist Cheers On Catholic Bishops
May 25th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘What other religion is taking on the scourge of militant secularism afflicting modern Europe?’… Read the rest
