Frets at self-righteous certainty, gobsmacking ignorance, irrational bogeymen.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Christians Sue for Right to be Intolerant 
Apr 11th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Christian Legal Society forms a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court.… Read the rest
Disputation and Obedience
Apr 10th, 2006 8:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonTodd Gitlin asks a searching question:
Sects are always in need of heretics to blame, expel and punish. First, fervor takes hold, then rigidity. Righteousness dictates uniformity. Dissent seems dangerous, even treasonous. The spirit hardens: You’re either with us or with the evildoers…Why is the left so determined to eat its own? Sometimes it can be explained as the fervor of fighters determined to root out impurities.
Indeed – and the fervor of fighters determined to root out impurities is a very scary thing. And before I get all righteous, I should note that I probably have a tendency that way myself. Perhaps a strong one. There are quite a few ‘impurities’ that I want, if not to root … Read the rest
The Passion Of Amartya Sen
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘We can be more than one kind of person, given different contexts, avers our argumentative Indian.’… Read the rest
Misguided ‘Respect’ for Traditions
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Aisha begged child-protection authorities for help; not wishing to be seen as culturally insensitive, they refused.… Read the rest
There is Nothing ‘Protective’ About Child Marriage
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Feudalism, exploitation, caste hierarchy, patriarchy, tradition, seeing girls as slave labour.… Read the rest
‘The Next Person to be Killed is Shirin Ebadi’
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Through this belief – that the intellectuals had abandoned God – they justified the killings as religious duty.… Read the rest
The Sectarian Mind is at Home Everywhere
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Todd Gitlin wonders why the left is so determined to eat its own.… Read the rest
Germany’s Second Unification
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Neither multicultural pieties nor hysterical fear-mongering will help anyone.… Read the rest
Is Fred Barnes Kidding or Deluded?
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Many people find ‘insurgent’ and ‘rebel’ unlikely designations for George W Bush. … Read the rest
Bernard-Henri Lévy Savaged in a New Book
Apr 10th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Best-selling books established Lévy as popular intellectual, irritated less well-known philosophers.… Read the rest
Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
Apr 9th, 2006 10:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s an interesting discussion about free speech between Eve Garrard and Shalom Lappin at Normblog. Not, this time, via Irving and lying but via Frank Ellis and racist opinions. I had a thought about that earlier discussion with Norm and Eve, and have been meaning to scribble a note on that thought.
The thought was sparked by something Appiah said in a note (note 66 on page 337) in The Ethics of Identity.
The US has a singularly expansive free-expression regime, and yet even here, freedom of expression is tightly corseted, and legitimately so. The First Amendment does not protect a contract killer’s verbal contract; it does not protect a fraudulent or defamatory claim…
Bingo. Just what I … Read the rest
James Randi’s Newsletter
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Annual Pigasus awards, and a recommendation.… Read the rest
The New U and Non-U
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Universalist or cultural relativist.… Read the rest
BHL and Anatol Lieven Debate Neoconservatism
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Have the neoconservatives advanced any notions which liberalism and the left could learn from? … Read the rest
Experimental Philosophy and its Critics
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Experimentalists can’t be sure subjects are responding to the philosophical principles at stake.… Read the rest
Arthur Danto on Descartes
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Intellectual quarrels in the 17th century were waspish and insulting, like British book reviewing today.… Read the rest
Goethe as the Advocate of ‘Cheerful Pessimism’
Apr 9th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Placing Goethe in a tradition reaching back to Epicurus and Lucretius.… Read the rest
The State of Ayurveda: Examining the Evidence
Apr 9th, 2006 | By Meera NandaCharaka Samhita, the ancient textbook of Ayurveda (third or second centuries BCE), doesn’t mince words when it comes to the subject of quacks. Charaka, the legendary healer from India’s antiquity and the editor of the Samhita (compendium) that bears his name, calls them “imposters who wear the garb of physicians… [who] walk the earth like messengers of death.” These fake doctors are “unlearned in scriptures, experience and knowledge of curative operations…. but like to boast of their skills before the uneducated…” Wise patients, Charaka advises, “should always avoid those foolish men with a show of learning … they are like snakes subsisting on air.”
These words, written more than two thousand years ago, bring to mind those who like … Read the rest
