There’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

Okay, this morning I found out that I’m a complete fool, that I’ve wasted my life, that I’ve been walking around with blinders on, that I’ve done what amounts to going to a five-star French restaurant and eating a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on Wonder bread, or going to the Grand Canyon or the Monterey Peninsula or the Lake District or the Bernese Oberland or the fjords or Umbria and spending the whole time indoors doing crossword puzzles.

I haven’t read Proust.

Think of it. I could have been run over by a skateboard at any moment and died without ever reading Proust. I’m a fool, I tell you, a fool, a fool, a fool! This kind of … Read the rest

Norm has a new poll, this one on favourite names of US states. I gave him a dig in the ribs yesterday for stacking the deck by comparing Colorado and Tennessee with Surrey and Essex – and he promptly conceded that stacking was exactly what he had done to the deck. But still, he’s right of course – US state names are a joy. I mentally run through some of my favourites myself at odd moments. (Mind you – Bourgogne, Umbria, Cataluña – the US isn’t the only place with some good names. Saskatchewan. Connemarra. Okay I’ll stop.)

So I’ve picked my five. I’m not spoiling anything by giving them now, because Norm compiles stats, so we don’t know … Read the rest

This speaks to me.

In a globalised, consumerist society, identity seems much less something we inherit and increasingly something we can choose, shape or discard…On the one hand, we have an urge to affirm our own individuality and differentiate ourselves from some of the more suffocating aspects of our traditional identities. On the other, this is offset by a continuing human need to belong, to remain anchored in something collective.

That’s that alternation or ambivalence between attachment and autonomy again. We want both, and since they’re pretty fundamentally opposed, we often find ourselves tossed back and forth between them. ‘I love you go away’ syndrome. There’s no place like home when can I leave. I feel so secure, I’m … Read the rest