All entries by this author

The People Is Always Right. Right? *

Nov 13th, 2003 | Filed by

No, which is why government by plebiscite or initiative is an alarming idea.… Read the rest



Maybe It’s About To Get A Bit Chilly *

Nov 13th, 2003 | Filed by

Could global warming bring about a new ice age?… Read the rest



Favourite Science Hoaxes *

Nov 13th, 2003 | Filed by

The top ten science hoaxes courtesy of the Guardian.… Read the rest



Like Seizing Sweetmeats from an Infant

Nov 13th, 2003 1:11 am | By

Well this is going to be fun. Thanks to the link at Arts and Letters Daily, we’re getting letters about the ‘Bad Writing’ In Focus – agreeing on the whole, but with some dissenters too. Perhaps it’s dirty pool for me to answer them here…?

Nah. Most people who visit the site never even find Notes and Comment, and besides – the question of the way Bad Writers defend Bad Writing is in fact part of the issue. It’s part of what the article was about, and part of what’s wrong with the whole field. So talking about it is part of our (admittedly self-appointed) brief.

This awful article trots out very familiar objections to “theory” in a way which

Read the rest


Does Science Still Matter? *

Nov 12th, 2003 | Filed by

Why is there so much hostility to science and reason?… Read the rest



Astonishment, Fluidity and Changefulness *

Nov 12th, 2003 | Filed by

Montaigne put ‘a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence.’… Read the rest



Five Thousand

Nov 11th, 2003 8:08 pm | By

I’ve been re-reading Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, about the Rwanda genocide and what the US, the UN, Belgium didn’t do to stop it, and what France did to help it along. Or perhaps really I should include the US along with France, since we not only didn’t send troops ourselves, we urged other countries not to send troops either. It’s all, really, exceedingly uncomfortable reading.

And relevant to not one but two subjects we were discussing here yesterday: the inadequacy of blanket pacifism in the face of genocidal tyrannical regimes, and the inadequacy of blanket free-speechism in the face of genocidal regimes or movements that use speech, … Read the rest



Richard Wollheim *

Nov 11th, 2003 | Filed by

Chicago Tribune obituary.… Read the rest



Richard Wollheim *

Nov 11th, 2003 | Filed by

San Francisco Chronicle obituary.… Read the rest



Whither (or Wither?) Scholarship? *

Nov 11th, 2003 | Filed by

Are scholars all dead from the waist down? Is it all a waste?… Read the rest



Hindu Students Petition Against Book *

Nov 11th, 2003 | Filed by

An academic study of Ganesha is ‘offensive’ to Hindus; author must apologize.… Read the rest



Carlin Romano on Curtis White *

Nov 11th, 2003 | Filed by

We don’t need a whole book to unpack one catchy phrase.… Read the rest



Blog Check

Nov 11th, 2003 2:01 am | By

And speaking of the Interahamwe and what people listen to on the radio and how easy it is to overlook what’s not right in front of our eyes…There is a discussion going on at Crooked Timber about free speech and speech codes. For some reason I was moved to ask a question that always occurs to me in the context of such discussions, and that doesn’t seem to me to get asked enough. What do free speech absolutists say about situations like Rwanda and the Balkans where government leaders went on the radio to incite people to go out and kill or ‘cleanse’ other ethnic groups, with all too much success? So far, I’m interested to see, I haven’t had … Read the rest



Beware the Shortcut

Nov 10th, 2003 10:26 pm | By

Now by way of a holiday from bad writing, we can have a look at some good writing. David Aaronovitch is pretty reliable that way, and he’s good at that (alas all too easy) parlor game of pointing out the omissions and blind spots in some leftist rhetoric. It’s an honourable job, Orwell made a good thing of it, and certainly somebody has to do it. It’s no good leaving it all to the right, thus giving the impression that no one on the left objects to silly or ill-founded arguments. Such as this from the novelist Philip Kerr in the New Statesman:

I find it almost incomprehensible that someone from a generation who came of age during the Vietnam

Read the rest


Sites of Resistance

Nov 10th, 2003 7:54 pm | By

I thought we were through with the Bad Writing subject for the moment, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s one of those subjects that one is never through with – not until it goes away, at least.

A kind (and horrified) reader has sent me this delightful example. And the writer is from Norway, too! Wouldn’t you think they would know better? I have this idea (very essentialist of me, really) that Scandinavians in general and particularly Norwegians are sensible people, not the kind of people who are inexplicably impressed by Bad Writing and seized with an uncontrollable need to imitate same. Why do I think that, I wonder. I don’t know – something to do with Roald … Read the rest



What Are Universities For, Again? *

Nov 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Oh that’s right – making money!… Read the rest



The Interahamwe Didn’t Listen to Joan Baez *

Nov 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Nor did the Taliban, nor did Franco or Hitler. Blanket pacifism doesn’t always answer.… Read the rest



Socialisation is Not the Job of Teachers *

Nov 10th, 2003 | Filed by

Schools have other things to teach.… Read the rest



More Than One

Nov 9th, 2003 9:59 pm | By

I posted this report on an address by Amartya Sen a few days ago, because I admire Sen (I well remember the moment I heard over the radio that he’d won the Nobel Prize, and how surprised and delighted I was) and also because he said something I’ve been thinking and muttering about for a long time, including here.

The Emeritus Professor at Harvard tore to shreds, the theory of ‘clash of civilisations’ (championed particularly by Samuel Huntington) and which has gained much currency, describing the classification as “very crude.” According to him, “what is most immediately divisive in this kind of theorising is not the silly idea of the inevitability of a clash, but the equally shallow prior insistense

Read the rest


Süddeutsche Zeitung on the Third Culture *

Nov 9th, 2003 | Filed by

The sciences and humanities ought to work together.… Read the rest