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Articles of Note“Like all great art, the Brahms Symphony No. 2 imparts to the audience a profound sense of empathy and belief, as well as a tremendous desire to urinate”... more» A nonalcoholic sequel to the Whiskey Rebellion is brewing and it is gaining adherents. You might call it the Fresca Rebellion... more» Rachmaninoff? Alfred Brendel says he wrote “music for teenagers. He was a composer who knew his craft.... But for his time he was a reactionary”... more» Ghost writers: posthumous books by Vladimir Nabokov, David Foster Wallace, and Ralph Ellison raise thorny questions about what the writers intended... more» The Asian tiger mosquito has traveled from its home in Southeast Asia to the ends of the earth, one of the world’s most invasive species... more» Michael Sandel grasps the risks of taking his Harvard justice course to TV. He might even end up challenging his own moral and political convictions... more» The kindest cut. Raymond Carver was one of America’s greatest writers. But was his razor-sharp style created by his editor, Gordon Lish?... more» Is yonder cloud not in the shape of a camel? Methinks ’tis a whale – yes, very like a whale. So hath that painting the signature of Jackson Pollock?... more» ... more» Why do we still need to read the novels of Charles Dickens? Because they tell us, in the grandest way possible, why we are what we are... more» Metaphors that we put in daily use are often viewed as mere ornaments of speech. In fact, metaphors are keys to the structure of thought... more» William Safire, language maven whose penchant for barbed and memorable phrases first showed itself in speeches he wrote for the Nixon White House, is dead ... New York Times ... Wash Post ... WSJ ... Daily Beast ... Forbes ... Wash Times ... Forbes Ever notice how many fine writers are just terrible at giving speeches and interviews? You are not alone. Arthur Krystal proposes an explanation... more» Vasily Kandinsky’s aesthetic DNA lives on in the history of art right up to the present day. Peter Plagens shows how... more» The Met’s gala opening night Tosca saw loud, sustained booing aimed at the producer, Luc Bondy... NYT blog ... Mike Silverman ... Ann Midgette ... Anthony Tommasini ... Manuela Hoelterhoff ... Heidi Waleson ... Mark Swed ... Ed Pilkington ... Ronni Reich ... Martin Bernheimer ... Alex Ross ... “Get over it,” says Peter Gelb ... And in case you’ve missed it, Heather Mac Donald’s classic opera essay. Vladimir Nabokov’s revisions matter. They are not mere blottings out, but a window into the greatness and humanity of an author... more» Our melting brains. From the pencil to the typewriter to the computer, every change in media has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing to save the old ways... more» “The art of handwriting teaches us to control our hands and encourages hand - eye coordination,” says Umberto Eco. Children still need it for wellbeing... more» Rural brain drain. Small town America is being hollowed out, losing talented young people while new farming transforms the land for those who stay... more» Irving Kristol, the man who put the “neo” into conservatism, is dead at the age of 89 ... WSJ ... Wash Post ... NYT ... Myron Magnet ... AP ... Wash Times ... Economist ... Eric Alterman ... John Podhoretz ... James Q. Wilson ... Charles Murray ... Michael Lind ... Justin Vaïsse ... Kevin Mattson ... Cas Mudde ... Forbes ... Seth Lipsky ... Christopher Hitchens ... David Brooks ... John Guardiano ... Christopher DeMuth ... William Kristol ... Mary Eberstadt ... Joseph Epstein Why is music in particular nice to listen to, blessed with a gigantic industry, while there is no market for “easy listening” speech sounds?... more» Does reading absurdist literature make you smarter? How about Kafka? Beckett? Giraffe carpet cleaner, it seems that it does... more» When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency theory was about as popular in American military circles as tank warfare is today. But things change... more» Saving China from its kitsch: Brian and Jeanee Linden want to restore a Yunnan village with an eye to historic authenticity. They’ll need a lot of luck... more» Muslim creationism, built on an idea of superior Islamic science, is becoming increasingly visible and confident... more» Norman Borlaug, architect of the Green Revolution that saved millions of lives, is dead... more» ... more» ... “The head of Greenpeace has never gone hungry.” The Minsky meltdown. One economist saw years before anyone else exactly what the financial system is going through right now: Hyman Minsky... more» Typos can be an annoyance for both book authors and readers. Now in the e-book future, we can alter and correct without end... more» The guards at Abu Ghraib, like the guards in the Stanford Prison experiment, were victims of place and time. Weren’t Cheney and Rice victims in the same way?... more» Libya isn’t the most brutal regime in the world, but it remains a grotesque entity, the state as a protection racket... more» When buildings collapse or trains crash, special rescue teams can bring out trapped people often in a matter of minutes. This is an ancient calling... more» As things stand, no blow is low enough, if the president comes from the other side. Consider Obama’s school speech... more» On the other hand, this issue has a history. Arts & Letters Daily’s Tran Huu Dung, visiting Giverny a few weeks ago, took a picture proving that Claude Monet was a photo-realist... more» Most of us know only one version of Little Red Riding Hood, the one we heard as a child. But there are dozens of versions of this fairy tale... more» Drugs will soon be on sale to improve everything from memory to our trust in others. David Edmonds describes the coming Age of Enhancement... more» Children everywhere stew in the same pot of family conflict, with local cultural seasonings added for flavor. But basic moral values remain similar... more» If we ever again experience a solar storm similar to the extreme event of September 2, 1859, damage may be staggering... more» ... more» Google’s book search has become a running scholarly joke, as Geoffrey Nunberg explains, with delicious examples. But it’s not beyond repair... more» New York City teachers are protected by lockstep compensation, seniority, and tenure, even if they spend every day shut up in the Rubber Room... more» You didn’t intend to plagiarize. In fact, your unconscious did it. Sure. And try telling the cop your unconscious was speeding... more» When Vincent van Gogh sliced off part of his ear with a razor, he did not dream of the theories, pranks, and merchandise the act would eventually produce... more» For Katie Roiphe, her newborn baby is like a narcotic, down to the withdrawal symptoms. Being home with her child is like being in an opium den... more» “History to the defeated / May say Alas but cannot help or pardon.” Auden’s anthem to the doomed Spanish Republic has rarely been more relevant... more» A greener world is one where instead of flying, we’ll stay home with our computers. No carbon emissions? Wrong again... more» There may be a peace sign on every page, but the implicit political philosophy of craigslist has a deeply conservative, even a tragic cast... more» Adolf Hitler considered himself to be an artistic genius. This naturally put him above the common morality that applies to the rest of us... more» Pow! Bam! One of them is a “poseur,” the other, “patronizing.” One’s got “verbal diarrhea,” the other is a “whiner.” It’s Krugman vs. Ferguson... more» Photoshopping. You want a nice photo of yourself. But why leave those crow’s feet in the picture? How about that mole?... more» Sopranos have a choice: either to fill the opera house with powerful singing, or to make the words clear. Richard Wagner knew their dilemma well... more» Tragedy of the commons, a “tyranny of small decisions.” You don’t want to ruin the common pasture. You just want a little more milk from your cow... more» There never really was a decisive turn away from old Soviet values in the new Russia. Stalin’s ghost still haunts the land... more» We are the Martians. Or if we aren’t yet, then we will be Martians someday. Ray Bradbury saw it all before anyone else... more» Sri Lanka is a less panicky, frantic, and intrusive version of India. But it’s a Buddhist land, and the Sri Lankan view of Hindus... more» A basic income program devised by German aid workers has helped alleviate poverty in a Namibian village. Crime is down, kids are in school... more» It has taken years, but religious thought is warming to Harry Potter novels, with their strong sense of good and evil and their hints at life eternal... more» Insurance giant Cigna purges small firms whose employees have health problems. It just raises premiums till they can’t pay them... more» Party pigs, violent crows, sneaky snakes and, oh dear, baby squirrels in peril! The silly season: time for all those animal stories... more» The recession has been great for the fortunes of McDonald’s. The question now is, will it survive the recovery?... more» Much nutritional research and advice given to the public today is science’s laughingstock. Reynold Spector explains why... more» “It is important students receive accurate information; good scholarship requires nothing less.” Nancy K.D. Lemon vs. Christina Hoff Sommers... more» The New Atheists’ confrontational way of dealing with religion is not advancing evolution as an intellectual cause. It simply creates bitterness... more» All countries are hurting just now from the downturn, but there are a few with a relative edge. Nouriel Roubini names them... more» The quality that most distinguishes Barack Obama’s writing is its clarity: it feels balanced and just. It also sparkles like sugar crystals... more» John Hughes, whose sweet and sassy films plumbed the lives of 1980s teens, is dead... NYT ... Smart Set ... A.O. Scott ... Michael Weiss ... Hank Stuever ... Molly Ringwald Jared Diamond is such a thoughtful man, so empathetic to other cultures and liberal in his outlook – why would anyone call him a racist?... more» Pyongyang at night. From the hotel’s 47th floor, nothing to see but a dark, sad, and hungry city... more» Enjoy the summer in a comfy Arts & Letters Daily T-shirt – a fashion favorite of the Web intelligentsia... Advert» The idea of a “Native American city” till recently made no sense. Now we’re finding out about the ghastly secrets of Cahokia, an ancient city on the Mississippi... more» Warfare is not in our DNA, it isn’t innate. We have it within our power to create the conditions for a peace that in principle may last forever... more» Ji Sizun, a legal activist in China who helped ordinary people, disappeared into the clutches of state security on the 4th day of the Beijing Games... part 1 ... part 2 Laura Wilder was a matron of 65 when she published her first Little House book. She had help: her weird, talented daughter, Rose... more» The Guiding Light is near to dead, but soaps live on. Long before people asked, “Who shot JR?” they worried over the fate of Little Nell... more» WWII as experienced in the Soviet Ukraine. A story told with sand and hands... video [Hint: click off iTunes ad if one appears.] Arts endowments boast that they strive for preservation of capital. So why are some cutting budgets by 35%? Look at NYC... more» Zoo design is a negotiation between what’s right for animals, and what humans need. Jesse Smith explains... more» The squalid ambush that ended the careers of Bonnie and Clyde in 1934 disappeared down a memory hole. But their lives made a myth... more» Gaia is one wild lady, though her dramatic appeal has been tamed of late by trying to give her a scientific makeover... more» Booze does not help many novelists. In particular writers of long sentences suffer from its daily use. Comparing yourself to Tolstoy is also a bad sign... more» To found a world-class university in the sands of Arabia is an audacious ambition. Will NYU Abu Dhabi manage to do it?... part 1 ... part 2 So men were on top in the 18th century? Not quite. With the power of the pen, both whores and ladies who felt the pain could blame and shame... more» Leszek Kołakowski, who argued Stalinism was not a perversion of Marxist thought, but rather its natural end, is dead... LAT ... London Times ... Slate ... Telegraph ... NYT ... Dædalus (PDF) ... Open Democracy ... New Criterion ... Weekly Standard ... Open Democracy ... Guardian ... Daily Times ... New Republic ... Financial Times ... Chicago Blog ... Economist Darwinian evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as ugly as they were in the caves... more» “Absolute poppycock,” says Robert Service, but Russians are convinced they are victims of a campaign to besmirch the history of their country... more» “The world has enough for everybody,” says President Hugo Chávez. Trouble is, Jews have got “control of the riches of the world”... more» Humans are genetically close to chimps and bonobos, sharing with them nearly 99% of our DNA. Yet we became master tool users and cooperators... more» Long after college, what sticks in student memory? Gee-whiz graphics? Slick PowerPoints? Or having really talked with smart, engaged professors?... more» Danny Postel wants to raise his kids to be freethinkers. But what if all that freedom in their thinking results in their becoming religious?... more» Failed states, with their scenes of poverty, disease, and violence, have an upside. They are fun new playgrounds for great power rivalry... more» Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno has taken a steep box-office fall. The film’s only hope now may be a lawsuit from right-wingers trying to ban it... more» Economic theory in meltdown: the biggest financial calamity in 80 years has left the reputation of economics in tatters... more» Looking for real adventure? Then stay off Mount Everest, where Base Camp now offers hot showers, Web access, TVs, and fresh strawberries... more» Let’s call the whole thing off. A little sad, and somewhat to her surprise after 20 years married, Sandra Tsing Loh is getting a divorce... more» People think we live in an age of violence and killing. In truth, the past was far more bloodthirsty than the present age, as Steven Pinker explains... more» Outlawing payments to kidney donors is ostensibly a way to keep the system fair. All it does is give rich and poor an equally lousy chance of getting a kidney... more» Do ideas sometimes pop into your head from, it seems, nowhere? Yes, and it’s because your brain actually operates on the edge of chaos... more» Terry Eagleton is vague about God, but rather enjoys it: his contradictions are worn with pride as symbols of a kind of ineffable profundity... more» Baseball makes the blood run hot, and yes, Red Sox fans do hate the Yankees. But India and Pakistan nearly went to war over cricket... more» At this point, seasteading is still mostly talk and dreams – especially the dream of living free of government... more» James Mill wished to educate his son to be “an ideal standard-bearer for radicalism, rationalism and reform.” He succeeded... more» “Asia’s rise is unstoppable.” Don’t bet on it. It will be a long time before India and China take over the world – if they ever do... more» Democracy needs to know the serious reading of books. Long books. Hard books. Books with which we have to struggle... more» Fire exists in nature, a wild thing tamed by the mind of man. But when it first appeared, the wheel was an invention of something completely new... more» The Wolfram search engine will allow people to make use of science on a daily basis, just as Google has made billions of people reference librarians... more» Forty years ago, when men walked on the Moon and drove their buggies over the lunar landscape, we all lived on a different earth... more» Stripper memoirs. It’s puzzling that such promising and prurient subject matter can lead to such flat, dull books. Katie Roiphe explains... more» Many believe that China will follow the models of Korea and Taiwan and become an economic giant. Don’t be too sure... more» J.G. Ballard’s experience of Shanghai was, he said, closer to the normal lives of the majority of people in the 20th century than most realize... more» Language pervades the deepest domains of thought, shaping us from the nuts and bolts of perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions... more» Bars and cafes in France have fallen from 200,000 fifty years ago to 38,600 today. Blame smoking bans and the economy, but also le sandwich... more» How might a Darwinian explain spite? An affronted sense of fairness? Envy? Lust for revenge? Perhaps even pure sadism?... more» Auto repair as a skilled manual labor is far more cognitive than most people realize, Matthew Crawford says. And it’s one thing that can’t be outsourced to China... more» Placebo effects: capsules work better than tablets, big pills work better than small, and the more expensive the medicine, the more its effect... more» Bill Buckley could turn any event into an adventure, a joke, a showdown. He loved risk. He was just an exciting person to be around... more» Party animals. Human creativity thrived in prehistoric life where our ancestors were crowded into small spaces, mingling and talking... more» Some systems – financial, transport, power grids, taxation – are just too big to carry on with any degree of predictability. They become unstable before we can know... more» Michael Jackson has gone from boy wonder to circus freak over 40 years, with stints as “king of pop,” messiah figure, and public enemy... more» One of prehistory’s great mysteries is, what happened to the Neanderthals? Here’s an answer: we ate them... more» Newsweekly’s last stand. Yes, the news magazines are in trouble in a digital age – all except The Economist. So why is it thriving?... more» For Europeans, it will be a lot harder to stop immigration from Muslim lands than it was to initiate immigration flows in the first place... more» The Dreamliner is a sleek and elegant plane. It is also two years behind schedule and a potential disaster for Boeing... more» |
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New BooksAnatomist William Harvey claimed in the 17th century that the uterus is a second seat of intelligence. Odd, but perhaps he was onto something... more» Anglo-Saxons view the French with mixed amusement and horror. France is a land the English love to hate, hate to love, and can’t get enough of... more» Let us face the unappetizing facts and just recognize Knut Hamsun for what he was: a pivotal figure in the literary canon and a disgusting human being... more» “In-N-Out Burger quality is one thing you can count on in California. It began over 60 years ago and has been kept fresh ever since” Oh?... more»
Thomas Hobbes: a hero to some, but to many philosophers the source of a malignant liberalism, Jacobinism, or even Bolshevism... more» It may have started nicely enough, but in the end Henry Wellcome’s will to collect artifacts over the whole of human history was an unhealthy obsession... more» The poetry was great, but Rilke in person could be vain, self-pitying, obsessive, whining, arrogant, childish, lachrymose, and neurotic... more» “Just as oil is part of the oil business, so stupidity is part of the football business.” The sublime idiocy of English football is beyond remedy... more» In a clean-shaven town, the barber shaves all and only men who do not shave themselves. Was Georg Cantor driven nuts wondering who shaves the barber?... more» Andy Warhol wasn’t just an artist. He was, in Arthur Danto’s words, “the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced”... more» “Reasoning,” writes Amartya Sen, “is a robust source of hope in a world darkened by murky deeds.” And better reasoning is what he offers... more» William Golding knew his own capacity for evil, and he was uneasy. “I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature”... more» Woodstock: sex, drugs, music, and mud. It now all looks so drab and dated. It’s an event in history that is really, really over, says P.J. O’Rourke... more» That racist domination was the true basis for the British Empire has been repeated so often we forget how deeply false it is. Enter historian James Belich... more» James Joyce’s Ulysses : more venerated than read because it has been so long held in academic captivity. Declan Kiberd wants to set it free... more» J.R. Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday (1932) deserves an honored place in that literary genre of witty, campy, opinionated travel books by young colonials... more» Richard Dawkins compares creationists to Holocaust deniers and spoons an acid sauce of mockery onto their absurd confection of half-baked ideas... more» For half a century, Paul Nitze and George Kennan wrestled with the USSR, the Cold War, the nuclear threat, and with each other... more» It all began long ago with the death of the Prophet, but the Sunni/Shia split still haunts Islam and the world today... more» Many could not abide him, but if you care about the English language and questions of human nature, you must love Samuel Johnson... more» How does a culture that has become unmoored from its own past cope with an influx of newcomers? That’s Europe’s problem... more» Green Metropolis. A place where people drive, pollute, consume, and throw away much less than the national average: New York City... more» Darwin’s sexual selection theory, Gould’s Birds of Australia, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The connection is a real one... more» Were the original pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries socialists or capitalists at heart? For us, of course, it’s becoming harder to tell the categories apart... more» The Islamic burka is a disputed but very potent human symbol. Many insist it stands only for piety. Marnia Lazreg disagrees... more» ... more» John Rawls’s ideal of justice may be best realized not with abstract liberalism, but with appeals to emotion, patriotism, and religion... more» Dogs are Aristotelians, but with their own doggy teleology. Their goals are not only very different from ours, they are often invisible to us... more» The global financial crisis had made some leftists in the West go all nostalgic for the Soviet Union. John Gray can only smile... more» Sarkozy wants Muslim integration based on real respect: “When I enter a mosque, I take off my shoes,” he says. “When you enter a school, take off your veil”... more» Just as in the Great Depression, members today of the middle and professional classes wonder what the new normal will be. Not like the old... more» Linda Lovelace and James Fenimore Cooper, together at last, along with T.S. Eliot and Mickey Mouse. It’s the wacky New Literary History of America... more» “Death to the Jews!” resounded in the courtyard of the École Militaire as medals were ripped off Capt. Alfred Dreyfus and his saber broken in two... more» Dictatorships behind the Iron Curtain were destroyed not by monolithic force, but by myriad human beings impulsively reacting to the idea of freedom... more» Wrestling with Moses. That’s what Jane Jacobs did, and the war between her and city-builder Robert Moses was a struggle of titans... more» Did Thomas Jefferson father any – or all seven – of Sally Hemings’s children? It’s entirely possible. But the DNA evidence... more» Thomas Hobbes’s gloomy claim was that man’s existence is “nasty, brutish and short.” Frans de Waal shows this is rather unfair to the brutes... more» R. Crumb’s version of Genesis is as full of sexualized violence as Tales from the Crypt and as disrespectful to cultural icons as Mad magazine... more» Starved of adjectives, thinned to a nervous set of verbs, intense almost past bearing, Louise Glück’s dark poems are hard to look away from... more» ... more» James Neugass was an ambulance driver and member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. His War Is Beautiful was almost lost... more» Marilyn Monroe was a decent, kind person who wanted to be loved but had execrable taste in men. Her story is inexpressibly sad... more» Gen. Sherman’s scorched-earth tactics set a new standard for military action: “total war,” against soldiers, civilians, and their property... more» Alexander was a bright paragon brought low by uncontrolled pride, said Quintus Curtius Rufus, who wanted to warn his fellow Romans... more» “Prediction is very hard,” said Yogi Berra, “especially about the future.” For academic futurologists, it’s even harder... more» Published Wallace Stevens poems give the impression of an impersonal poet with no private griefs, with no sense of the bitter failure of love... more» A greener world starts with you. Imagine you have the idea to live with no impact on the environment. Or, uh, your agent has the idea... more» Does the election of Barack Obama spell the death of conservatism? Perhaps, but if it is dead, then so is liberalism, and much else besides... more» Looking for insight, Elizabeth Edwards is more likely to quote Ovid than the Gospels. From the Old Testament, she prefers the Book of Job, and no wonder... more» Oswald Spengler’s gloomy ideas fitted sad Britain between the wars quite perfectly: “I see no progress, no goal, no path for humanity”... more» The Flytes of Brideshead: a family with whom Evelyn Waugh fell in love, one that had more than its share of tragedy as well as laughter... more» Introverted, obessed with his work, maybe mildly autistic, Paul Dirac had the luck to find his anti-particle: the ebullient and warm-hearted Manci... more» He’d not completed a single significant piece of written philosophy, yet Ludwig Wittgenstein was being hailed in his mid-twenties as a genius... more» George Washington: poor, untraveled, and totally self-educated son of a minor planter. Yet he made himself into the man of the minute. And got lucky... more» “Islam will be for 21st-century Europe what communism was for the continent’s 20th century: a source of violence.” Maybe... more» Max Horkheimer was a ruthless academic infighter who used money and power to punish enemies, while his Frankfurt School was about social liberation... more» Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book celebrates the refined aestheticism and erotic culture of the imperial court of 10th-century Japan... more» The handsome Friedrich Engels had a taste not just for ideas but for the good life: wine, women, and fox hunting. Paid for by proletarian labor... more» John Calvin, harsh and humorless, lacked the glamour of Martin Luther, but was still a key figure in the intellectual making of the modern world... more» “A sentence would form, a title, and a network of metaphors would crystallise around it.” So did Muriel Spark become a great writer... more» Babies amaze us in how open they can be to new experience. But it is possible to be too open, and so to be confused by the world... more» Junk anti-consumerism. Even the most fashion-conscious teenager is less obsessed with consumption than today’s critics of the open market... more» Helen Gurley Brown always believed in the idea that it’s never too late for a woman to find the comfort and protection of marriage... more» From West Side Story to The Age of Anxiety to Mass, Leonard Bernstein conceived his work as vehicles for his didactic liberalism... more» Robert Moses, master builder of parks and highways, also destroyed many a pleasant neighborhood. His sworn enemy: Jane Jacobs... more» Why does an implanted human egg cost 72 quadrillion times more per gram than tap water, even though the egg is itself made mostly of water?... more» In 1609 the Sea Venture foundered on the shores of Bermuda in a great tempest. This gave a certain English playwright an idea... more» We share 98.4% of our genetic code with chimps. This oft-cited figure misleads in its implication: 1.6% makes all the difference in the world... more» Alison Gopnik argues that in some ways children are “smarter, more imaginative, more caring and even more conscious than adults are”... more» What was it like to be one of the girls in Hugh Hefner’s glamorous harem? “I may as well have lived in a convent”... more» Management consultants include any number of high-IQ nut-jobs devoted to corporate in-fighting, client-gouging, humiliation, and sexual harassment... more» Conservativism: to respect both liberty and tradition and moderate the paradoxes that such respect brings is as old as America... more» A fine composer, yes, but Franz Josef Haydn was also the perfect Enlightenment man: rational, scholarly, tolerant, socially progressive... more» Robert Wright offers a hope that the Abrahamic religions can get on with each other, with science, and with modernity... more» A distinctly American wealth culture rose in the 20th century, more democratic and diverse than the world had seen... more» The Enlightenment focused on reason not because it expected absolute certainty, but because it sought a way to live without it... more» A book that explains modern Polish literature may seem narrow, but tell us much about the European condition... more» How we love the myth of the small town, a sleepy place peopled by naive but gentle eccentrics and honest, warm-hearted folk... more» Abraham Lincoln saw no shame in doing politics, felt little discomfort about what it takes to get great things done... more» From de Chirico to Haight-Ashbury, from Jane Ellen Harrison to Freud, theorists, artists, and dreamers found their future in the remote Minoan past... more» ... more» Lisztomania was a phenomenon of the 19th century. Beatlemania was part of the 20th. They are more alike than you’d guess... more» Al-Qaeda suicide bombers rarely have any direct experience of oppression. Their acts stem from a sense of vicarious piety... more» “Children are unconsciously the most rational beings on earth, brilliantly drawing accurate conclusions from data and doing clever experiments”... more» Lenore Skenazy, “America’s Worst Mom,” let her nine-year-old ride NYC subways alone. Where are the child protection agencies when we need them?... more» Romanticism is often viewed as deeply hostile to science. But romanticism and 18th-century science were united by an intense sense of wonder... more» The bully who relentlessly attacks others from the safety of a blog is often the same enraged person who rails about the lack of human decency today... more» He called himself a “Socialist without a Party, a Christian without a Church.” Ignazio Silone was always a man apart... more» Six-year-old Bobby Greenlease left school one day in 1953 holding the hand of a strange woman. So began Kansas City’s great horror crime... more» Collecting maximum calories with the least effort is the dream of every creature, including prehistoric Homo sapiens. We pay the price today... more» A brilliant talker, sparkling essayist, and champion of liberty, to be sure. So why do Isaiah Berlin’s letters leave us with such a nasty taste?... more» After the WWII, Californians had it all: car, house, affordable education, health care, rising wages, glamour and leisure. Where did it all go? ... more» To escape a 1930s culture war that soon turned into a shooting war, artists, writers and composers fled Europe for Southern California... more» Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech was a Hail Mary pass by a president in trouble. And like many passes made in hope, it was picked off by his opponents... more» Lynn Barber’s voice is hugely confident: sometimes grumpy, or snooty, very often funny, and always extremely frank... more» Lord Byron was mad, bad, dangerous, and a cad. But as both poet and as lover, he knew what women wanted... more» William Herschel found the planet Uranus and the first balloonists realized the dreams of Icarus. It was the Age of Wonder... more» Margaret Thatcher viewed socialism as a school for self-pity and mediocrity. She not only admired courage, but had plenty of it herself... more» Alexander Waugh has but a dim, distant memory of William F. Buckley. As a small angry boy, he thought Buckley was hiding his ping-pong ball... more» A Hershey’s Kiss at 1¢ is not quite free, but it’s still pretty cheap. So what is the difference between Cheap and Free?... more» ... more» Vladimir Tatlin’s great unrealized work of art was a monument “made of iron, glass and revolution” It lives on still in the imagination... more» When all arguments for keeping women down have been shown to be self-serving lies, what are misogynists left with? That’s right: God... more» Religion uses ritual, mystery, drama, and meditation to help us cope with this vale of tears. It is practice, not unlike art or music... more» It was a magnificent run. From the end of WWII to the 1960s, California emerged as America’s dominant political, social, and cultural trendsetter... more» Isaiah Berlin was not only a compulsive chatterer. As his letters show, he was in a chattering class all of his own... more» Marc Augé laments the rise of airports that are decoupled from the world around them. Anywhere and everywhere, they are actually nowhere... more» Have religious people at last worked out how to serve both God and Mammon? Is ours the age of the “pastorpreneur”?... more» Saturated with lachrymose melodies, dirgelike rhythms and the ghastly, fatal oompahs of sad waltzes, the songs and symphonies of Gustav Mahler... more» Harvard president Charles W. Eliot saw his Five-Foot Shelf as “a good substitute for a liberal education.” Maybe it still is... more» Ought victimhood to be passed down to future generations? How about a moral statute of limitations on historic wrongs?... more» God has mellowed. Sure, he gets sore about abortion and gay marriage, but he’s really nothing like the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible... more» If Anna Letitia Barbauld’s was a voice of the Enlightenment, it has not carried very far. A new biography may change that... more» East, West, sex: are European men really “drawn to the slim, small-boned, black-haired women of Asia, more plumlike than melonlike of breast”?... more» Skip Griffin was a self-educated staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, a young man widely read in philosophy and theology. After he died in Iraq... more» In democracy, soft despotism “does not break wills,” says Tocqueville, “ it softens them, bends them, and directs them”... more» Leon Trotsky was absolutely committed to creating a workers’ paradise at all costs. But he was too inspirational, too popular... more» Saint-Simon’s memoirs do not make us regret the end of the age of great kings. But if only we had today chroniclers as wise, vital, witty, and knowing... more» | |
Essays and OpinionThere are in life three kinds of fools: real fools, professional fools, and unsuspecting fools. The professional fool, a staple of Shakespeare, is in reality nobody’s fool... more» Ridicule the Great Books, if you will, but do not forget they stood for the value of hard work to achieve understanding. Not the passive entertainment model college students now expect... more» The looming collapse of the U.S. entitlement system casts a giant shadow over the country’s future. How did America get itself into this mess?... more» Theodore Dalrymple was a prison doctor. So when a philosopher argues that prisons must be closed down, replaced by centers for reintegration, expect him to have an opinion... more» African-American Studies departments tend to hold front and center the idea racism is immensely influential in American life. John McWhorter does not disagree, but... more» Almost a year after AIG’s collapse, and despite a tidal wave of outrage, there was still no clear view of what toppled the company. Until Michael Lewis got on the case... more» “Americans? The worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which advertisers know how to provoke.” Gore Vidal is still at it... more» Cultural warriors from the past have turned Roman Polanski into either a ventriloquist’s dummy or a voodoo doll to let off cheap moral steam. A plague on both sides, says Brendan O’Neill... more» A principal cause of U.S. educational failure has been the dominance of a misguided “how-to” theory of language mastery. Schools need to teach commonly shared knowledge... more» Polymaths are scarcer today than in times past, with branches of knowledge fenced off from each other. “Foxes used to roam free across the hills. Now hedgehogs rule”... more» The argument Samuel Johnson started over the dictionary’s public role, was an early battle in what has come down to us as the culture wars. Yet another way he was ahead of his age... more» ... more» “Seeing the universe as God’s creation” means playing with the Lord, says Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno. “It’s a religious act. And it’s a very joyous act”... more» “An economist who is only an economist,” said Friedrich von Hayek, “is likely to become not only a nuisance but a positive danger.” The best economists are people of breadth... more» California, fresh, lively, and forever oriented toward the future, has for more than a century been a model for the rest of America. So who killed it?... more» “Practical men,” said John Maynard Keynes, “who believe themselves exempt from intellectual influence, are usually the slave of some defunct economist.” Keynes is far from defunct... more» For undergrads, watching grad students in English struggle to gain Ph.Ds and find jobs is like watching young people in Rust Belt cities: the work isn’t there, the technology obsolete... more» We domesticated dogs, roses, and corn. Next in line are domesticated bacteria that will power reactors to give us unlimited clean energy... more» “Why I love Al Jazeera.” The Arab TV channel is visually stunning, exudes hustle, and covers the globe like no one else, says Robert Kaplan. Just beware of its insidious despotism... more» In Arles, Vincent planned to be methodical and determined: “more interesting as a man who knows what he is doing than as a mad genius, because everybody can be a mad genius”... more» Ted Kennedy, Victorian hero. You can tell good guys from bad on principles of Darwinian literary criticism. Kennedy was one of the good guys... more» There’s a lot of bad food in America, almost all of it eaten in god-awful chains. But in back streets and strip malls, you can also find uncounted small acts of culinary genius... more» Cultural studies may stand in some minds for “half-assed research, self-congratulation, farcical pretension.” Michael Bérubé sees in it the promise of an understanding that actually works... more» Art historical roads – from Virgil, Ovid, and Dante to Vasari’s Michelangelo – begin with Homer, who incites us to imagine magnificent Greek palaces and their art... more» The price of a scoop. New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell ignored advice and was kidnapped in Afghanistan. Saving him left his interpreter and a British soldier dead... more» Hatred of America and those evil Jews, along with intricate conspiracy theories, helps to unite Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and their new friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... more» You could hardly expect Plato to approve of Grand Theft Auto IV, with what he’d have regarded as its puerile shoot-’em-up values. But what about Aristotle?... more» American academics have shown little curiosity about conservative ideas. Will Berkeley’s Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements make any difference?... more» ... more» The professionalization of everyday life was a trend from the outset of modernity, and has grown hugely since the 1960s. It’s a tyranny of experts... more» At its therapeutic best, women’s shoe shopping takes place in hushed, carpeted salons, salesmen serving their Cinderella customers. Zappos has another idea... more» For Gail Hornstein, learning to write was a matter of sharply defining her ideas, making them vivid and pleasurable. How painful to unlearn nearly all she’d been taught as a professional... more» Stand Up and Cheer! was meant as a morale booster for 1934, using song, dance, and little Shirley Temple to sell optimism in support of President Roosevelt... more» After cloistering himself to bring dead flesh to life, Victor Frankenstein condemned his creature to a solitude that made monsters of them both. Mary Shelley knew this loneliness... more» Economics, says Douglas Rushkoff, is not a natural science. It is game theory, and its assumptions have little to do with genetics, neurology, or evolution... more» What is snark? Abuse in a public forum that is low, personal, teasing, rug-pulling, finger-pointing, snide, obvious, and knowing. As David Denby explains... more» “If I want to get home from work,” observes Noam Chomsky, “the market offers me a choice between a Ford and a Toyota, but not between a car and a subway”... more» Norman Mailer’s obsession with violence found its greatest expression in his superb, civilized focus on boxing’s great heavyweights. In other settings he was less successful... more» Seventy years ago today, WWII began in Poland. How differently countries party to the event commemorate it. The view taken by Russia is perhaps the most troubling... more» ... more» How the British see themselves and the world is not easy to grasp. A good place to begin is to consider what the Second World War did to Britain... more» Texting and tweeting may seem advanced forms of communication. But the absence of gesture, eye contact, and personal posture makes for problems... more» The novel is waking up from its long nap, argues Lev Grossman. Old hierarchies of taste are on the way out. Power is swinging from the writer back to the reader... more» Life for the foreign woman in Cairo: unless she has a murderous uncle by her side or a veil over her face, she can expect to be treated as a communal dish... more» A greener world may eliminate some risks we face, but it will create new ones. Electric cars will require lithium. And guess where the world’s lithium deposits are?... more» If Amazon reader reviews existed centuries ago: “Oedipus Rex, four stars. Sophocles is a satisfying author who writes in clear, snappy prose. Weird subplot about Mr. Rex’s mother”... more» For a century, the life of a home listener was simple: you had a record of a piece of music, or you didn’t. The Internet breaks all this down... more» The war between science and religion includes more than a few draft dodgers on both sides, says Robert Wright. Many scientists and religious believers just will not join the fight... more» Can money buy happiness? Of course, money was invented long after there was happiness and its absence. But the same can be said of booze, drugs, and philosophy... more» The CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom was run from the start by Ivy League liberals. So its open-handed support for modern art and literature was no surprise... more» For French lawyer Jacques Vergès, no tyrant or terrorist, no matter how vile, is indefensible. Now he’s defending a top Khmer Rouge leader... more» H.L. Mencken said that a writer who found the work too arduous ought to take a week off for labor on an assembly line – where he’ll discover what work really is... more» Zora Neale Hurston’s grin, like her belief in black self-sufficiency, was as much a quiet challenge to black people as to white, says John McWhorter. It still is... more» The Arab future: conspiracy vs reality. A battle between daughters of dead Egyptian presidents is a sad commentary on the condition of the Arab world... more» Michel Foucault criticized prisons for subjecting inmates to constant, spirit-crushing surveillance. But surveillance goes both ways. Consider Rikers Island... more» Daniel Barenboim has opinions about music, of course. But politics, too: “The Six Day War made us feel good for 24 hours but the hangover has lasted 42 years”... more» Edvard Munch knew better than anyone that the flip side of the glorious Arctic midnight sun is the long, dark, melancholy winter to come... more» Someone once called Isak Dinesen’s stories artificial. “Of course they are artificial,” she said. “Such is the essence of the tale-telling art”... more» Mozart’s music is stupendous, when it isn’t unbelievable or perfect or beyond superlatives. Yes, more mindless, clichéd cheerleading... more» It is a truth universally acknowledged that over the years so many millions of people keep coming back to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice... more» American college presidents do not have an admirable history in their responses to Nazi and Italian fascism. How then will they respond to the thugs and butchers of Tehran?... more» Kim Jong Il’s regime is a force of nature. That is what its art tells you. North Korea offers sublimely sickening totalitarian kitsch... more» The relentless cacophony that is life in the 21st century can make settling in with a book difficult even for lifelong readers... more» Atticus Finch wanted his white, male jurors to do the right thing, says Malcolm Gladwell. But as a good Jim Crow liberal he dared not to challenge their privilege... more» Take the horror of war seriously, said Carl von Clausewitz, but don’t disarm in the name of humanity. “Sooner or later someone will come along and hack off your arms”... more» ACT ONE: A street in Cambridgeham. Most Exalted Professor, freshly returned from the Land of the Asian Khan, rattles the door of his keep. Enter a WENCH: “Alarum! A Thief!”... more» Alberto Fujimori defeated evil in Peru. On the other hand, he used evil to accomplish it. Who is to judge? Whom to be judged? Theodore Dalrymple wonders... more» Positive psychology is delighted by the recognition it now gets among scientists. But do people really need “happiness interventions”?... more» The Omnivore’s delusion. Farming has always been messy, painful, bloody, and dirty, says Blake Hurst. It still is... more» Poor ol’ Judas has gotten a bum rap. After all, he pushed along the events of Christ’s Passion. Someone should thank him for it... more» The best cocktails are not of the 1950s, when the Rat Pack set the standard, but the 1920s, when piano bars and hot jazz ruled... more» General knowledge, from capital cities to key dates, has long been a marker of an educated mind. Now every dope can Google facts... more» Who is the real Raymond Carver? How an editor’s pencil created an author’s literary style – and how an author’s wife has undone it... more» In 1989, Jeane Kirkpatrick said the U.S. “will need to learn to be a power, not a superpower,” to get used to being “a normal nation.” But nothing has been normal since 1914... more» Publish! Publish! Publish! Yet not much new will likely come from still another reading of Hamlet. Mark Bauerlein on humanities research... more» “I woke up one morning and everything in the apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica.” A joke? Or intimations of receding reality?... more» Israel’s Mossad had the Nazis’ Angel of Death, Josef Mengele, within their grasp. But they had too much else on their minds... more» There is endless journalistic comment on the web – about other blog-comments that are in turn about further commentators. Where does the chain end?... more» Is having sex more often than aging shrinks some kind of psychiatric disorder? How about bitterness? Looks like DSM-V is going down the road to diagnostic insanity... more» Treason against the planet? Nonsense, says Bjørn Lomborg. Robust debate does not mean telling others what they can and cannot say... more» Now that Volkswagen has gobbled up Porsche, we can consider the tensions between two families – some Rudolf Steiner hippies, others hard-nosed capitalists – at the heart of these firms... part 1 ... part 2 Ernest Hemingway fussed over the words he wrote, words that gave the literary world a new style of writing. What would he think of his heirs messing around with his books?... more» Tom Engelhardt’s father died many years ago. But the old man’s face has been showing up again – staring back when Tom looks in the mirror... more» The American space program was the grandest, most Promethean and godlike quest in the history of the human race. Sure, says Tom Wolfe, but then what happened?... more» The values of classical music make it immune to short-term fashion, says Andrew Clark. In fact, being deeply unfashionable explains why it has lasted... more» Our future lives of brain doping, intuition networks, and artificial minds may seem surreal and dizzying from our perspective today. But they too will be quite ordinary... more» Curse you, Neil Armstrong! The Apollo moon landing thrust a dagger into the heart of science fiction, argues Ted Gioia... more» The Merriam-Webster Third International was the most reviled dictionary of its age. Also, the most unfairly denigrated – by the likes of David Foster Wallace... more» Embrace individualism and reject stereotypes, says Tyler Cowen. Even look in a mirror. You may find far more talent, including autistic talent, than you expected... more» America means well: on this, most Americans will agree. So when U.S. policy goes awry, it must be bad luck, bad planning, or bad tactics. But still, good intentions... more» Over the past 30 years, divisions in Islam have triggered paroxysms of violence. Sectarian, ethnic, and racial hatreds have trumped the ideal of Islamic unity... more» Adam Smith is usually seen as the founder of modern economics. But will Charles Darwin turn out to have been the more subtle economic thinker?... more» For 30 years the self-esteem movement has told the young they’re perfect in every way, giving us an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy. Consider Sarah Palin... more» Marshall McLuhan said it was going to be one big global village. He didn’t say the villagers would much like each other. But writing and thinking would be like TV!... more» Christina Hoff Sommers has been called a “thug,” a “parasite,” and a “female impersonator.” But to be accused of practicing “metonymic historiography” – Oh, dear... more» Americans admire dignity, as well they ought. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system. David Brooks explains... more» Measurement cannot change human nature, and it is human nature and behavior that cause economic dislocations as well as economic advance... more» Simon was a liar and a thief, but he also gave the very young Lynn Barber an education about food, travel, opera, Bergman films – and cads... more» “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murders sound respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Pure Orwell... more» Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle aimed his thoughts at evolution and gave him both the facts and intellectual stamina to work toward his magnificent goal... more» Robert Wright may not believe in God, but he thinks that human beings, along with their religions, are marching, however wobbly, toward moral truth... more» Our very own Philosopher-in-Chief. It’s been a long time, but maybe Americans are entitled to one. Carlin Romano on Barack Obama... more» In 1942, Simon and Schuster’s well-made and beautifully illustrated Little Golden Books burst upon the American scene. It was the start of something big... more» President Obama echoes gloomy think tank reports in calling cyber-security “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face.” Is this true?... more» Conspiracy theories remain the pastime of crank groups. But conspiratorial thinking, the idea that someone out there is to blame for every misfortune, has become respectable... more» Woman power. Regimes that repress the civil and human rights of half their populations are inherently unstable. Anne Applebaum explains... more» The Dalai Lama wants “one country, two systems” for Tibet. Tibetans would be happy with one system – the relatively liberal one found elsewhere in China... more» Gen. Patrick Hurley, President Roosevelt’s man in Tehran, was a rambunctious chap who liked cowboy hats. He also had a dream: democracy for Iran... more» A spectre is haunting the world, Karl Marx might write today: the spectre of neoliberalism. Where did this idea come from, and why is it so awful?... more» In the aftermath of modernism, artistic beauty has more and more aimed to disturb or subvert moral certainties. Originality, not beauty, now wins prizes... more» The notion of multiple intelligences is uplifting and politically satisfying. Unfortunately, the actual evidence suggests it’s wrong... more» “The Jagger lips, moody monobrow, and fag between two fingers exactly fitted the image I’d formed of a coldly alluring Martin Amis.” Julie Kavanagh was smitten... more» Greed is good, up to a point. We must get straight on what capitalism offers the world, and know what its limits are. This means better knowing ourselves, says Fareed Zakaria... more» Francis Bacon’s reputation as a romantic outlaw has allowed him to achieve the most over-inflated reputation of the last half-century, says Jed Perl... more» Most Russians would like to see more democracy in Russia, including a rule of law and a freer media. But the West tends to misinterpret this longing, says Anatol Lieven... more» Robert Garmong struggled through grad-school poverty and then life on the adjunct market. But he never thought he’d go to prison just to teach philosophy... more» Garrett Hardin was wrong to say, “the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.” Actually, it ends up generating private property. Ronald Bailey explains... more» Said Groucho Marx to the talkative bore, “You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.” Mark Edmundson too has met his share of bores... more» A narrow Darwinian view will never be able to account for religion’s indispensable role in forming higher ideals that, as a species, help to make us genuinely civilized... more» Bitterness is so common and so deeply harmful that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness: “post-traumatic embitterment disorder”... more» Lochner’s Home Bakery in Utica was owned by hard-working German immigrant Joseph Lochner. In 1895, he found himself in violation of the New York Bakeshop Act... more» They can be eccentric, slow afoot, even grouchy. But old dogs can live out their final days with a humility and grace we all can learn from... more» Conspiracies have in principle the power to do actual harm in the world. Far more harmful in practice is the power of conspiracy theories... more» Is the American embargo against Cuba the “dumbest policy on the face of the earth”? Maybe not. But that does not mean it is working... more» Four ways to experience Little Dorrit: paperback, audiobook, Kindle, and iPhone. Which works best for Dickens? Ann Kirschner decided to run a little experiment... more» What’s going on? Much of Europe falls into the hands of conservative parties, while America has “gone socialist.” In truth, differences between Europe and the U.S. are overrated... more» The real purpose of universities is not to flatter the tastes of those who arrive there, but to present them with a rite of passage into something better... more» |
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