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Articles of NoteDo you hate those wretched, sweet floral perfumes? Try a dab of “Wet pavement” or “In the library” behind the ear... more» Philosophy is not for everyone, says Kelly Jolley. �It�s aristocratic in the sense that any selection based on talent is aristocratic�... more» Group cohesion may be one reason for the global reach of story telling. Another is that fiction is a proving ground for vital social skills... more» Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, with its statistics, anecdotes, and horror stories, still makes a compelling case... more» If there�s anyone unaffected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it’s the Lehman family. They’ve moved on... more» ... more» Piano recitals in the 19th century often resembled The Ed Sullivan Show more than the serious, hushed concerts of today... more» Democracy on the wane? In country after country, democratic reforms are in retreat. Blame the middle class... more» The book business as we know it will not live happily ever after. Even this era of decline may one day look like the last great golden age... more» Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view, says the Royal Society of Great Britain... more» ... update ... Reiss resigns The more women and men have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their Mars and Venus personalities seem to diverge... more» First move for a con man: tell your victim a story that reveals your similar anxieties, and forge a “mutual understanding”... more» David Foster Wallace, writer of dark, manic irony, has committed suicide... NYT ... NYT appraisal ... WP ... LAT From Casanova�s first orgasm to Bob Hope�s last jokes, history is a series of landmarks, both inspiring and absurd... more» A Tiger’s Tale. In Texas, where you can own a pet tiger, the booming exotic animal trade has grim consequences... more» There’s a 1/1000 chance that you, your family, and the whole human race will die. So where’s the precautionary principle when you really need it?... more» Ben Franklin liked to present himself as a small-town boy bewildered in the big city. This urbane, highly intelligent man was anything but... more» South Bend, Indiana is an unlikely place for a thriving Russian community with a high percentage of piano virtuosos, but history has strange twists... more» Jimmy Slyde was not just a tap dancer: his slides were an expressive idiom for him to tease the beat, to delay and then catch up... more» ... video Beyond boozy comradeship felt toward strangers in bars, and a few moments of euphoria, what’s to be said for being a sports fan?... more» They don’t read Paul Theroux in English departments. “I’m too rude about people,” he says. We do live in a sensitive age... more» Behavioral economics is not just a gizmo added to traditional economics; it is a big departure that will deliver a new way of seeing the world... more» After a full day at the office, Franz Kafka had dinner and got to writing about 11:00 PM. And what if he’d had more time?... more» Why are kids so unimaginative? Yes, that was the question Teresa Belton asked. For an answer look at TV and daydreaming... more» Otto Preminger, hearing a group of fellow �migr�s speaking Hungarian, said, �Don�t you people know you�re in Hollywood? Speak German.� He had a point... more» Ossetian hero: Victor Kaloyev murdered the air controller he felt had killed his wife and children. Now out of prison, he finds new fields for revenge... more» International terrorism, for now, is but a puny apocalypse. But at any moment, with the right weapon, it could go from nothing to everything... more» In the 1949 Revolution, a few Americans went to China to help build the Maoist dream. Sixty years later, one of them is still there... more» Is there a performance drug that could actually increase the fairness of sports contests? Yes, there is. Carl Elliott on beta blockers... more» The Cuban judge sat with his feet up on the desk reading a comic book. The sentence for opposing the Revolution: thirty years... more» The mini-cow is the solution to rising food prices. No taller than a German shepherd, it gives 16 pints of milk a day. Plus, it mows the lawn... more» Hans Monderman loved cars. But he wondered if mature automobile societies could, in essence, act like adults. He was the Traffic Guru... more» Save the Males: feminism today has neutered men and deprived them of their noble, protective role in society, says Kathleen Parker... more» �She�s imaginative, clever, educated,” says Karl Lagerfeld, who has used Carla Bruni as a model. “She knows how to behave�... more» Human brains evolved to be belief engines: we want to explain everything, including our deepest mystical experiences... more» Con men call it, “taking off the touch” – the point in the con when they take the mark’s money. But he had such an honest face... more» In the long history of the cinema, how many movies, let alone violent boxing movies, can have been based on a poem? Yet one was, a 1949 RKO release... more» The Chinese discovered America, says Gavin Menzies. Now he claims that they also sparked the Renaissance... more» How unpredictable is the Kremlin? For Walter Laqueur, leaders of Russia have tended to be more predictable than the White House... more» Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cats’ paw of the West... more» ... Putin makes his move ... brew for a blowup ... Black Sea watershed ... Shaakashvili speaks ... stand up to Russia ... power politics ... Vladimir Bonaparte ... blame the victim ... Russia heading for a fall ... grudge match ... back to the 19th century ... Yukos, now Georgia ... the Great Game ... hard landing for Russia ... Putinism wins ... perils to come ... resurgent bear ... Russian resentment ... Georgia’s problem ... wanna-be superpower ... Putin warmonger ... ominous doctrine ... not Hitler or Stalin ... historic turning point ... Russia does not want war ... back to ’68 There was huge drop in semicolon use from the 18th through the 19th centuries, from 68.1 per 1000 words to 17.7. And that’s just the start of the trouble... more» Dr. Malthus, thou shouldst be living at this hour, with the birth rate in Britain at all-time lows. It’s the real population problem... more» Major world powers are unlikely to take any significant steps against Robert Mugabe because Zimbabwe exports neither oil nor international terrorism... more» A Truman for our times. President Bush has successfully rolled back jihadism, and placed the U.S. to benefit from Asian growth... more» No one yet knows how to disarm bacteria enough to allow the human body to naturally and consistently defend against them. And we still have superbugs... more» Size matters, when it comes to IQ. The bigger your brain, the better. But most important is that certain areas of the brain be larger... more» Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose books told the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, is dead at 89 ... UPI ... Globe & Mail ... Chicago Tribune ... Philly Inquirer ... FrontPage ... Rutland Herald ... last interview ... LAT ... American Spectator ... Wash Times ... Irish Times ... neighbors speak ... Telegraph ... AP ... AFP ... London Times ... Irish Times ... BBC ... Guardian ... NYT ... Der Spiegel ... 1978 Harvard speech ... Putin & Gorbachev ... old Buckley column ... Daily Mail ... Guardian ... Moscow Times ... Open Democracy ... Time ... Nat’l Post ... Slate ... Ottawa Citizen ... Boston Globe ... Nat’l Post ... Forbes ... BBC ... Heritage.org ... Christian Post ... German papers ... New Statesman ... Economist ... Wall Street Journal ... Khrushcev’s daughter ... ever the optimist Coddled from infancy and raised to be academic stars, China’s only children buckle under pressure of their parents’ deferred dreams... more» Blue sky thinking, pushing the envelope: office-speak is just so brainless. Going forward, Lucy Kellaway dialogues... more» Who framed George Lakoff? This noted linguist’s foray into Democratic politics has been, well, a little bit exciting... more» Kay Ryan, America’s new poet laureate, is a miniaturist. Her poems, like pearls, take shape “around an aggravation”... more» Literary critics often use “voice” to mean “style.” But real writers have real voices too, and they have been recorded... more» Frédéric Bourdin had invented scores of identities, in five languages, and he played them to the hilt. But his favorite was the abused child... more» Like every force of nature, lightning gives and takes away. It exudes nitrogen for plants. It is also deadly: it chars, explodes, sears... more» Visiting Harvard to teach is like visiting Disney World. The magic dust induces a light narcosis. The mind goes incontinent... more» ... more» ... more» So globalization, by making nations richer, will make them democratic? Not if we enrich entrenched, anti-democratic powers... more» Quiet! Sleeping Brain at Work. The brain can get a lot done, and leave you a little smarter, when it sleeps... more» The lower types, Nietzsche dared to think, wallow in pity as swine do in mud, their pity for others just pity for themselves. But what of real compassion?... more» What is art criticism today? It’s sure not Harold Rosenberg or Clement Greenberg. Some might call this progress. James Panero calls it a shame... more» Obama needs time to think, McCain needs time to think, and so do you. But how can you find the time, or make the time?... more» Brideshead Revisited is a misfit of a book, loved in the wrong way, as the vomitous stupidity of Miramax’s new film version shows... more» Last year, 194 people killed themselves on the tracks of mass transit systems in the U.K. It’s a theatrical way to die... more» At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Herbert Hoover had his aides pick up every stray bit of paper left on tables or thrown out. Smart move... more» Even Arts & Letters Daily readers have been known to bluff about classic books they’ve not really read. What’s your shameful secret?... more» Writing in Paris just six months before his death, Walter Benjamin produced for Max Horkheimer in New York a report on the literary situation in France... more» The Chevrolet Volt is a new kind of electric hybrid GM wants in showrooms in late 2010. It is a gigantic risk for the company... more» How many of us are aware that when we look into a mirror we see an image on the mirror surface that is exactly half life size?... more» When the U.S. pioneered universal access to high school, the whole economy benefited. Today it needs the same for college... more» Who would guess that Lord Keynes was “deeply moved” by Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, and called it “a grand book”?... more» Just what his ideological enemies might wish for: Christopher Hitchens has been tortured in a waterboarding session... more» The New Yorker was “one of the greatest money pits in magazine history.” Then it got a new editor, David Remnick... more» What about southern Iraq’s important archeological sites – the ones that had been looted? Well, the looting was an urban myth... more» Persia’s Cyrus II was a great defender of human rights. Just like the late Shah, who gave proof of the wisdom of both men to the United Nations... more» Obsessive stalker, an impotent husband, lover of young boys: to some, the creator of Peter Pan was an evil genius. But to others... more» John McWhorter’s artistic pantheon has room for Brahms, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, and Billy Strayhorn. As for Rap... more» Monkeys may not care about money, but they are mad about marshmallows. And to them, marshmallows can begin to look a lot like money... more» Beijing: flat, sprawling, smoggy, jammed with traffic, and nearly all new. A kind of People’s Republic of Houston... more» “All poets’ wives have rotten lives.” The words of Delmore Schwartz were not directly about Elizabeth Hardwick, and she might not have agreed. Still... more» Is fan fiction legal? Fans are nervous. A copyright owner’s rights extend explicitly to derivative works based on the original... more» Homosexual behavior is common in nature, and it plays an important role in survival. Consider Roy and Silo, Central Park’s gay penguins... more» Move over, Noam. A new survey of the world’s top intellectuals shows they are mostly Muslims you never heard of... more» ... more» Shoppers at farmers markets have ten times as many conversations with other people as those at supermarkets. And as for the food... more» The routes of humans from Africa to the Americas over millennia can be mapped as if they were moving over superhighways... more» Paleolithic cave art shows no sun, moon, or plant life, and hardly a human being. It is rather about magnificent animals... more» The downside of natural disasters is so sad and so obvious. Yet, like losing wars, disasters can have an upside... more» “Mother Russia,” or “Mother India.” Men may leave, fight, be compromised, but women represent purity, continuity, home – and babies... more» Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%, far more than previous estimates, says a secret World Bank report... more» As everyone knows, Socrates spoke for all skeptics when he said, “All I know is that I know nothing.” But is that what he really said?... more» “Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t, they’d be married too.” What did Mencken mean?... more» The Architect of Brasília? Yes, it was urban planning gone badly wrong, but the city still contains some graceful modernist government buildings... more» Woodrow Wilson talked of “a common order, a common justice and a common peace” for America and the world. His is an idea ripe for revival... more» Is the golden age of biography now past? What future for a genre where the best subjects have been written about over and over and over again?... more» “You just cannot expect to have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.” This is news Europe needs to know... more» Gene Weingarten got his Pulitzer Prize, and even got on Arts & Letters Daily, by being so original. So should he now turn his prize back in?... more» Tim Berners-Lee made the web because he had a poor memory for some things. John Naughton wonders if it won’t give us all a poor memory... more» You say you know what you’re doing. But what if your brain has made up its mind ten seconds before it tells you?... more» Unequal America The gap between rich and poor is growing: that much is certain. But of the consequences of the gap... more» To get parents to pick up their kids on time, a preschool started fining late parents. So did average tardiness decrease? Quite the reverse... more» She’d gone to hell and back and rebuilt her life. But then there was that episode with shingles. And then the itch. The Itch... more» “Dark,” the TV weatherman said. “And we’ll have continued dark throughout the evening.” George Carlin is dead. Last talk with Jay Dixit ... appreciation by Charles McGrath ... HBO clip ... Seinfeld on Carlin Here’s a test. Play Grand Theft Auto IV for a few hours, then go outside and find a locked car. Are you tempted to steal it?... more» Add more signs, directions, and limits on the road, and drivers will be safer, right? Wrong. Drivers tend to compensate... more» “Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the world,” a Beijing Olympics official said in 2001. Yeah, sure... more» “I am astonished that the Bush people are so robotic,” says Peggy Noonan. Criticize the boss and you’re banished from the kingdom... more» Multitasking costs the economy. One study found workers took 25 minutes to recover from phone calls or emails and return to their original task... more» Lower men wallow in pity as swine do in mud, their pity for others being the same as their pity for themselves. Thus spake Nietzsche... more» Why do government efforts to correct problems so often seem to make things worse? Because people are the problems... more» Young radicals of the 1960s and today have mixed motives and impulses: at once craving autonomy and validation, guidance and self-definition... more» It’s not just NASA pilots who need to nap. Arts & Letters Daily readers need naps, too. Herewith, a complete guide... more» Imagine building a 1500 ft tunnel under the center of a Soviet-controlled city. The CIA did it, in secret, under Berlin... more» “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” For Fathers Day... more» “Sit. Stay. Make up for everything that is wrong in my life.” But they know that’s part of their job, too. We do love our dogs... more» The $100 Distraction Device. Why giving poor kids laptops is about as good for schools as giving them their own private PlayStations... more» “The professor in his corduroy, the dead man on the kitchen floor. But for what seemed like the longest time, we were the best of friends”... more» How to save money, as a woman. How to be a creative spirit, or find balance, as a woman. How to buy a house, as a woman. Why all these books?... more» James Watson does not have a high IQ. That’s what he told Henry Louis Gates – as proof that IQ is not all that important. Maybe... more» Sex and the City’s women are defined not by their talent and the swordplay of their wit, but by their ability to snare a man... more» Georges Simenon’s crime novels are superb and polished works of art that masquerade as pulp fiction... more» The Hindu-supremacist right in India is back, with a mass murderer leading Gujarat. Now consider the Communists in West Bengal... more» Win the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest. Patrick House did it, and he can show you how to do it too... more» “You will never,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, “be able to control randomness.” But knowing that fact can give you an edge... more» The fundamental differences between man and animal are overrated, Charles Darwin felt. Alex the parrot helps prove his case... more» ... video Top ten solutions to the world’s biggest problems. The Copenhagen Consensus says micronutrients must take the highest priority... more» Roberto Mangabeira Unger is Brazil’s answer to John Stuart Mill – a century and a half later and a lot nattier... more» The cubicle revolution in office plans was above all ideological. Cubicles were to create a utopia for Dilbert... more» Charles Darwin’s language sings in The Voyage of the Beagle. It is the work of a young man intoxicated by the tropics... more» “Truman Capote I truly loathed,” says Gore Vidal. “The way you might loathe an animal. A filthy animal that has found its way into the house”... more» Christianity’s collapse has wrecked U.K. society and family life, leaving the country defenseless against radical Islam, says Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali... more» ... more» The charges against video games – that they stunt minds and spark addiction – are based on ignorance of what gamers do when they sit down to play... more» The chasm between the humanities and the sciences can be bridged with a new kind of thinking that uses the strengths of both disciplines... more» It’s in opera as in life, Ian McEwan says: “Conversations are a kind of duet.” That is why he has now written an opera libretto... more» Seated in the Memorial, he looks so big. But his hair is uncombed, his tie askew, his fingers fidgety. Abe Lincoln is still only a man... more» The Betrayal of Judas. Did a “dream team” of biblical experts assembled by National Geographic mislead millions?... more» The future looks different from the past, but on a grand cosmological scale, maybe it’s all the same. Somewhere, maybe time runs backwards... more» At the end, Susan Sontag’s son colluded with his mother’s fantasy that she wasn’t dying. Doing this was not without cost... more» Using an odorless dye to color white wine red induces wine tasters to use red-wine descriptors for it. As for martinis... more» The real test of character, George Orwell noted, is how you treat someone who has no possibility of doing you any good. It’s a matter of honor... more» Just say “no.” Why don’t more women go into science and engineering? Shocking new research suggests they actually aren’t interested... more» “If the old days in China were so terrible, why the long queue at Mao’s tomb?” P.J. O’Rourke wanted to respond, “They’re making sure he’s dead”... more» “I was raised on chicken fat.” Will Elder, a founding spirit of Mad magazine from 1952 is dead at the age of 86... more» ... more» Can you engineer the kind of insight that leads to invention? Nathan Myhrvold left Microsoft and struck out on his own in order to find out... more» You got a problem with that? Why do New Yorkers seem so rude? Joan Acocella wonders... more» ... Then there’s NYC’s suicide tourism. Does she insist on dragging you to Sex and the City? The agony. No man should have to sit through this movie. Now, a solution... more» Britain’s nearest neighbor and oldest enemy: No nation stirs such conflicting emotions in the British breast as France... more» Does China operate sweatshops? How could you know? One way to find out is to send over some inspectors. Easy... more» Richard Rorty was lovable as a person, and as a philosopher both perceptive and, at times, intensely irritating... more» Gleaming pneumatic women: the female ideal pushed by laddie magazines is as smooth and lifeless as an iPhone... more» With Russia flexing its military muscle, are the chances of an accidental nuclear war back again on the increase?... more» Frida Kahlo knew a way to show a certain emotion, at once accusatory, nervy, furious, a little adolescent, and sometimes even funny... more» ... image Jesse Jackson is relieved when he hears footsteps behind him, turns around, sees it’s a white man – and figures he won’t be mugged. Is this acceptable?... more» Suppose we found remnants of algae or a trilobite on another planet? It might be a bad omen for the human race... more» Human beings are impulsive, lazy, busy, inert, irrational creatures prone to all kinds of biases and errors: that’s why they need libertarian paternalism... more» Alice Walker cared so much about other people’s kids, she forgot her own. Her daughter says the writer “resigned from being my mother”... more» If Frederick Douglass were alive today, he would be dismayed by the reluctance of liberals to connect programs with the spirit that animates their politics... more» The book is not for burning. Contra its author’s dying wishes, son Dmitri will publish Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel, Laura... more» If in the end Niels Bohr was not able to explain it all to Margrethe, well, that was nature’s doing, not Bohr’s fault... more» The penalties for prostitution in Iran are severe – whipping and even execution. So how does the oldest profession fare in that land?... more» Saint Walter Cronkite intones in grainy footage or black and white stills – that’s the way it is, at the Newseum. Whatever... more» William Jefferson was inspired by love of his kinfolk to do great things. That’s why he had $90,000 cash in his freezer... more» Augusten Burroughs’s memory: what sort of freakishly bloated cortex retains after eighteen years the color of some random person’s belt?... more» Percival Lowell, a brilliant, rich, charming Boston Brahmin, thought a century ago he could see a network of canals on Mars. He got other people thinking... more» If you think you know who the winners are going to be, come November, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Enter the political betting markets... more» The British love their trees, but across the land beautiful old trees are being chopped down in their thousands. The reason? Safety rules and hungry lawyers... more» A child’s body had been found on the island of Jersey, in the grounds of a children’s home, said the BBC, and the media frenzy began... more» An atheist church? “The last thing atheists want to see is their rational set of ideas yoked up with the trappings of a religion,” says Daniel Dennett... more» “To shoot a man because you disagree with him about Hegel’s dialectic is after all to honor the human spirit,” says George Steiner... more» Diana was “a simpering Bambi narcissist,” Mother Theresa a “thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf.” Christopher Hitchens does have opinions... more» Crazy English. Li Yang’s cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength – and national power... more» It is a truth universally acknowledged that available, sociable, and attractive men are hard to find for dinner parties... more» Trace the city walls of Elea today. Maybe Zeno formulated his paradoxes pacing these same stones 900,000 days ago... more» The dirty secret of travel guides: update your edition by plagiarizing another guide, or just Google that town you might have explored on foot... more» “A good English breakfast never lets you down.” No, it kills you, and that’s exactly what it is doing to Brits across their little islands right now... more» Plants are green because the sun that keeps them alive is a type G star. If they’d evolved for a red dwarf, plants would be black... more» Now 35 years on, how does Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying stand up as literature? In Elaine Showalter’s view, very well... more» India is about to create what may be the biggest mass eviction of indigenous people ever. All in the name of conservation... more» You can walk into an elevator one night, with your life in one kind of shape, and emerge from it with your life in quite another. Ask Nicholas White... more» Deconstruction was for M.H. Abrams a problem from the start. He had doubts about the idea that “for hundreds of years people have missed the real point”... more» A bad night at the opera. But at the Met, the talent pool is formidable, and even Tristan und Isolde can end happily. Sort of... more» |
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New BooksOscar Wilde was a man made of books, from Plato to Pater. The story of his libraries is the story of his life... more» Proust can keep his madeleines. For some people, nothing brings back childhood like the inky smell of Batman comics... more» White Castle created the template in 1916 for all fast-food restaurants in the world. And thus was the hamburger born... more» Sushi is just what “White People” want: foreign, expensive, healthy, and hated by the uneducated. White People are not snobs or anything... more» It�s not enough to be antifascist; one must also be in principle antitotalitarian. That about sums up Bernard-Henri Lévy... more»
In Heinrich Himmler’s view, Slavs were �Mongol types� to be replaced with blond Aryans in the east. Russians were mere �redskins�... more» Every unhappy book launch is unhappy in its own way, except when it involves Islam. Then the plot is rather familiar... more» Benjamin Disraeli wrote 18 novels. They abound with ambitious young men who are convinced of their genius but who feel they are strangers... more» Fables for children work not by pointing to a moral but by complicating moral thinking. Consider Babar the Elephant... more» In 1940, Churchill sent a group of young, handsome British officers to Washington to charm the power elite and... more» Feeling a sense of loss for a God you don’t believe in anyway? Isn’t the idea rather soppy, Mr. Barnes?... more» The entry of Britain and France into the Greek War of Independence is the first humanitarian intervention. It wasn’t the last... more» A black hole is a kind of one-way gate in the universe: Stuff can fall in, but nothing comes out. Easy, eh? Not exactly... more» Whatever divides religion and atheism, much more important is the potential of both to promote a sense of compassion ... more» Wittgenstein family: among the richest, most talented and eccentric in Europe, a family of geniuses and suicides... more» In 1904, Max Factor huddled in a forest with his wife and children, hunted by the Czar’s men. Hollywood was still a long way off... more» Intelligent Design tries with evidence and logic to show that life was designed by an intelligent agency competent to the task... more» Why are some countries rich, others poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in England? Why is Africa still mired in poverty?... more» “Interface” for “meet”? Maybe soon the word it will become a synonym for “kiss,” as in: “Interface me, baby!”... more» What are lies, and what do they mean in political life today? Jacques Lacan has no answers, just dinner party anecdotes... more» A great contribution of the 20th century was to let the chaos and cadences of the world, the sounds of the street, into music... more» Josef Stalin hated genetics: if genes are physical structures passed down through generations then nature isn’t changeable... more» Except for issues of cleanliness, sex, and food, the British are just like Yanks. Oh, yes, and then there’s language... more» �Organic food� may bring to mind hairy people peddling goat cheese. But we also might think back to Edmund Burke and the 18th century... more» Bernard-Henri L�vy, a Sartre in billowy, unbuttoned white shirt, has his finger on the geopolitical zeitgeist like no other philosopher... more» Julian Barnes is not frightened about dying but not happy, either. “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him”... more» Bacardi Rum had been a patriotic firm with a long history of supporting social welfare reforms in Cuba. Then along came Castro... more» When Giordano Bruno mounted the pyre, a crucifix was held to his face. A witness says that he turned away angrily... more» Emily Dickinson’s gnomic poems go down like shots of triple-distilled whiskey. After the jolt, they radiate... more» The tabloids create an alternative universe each week for four or five million people clutching their quarters at supermarket check-out racks... more» Most conquerors try to convert their subjects. Hitler’s empire was built on the idea of exterminating the natives... more» Going Off the Rawls. How libertarians have adopted the liberal left�s favorite modern philosopher... more» Samuel Pepys: intelligent, curious, decent, and diligent, with an abiding interest in music, food, women and the life of the city... more» The Caucasus is haunted by the ghost of freedom: ethnic groups like the Abkhaz and Ossetians try to break away from an independent state... more» E.M. Forster was a tricky bugger, a man of many contradictions. He made a faith of personal sincerity, but his career was disingenuous... more» Julius Caesar stands for so much in our culture. Even John Wilkes Booth took up the mantle of Brutus against the Caesar Lincoln... more» The novelist Elizabeth Taylor is best known for not being the person eveybody thinks she is. Ben Schwarz explains... more» Heinrich Heine was half-blind at life’s end, but his prose darted like a sparrow between youth and maturity, personal delight and political indignation... more» How excellent to see a physicist taking philosophical problems seriously. Alan Sokal has even won a battle or two... more» Moral panic over Salomé, and a financial panic on Wall Street. Gustav Mahler’s New York was a frenetic, overheated city... more» The blight that killed billions of American chestnut trees was a catastophe unrivaled in the history of ecological disasters... more» Allan Konigsberg was already in high school writing jokes for New York gossip columns. He needed a better name, so he called himself �Woody Allen�... more» For the human eye, the face of a woman or a man is the most sign-packed surface in the universe. It tells more about us than we may wish... more» The spellbinding quality of Saki’s stories looks mawkish when put in plain words because he wrote about children and animals... more» The tragedy of commons is that it leads to overuse and destruction; the tragedy of the anticommons leads to underuse and waste... more» Leopold and Loeb: it was long ago, but their cold viciousness remains a major event in the annals of human depravity... more» Philosopher Giordano Bruno wrote about the universe as infinite and containing other inhabited worlds. Too much for the Inqusition... more» Joseph Banks: generous and insatiable for knowledge. Carl Linnaeus: manipulative and mean-spirited. But they both loved plants... more» She was a woman who clung to New York literary life, or its fringes, by her talented fingernails. Not as herself, but as Louise Brooks... more» Rap is about striking a pose. It is a pose, as John McWhorter observes, that amounts to “the upturned middle finger”... more» When D.H. Lawrence saw “the brilliant, proud morning shine up high over the deserts of Santa Fe,” something stood still in his soul... more» “Nationalism and the nation itself,” Robert Kagan writes, “far from being weakened by globalization, have now returned with a vengeance”... more» Doris Lessing hated her mother. That was in real life. But in her newest fiction, her mother has become a true moral heroine... more» Ernst Haeckel’s imagination, daring, and inventive ideas should have made him Darwin’s rival. But he was too much a popularizer... more» Hard to imagine, given our obsession with TV, Facebook, and blogs, but literature was once at the center of American cultural life... more» There are too many cynical, strutting views of sex, says Cynthia Macdonald. They never explain one gender’s foibles to the other... more» During the Depression, many Americans were lured by Soviet propaganda to migrate to the USSR to help build socialism.” What a sad story... more» History – the rational and methodical study of the human past – was invented by a single man, Herodotus... more» While Evelyn Waugh was chatting up the aristocracy, his contemporary, George Orwell, was down there with coal miners and tramps... more» Till death do us part. Can anyone, in or out of a marriage, explain it? A mystical melting of man and woman into “one flesh”?... more» Americans like their grog. By 1810 six states distilled twice as many gallons of whiskey per annum as the total populace... more» The luminous details in Vermeer’s paintings open like his diamond-paned windows onto a wider world... more» Evolution isn’t perfect: it goes with what works and tinkers with it later. So the retinas of vertebrates are installed backwards, blind spots and all... more» Our conscious life is a constant flow, or integration, of an immediate past and the present. Brain science shows it’s so... more» Not all baby boomers are still fighting the fights of the sixties. But they still tend to the same sixties narcisscism... more» Scotland: fake history, phony epics, and fraudulent tartans. Those ancient clans are a pile of rubbish, and as for the kilt... more» Maxim Gorky’s hopes for the Russian Revolution were Promethean: man would acquire qualities of the gods and gradually replace them... more» “Yesterday this picture was worth millions,” Han van Meegeren said. “Today, it is worth nothing. But the picture has not changed. What has?”... more» “Remember, many girls are pretty, but few are radiant.” Why not virtue and dignity for girls? Why is it always about sex?... more» It’s no sense of duty that makes people read James Wood’s essays huddled in doorways, coats and keys still in their hands... more» She was the new Chomsky, the young woman to re-invent politics for a new generation. Then came 9/11... more» Animal cruelty today is not as barbaric as in the 18th century, but with factory farming it is more widespread... more» The divine Homer. So how will you have him? In the earthy, rough-hewn words of Fagles, or with the nobility of Pope?... more» American lawns cover an area about the size of New York State. Every year, $40 billion is spent on their upkeep... more» Maybe the most damning criticism that can be made of Castro’s revolution is not that it is repressive but that its repression was for naught... more» So what has the feminist revolution really given women? Sisterhood, empowerment, and eight hours a day in a cubicle... more» If you think that one dead shark is as good as another, then your grasp of the art market is, as they say, dead in the water... more» “So what is the difference between a Hungarian and a Rumanian? Each will sell you his grandmother, but...” more» ... more» Booze: it is a lubricant for business deals, marriages, and talk. It inspired the Greeks to invent not only democracy, but comedy and tragedy... more» Ugly? To the contrary, a slime mold seen under a microscope can be an object of beauty – in the eye of the scientist... more» We still repair urgently to Durkheim and Weber, while we safely forget about phlogiston. Social theory’s history lives still... more» In the 2020s, perhaps 10% of Chinese males will not find wives. By then, China will be no country for young men... more» Some recent political clichés are older than we think. Henry IV, not Herbert Hoover, coined a chicken in every pot... more» The dumbest generation. They want it all, and they want it now, without toil, and especially without any boring reading... more» U.S. leadership often emerges out of crisis: Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Maybe a vigilant foreign policy will require yet another calamity... more» Because we must decide if some means can be justified by their ends, moralists will always be in work. Consider the history of the CIA... more» Sex is interesting, even when it’s bad, says Jessa Crispin. Sex memoirs, on the other hand, can be boring beyond belief... more» Artist of wondrous Vermeers? Except that they were not so wondrous, and they were most certainly not Vermeers... more» China: both proud and resentful, open and closed, like us yet not at all like us. Still, the onetime sick man of Asia is in exuberant health... more» “Ay, in the very temple of Delight / Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine.” John Keats knew her intimately, and delight as well... more» Readers are incurable fabulists. Take that ordinary chap, Franz Kafka. We prefer him as a man of metaphysical mystery... more» Richard Gatling invented a mechanized seed planter: seeds dropped from a hopper one by one into the furrow. Why not use the same idea for a gun?... more» Man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, my penis is burning.” Doctor explains, “That means somebody is talking about your penis.” What is it about jokes? ... more» ... more» ... more» No one will doubt the intense emotions that drive David Rieff’s memoir of his mother’s death. But books are not made out of emotions... more» Jump-cut, whip-pan, purposeless camera move: Jean-Luc Godard remakes narrative form with his every movie... more» The Black Plague killed millions and at the same time opened up history for survivors, changing the whole future of Europe... more» Will unplugging our cellphone chargers or turning TVs off standby reduce energy use and help fight global warming? How do the numbers stack up?... more» Sure, the Lolita Effect may be real. But little girls do also spend time reading books, jumping rope, and playing ball... more» Casanova: priest, con-man, writer, soldier, violinist, alchemist, prisoner, fugitive, gambler, intellectual, and great lover... more» The British invented curry? Not quite. But the Madras curry (Tamil: kari) was born with the East India Company... more» “Let them have a good dose where it will hurt them most,” said Churchill. “The Germans should be made to suffer in their own homelands and cities”... more» Work and sex have always been prime movers of Lord Snowdon. Even confined to a wheelchair the old goat can’t be stopped... more» For all of Churchill’s faults, we may still be grateful for a 1930s politician who found it intolerable even to breathe the same air as the Nazis... more» Mrs. Thatcher viewed Ferdinand Mount as “an idle and effete youth.” But she came to admire his powers as a wordsmith. Right she was... more» Stuck in a Washington traffic jam, you may curse the name of Pierre L’Enfant. But it’s not really all his fault... more» Q: “So is Marxism-Leninism scientific?” A: “Surely not. If it were, they would have tested it on animals first.” Old Soviet jokes... more» In America, where God and Devil live with science in the age of 9/11, John Milton seems right at home — his Satan a model terrorist... more» Heinrich Heine, both playful and serious, called himself the last of the romantics and the first of the moderns... more» Country music knows what it means to be trapped by poverty, a lousy job, lust, and booze. To grasp the USA, just listen... more» Pakistan tribal frontier: a nightmare landscape of unknowable mountains swarming with enemies? This is not the entire story... more» Pat Buchanan’s Spenglerian rhetoric about the decline of the West lays bare the racist and reactionary premises of his thought... more» Richard Wright knew what once faced a little black boy in a big white world. “This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled”... more» Hugh Trevor-Roper was repelled by myths of Scottish nationalism and its tribal loyalties: concocted history had fired the minds of the Nazis... more» Humans evolved to live in small isolated groups and are finely tuned to seek people of common values. Hence we care about race... more» The Comanche empire once dominated New Mexico and much of Texas, its power a melange of kinship, trade, diplomacy, extortion, and violence... more» Germaine de Staël may not have been good-looking, but she had real charisma, brains, money – and Benjamin Constant... more» Awe-inspiring acts of imagination, impish acrobatics of diction, high-jinks of imagery, and dollops of wordplay. But is it good poetry?... more» Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn are both Russian prophets, holy fools, and dissidents. Not Anton Chekhov, for which we may be thankful... more» How could such a masterly writer as V.S. Naipaul turn out to be such a monster in his personal life? Perhaps by a conscious decision... more» The conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will be like in a hundred years is, Nigel Lawson says, inherently absurd... more» Those who worship at Ronald Reagan’s altar no longer hope to “make the world over again,” the line their icon used to borrow from Tom Paine... more» Churchill regarded Gandhi as “a fanatic and an ascetic of the fakir type well known in the East.” Well, yes. And no... more» “You know, guys,” he intoned, “sex is the greatest thing in the world.” He paused, and then added with infinite wistfulness, “But... more» Population anxieties used to be about starvation. Now they are about “saving the planet” from our rapidly breeding species... more» Pythagoras was right: his universe may not be as simple as he imagined, but it proves ever more comprehensible by the day... more» Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for grasping how the world works... more» Sean Wilentz rescues the real Ronald Reagan from the “mythological president” offered by fans on the right and critics on the left... more» Henry Kissinger’s Jewish origins are the real key to understanding both the man and the world’s reaction to him... more» Was WWII worth fighting? Get the facts and make up your own mind! No need for experts! This book tells all you need to know!... more» Shakespeare vs. Milton. Prithee, who is the greater figure in literary history? Nigel Smith thinks he knows the answer... more» Seven years’ distance from 9/11 reveals a brutal reality. For both his family and his country, Osama bin Laden’s attacks have turned a tidy profit... more» Like Edmund Wilson, Alfred Kazin laughed off John Kennedy’s attempt to wine, dine, and co-opt him... more» Religion is beliefs, ideas, rituals, customs. Conscience is deeper. It searches for the beliefs and ideas that make up religion... more» Wernher von Braun: a 20th-century Faust, a man willing to work with an evil regime in return for the resources to carry out his cherished research... more» So this Aristotle guy hops a boat from Athens, goes into the library at Alexandria, grabs some books, returns home and puts his name on them... more» V.S. Naipaul is a prospector digging along a vein he has worked before, says Joseph Lelyveld. Much of it still sparkles... more» Monolithic politico-corporate elites have a big place in Naomi Klein’s world. But they don’t quite fit every political situation... more» Postwar Britain: shabby frocks, sallow faces, and dreary meals of ground meat stretched with grated potato and oatmeal... more» The recrudescence of robust atheism means non-belivers need no longer need suffer lonely isolation... more» “Black hair means cowardice and great craftiness, yellow and pale white hair shows ignorance and clumsiness.” Wild ideas of the Greeks... more» Nina Khruscheva is Russian to the core, but also “as New York as they come.” She says it’s time for Russians to reread Vladimir Nabokov... more» James Frey’s latest depends not on plots or characters but “high concepts,” the bright, shiny clichés that Hollywood screenwriters use for their pitches... more» The Dalai Lama’s frequent meetings with Western leaders are now seen by China as provocations and used as an excuse not to meet with him... more» The past, historians like to say, is another country. Israeli history is another galaxy, writes Carlin Romano... more» Is licking an ice cream cone on the street beneath your dignity? What then is human dignity? Steven Pinker wonders... more» Our eyes are amazing, a genuine credit to evolution. So are our hands, not to mention our kidneys. But our brains?... more» How many writers got the Nobel Prize for Literature for a book that was largely ghostwritten? Winston Churchill, for one... more» “The union of poet and critic may not be good for either poetry or criticism.” True in many cases. Then there’s Adam Kirsch... more» You can argue with some credibility that John Stuart Mill was the greatest public intellectual in the history of Britain, maybe even the world... more» “Inscriptions and bird droppings are the only two things in Egypt that give any indication of life.” Flaubert said it, or so says Edward Said... more» Shopping gives our choices tangible effect. The enthusiasm with which people shop contrasts with their view of work... more» Nikola Tesla feared earrings, peaches, and touching people’s hair. Sure, another nutty inventor. But men like him changed our world... more» Philosophers often cannot resist writing about Shakespeare, with his depth and complexity. Alas, they are mostly ill-equipped to do so... more» Prokofiev’s dry wit resulted in some fine, bitchy one-liners. Mahler’s 7th Symphony was “like kissing a stillborn child”... more» Today we have nannies, but in the 19th century they had governesses. That plain Jane Eyre, for example... more» Classical music: abandoned, left behind sulking in its tent as culture moves on, with the action happening somewhere else... more» The house embodies our ideas of intimate family life and serves as our haven in a cold world. It’s also the site of Sisyphean labor, mostly female... more» The RAND Corporation remains one of the most potent and complex purveyors of U.S. imperialism. Its influence, positive and sinister, continues to be felt... more» In Peter Gay’s reading, modernist thinking is reduced to a psychological impulse: the lure of heresy. Yes, but... more» Antiquity cannot be owned by any culture or any nation state. It is the inheritance of all humanity and ought to be open to all, preserved in museums... more» ... excerpt Women: enslaved by patriarchal views of proper domestic toil, or expected to get a high-paying job. Susan Pinker explains... more» “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.” So she stands at the tower window, her magically long golden hair hanging down... more» As a student, Tony Judt was an ardent backer of Labor Zionism, worked on a kibbutz and volunteered in the 1967 war. But times change, and so did he... more» Dorothy Wordsworth’s story is one of bad dentistry, migraines, voyeurism, incest, and even “post-coital intensity” in prose style... more» Snake-oil merchants who knowingly prey on terminal cancer patients are the lowest form of moral life. Yet they thrive... more» A beautiful home ... a first wife ... jealousy, a wreck ... a terrible event. But Daphne du Maurier did not yet know what would happen to Rebecca... more» While the student left marched in the 1960s, the right was quietly building toward the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions... more» In 1879 Vera Zasulich, 29, tried to kill the governor of St. Petersburg. He lived, but, oddly, so did she – as a celebrity... more» Arthur Rubinstein was as much a born playboy as a born pianist: always good for a party, a game of pool or poker... more» | |
Essays and OpinionLeona Helmsley learned the hard way that money does not buy happiness. Nor will it buy it for her cute little dog, now also a rich bitch... more» Atheism may not be easy, but it offers the honor of facing our condition without despair or wishful thinking – with good humor, but without God... more» Is stupid making us google? Always feel like you are having to drag your wayward brain back to that gray text? So does James Bowman... more» The big one’s sold, but Damien Hirst has other rotten sharks waiting in fridges. Robert Hughes finds the whole thing obscene... more» Scrawled on that cardboard sheet: “Need money for beer, drugs, hooker. Hey, at least I’m not shittin’ you.” Panhandling is a plague... more» Liberalism’s notion that morality is merely rights and obligations empties life of ethical meaning. We need a return to pre-modern virtue ethics... more» Computer screen reading breaks down with dense argument, modernist poetry, long political tracts, and texts that need careful attention and slow reading... more» “My outrage,” says Nassim Taleb, “is aimed at the scientist-charlatan putting society at risk using statistical methods.” Bad statistics can even blow up the banking system... more» B�la Lugosi�s amalgam of nobility and evil, his narrow eyes lit by tiny spotlights, his voice hinting at the deepest depravity – and all in black and white... more» European social democracy can renew itself in its basic values and thought. Wish lists of painless demands have always been the curse of center-left parties... more» Incomes for top people in a wide variety of jobs that do not need a BA are higher than average incomes for many jobs that do require one. Maybe a reason to skip college... more» After a summer of blockbuster comic-book flicks and record ticket sales to women, why have we yet to see a superheroine movie?... more» Beleaguered liberals have instinctively re-created a united-front mentality suitable for crisis. Those who break ranks, like Sean Wilentz, are vilified... more» People vote Republican and liberal intellectuals are mystified. For their part, Republicans say that Democrats “just don’t get it.” What is this “it” they don’t get?... more» Thirty years ago, U.S. academics carried with them to England copies of David Lodge’s comic classic, Changing Places. But times have changed, writes Elaine Showalter... more» Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll portrays what is really an extended argument between V�clav Havel and Milan Kundera about Czechoslovakia under communism... more» Anti-intellectualism, consumerism, iPods and TV, political correctness, postmodern relativism: are they making today’s college students the stupidest generation?... part 1 ... part 2 We need an inner environmental movement about our human psychological nature to match our concern with outer nature. Lionel Tiger explains... more» �Russians talk about globalization, of course. But behind this is an absolutely black and white picture: It�s ours. It�s theirs. Everybody is enemy or vassal�... more» Writing about poetry, particularly praising contemporary poetry, is a fine but extremely difficult art in itself. Ron Rosenbaum explains... more» Russia may seem strong, but it is getting weaker all the time, its population falling by a million a year. And the corruption. And the Muslim problem... more» Writers are genuinely what they are only when working in ghostly solitude – never when out chatting on the terrace. Cynthia Ozick explains... more» He was the �Henry Ford of Literature,� a �Voltaire from Kansas,� and �the Barnum of Books.� The greatest American publishing genius you never heard of... more» Women’s liberation, yes! Women across the globe need the liberty to be what they are: not, as radical feminism insists, liberation from what they are... more» Garrett Hardin’s famous essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” asserts that human beings are prisoners of biology and the market. He is wrong... more» Bullfighting is seen by many as cruel. But it is not merely a gaudy circus spectacle – at its best it is an art form. Well, maybe... more» Science it not quite at its end, says John Horgan. But the only way to find out how far it can go is to keep pushing against its limits... more» Vladimir Putin enters the picture, seeking to salvage Russia from the chaos and mass poverty of the Yeltsin era. Oil helped him out... more» Should British teachers accept student’s spelling misstakes merely as “variant spellings,” or does this denigrate Trooth in education?... more» “Faith depends upon belief in things that cannot be proved,” says P.J. O’Rourke, “and I can prove that more people flunk physics than flunk Sunday School”... more» We Americans can adjust our compass heading, says John Lewis Gaddis, if we can make ending tyranny once again our priority, as it was through most of our history... more» “I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.” W.E.B. Du Bois’s words declaim in a way that echoes that most extraordinary of poets, John Milton... more» Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a seer of evil, a writer and witness who made clear that illusions about communism were not just stupid, but wicked... more» “I was a teenage atheist,” writes Julie Burchill, “and it brings me no shame to say that. But it certainly makes me smile”... more» The childhood many British parents give their kids is so awful that it is hard to conceive of worse, at least on a mass scale. Even UNICEF agrees... more» The charm of old cookbooks is that while few would seriously cook from Fanny Farmer or Mrs. Beeton, each remains a time capsule of its era. Consider Vincent Price’s... more» Why are most Americans so willing to have an essential part of their hearts sliced away and discarded? What’s with this obsession with happiness?... more» Conductor Daniel Barenboim worries about the “moral responsibility of the ear.” Can a sense organ carry such a burden? We don’t ask our penises to possess a conscience... more» Charles Darwin showed that evolution not only made the human body what it is: it also shaped the human mind – how we think, feel, and create. Mark Czarnecki explains... more» Will Russia’s invasion of Georgia at last end the dreamy complacency that took hold of the world’s democracies after the Cold War? Robert Kagan wonders... more» “There are no factual assertions that religion can reasonably claim as its own,” says Daniel Dennett, “as off limits to science”... more» Simone Weil’s clothes were a ragtag soldier’s or poor monk’s: a monastic, masculine cut – her cape, boyish flat-heeled shoes, long, dark jacket... more» Andr� Aciman had always been ashamed of Via Clelia, where he had lived in Rome: ashamed of its good people and of himself for feeling shame... more» Should China have a �legalist� model for its future, rather than democracy? Or should China simply have democracy, period?... more» China has a long history Our obsession with college and the BA has created a two-tiered entry to adulthood: the anointed are admitted to the club, others are labeled as second-best... more» “It’s unseemly to ask for sympathy for having survived Yale University,” says Rachel Toor, “but the truth is, I’m still recovering from my experience there”... more» Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri was buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD. Its library is now being excavated, while Vesuvius broods over it still... more» European governments are at their wits’ end, says Jürgen Habermas. It is time for them to admit it, and let the people decide the future of the EU... more» When does dissent become untruth? Who decides what dissent deserves to be heard? When must journalists “protect” readers? Ron Rosenbaum wonders... more» What kind of pseud are you? Once upon a time, you smoked Gauloises and brooded over Ezra Pound. Then it was rap and Gregorian chants. Now it’s Facebook, or Kindle, or... more» From California to Ulan Bator, from $500 to $1.23 per week, from sashimi to mayonnaise sandwiches, the photos tell it all. What the world eats... more» How might the U.S. maintain its military advantage into the 21st century? Wanting an answer to the question, the Pentagon decided to look to the past... more» The dismal science is at last a real science, with tangible benefits, says Guy Sorman. What then does it teach? Here is the answer in ten points... more» The antiscience agenda in our schools gets going as early as kindergarten, with its infantile versions of the diversity agenda and its early lessons in self-esteem... more» Bribery, corruption, extortion are the Afghan way, from the top of society to its very bottom. But that’s just the start, as Sarah Chayes explains... more» Arianna blogs from home in Brentwood, but how is she to know what’s happening in Tehran or D.C.? As newspapers shut their foreign desks, is this the replacement?... more» Does Shakespeare affect your inner reality, make you feel more alive in strange ways when you read or see his work? Neurobiology can explain why... more» The English pub: once a warm place to enjoy a warm beer, it now sells toxic drinks to kids who think a good night out must end in copious vomiting... more» ... more» ... more» The media are always on the lookout for ways to ruin your day. The more guilt or angst a news story induces, the better. So listen to John Tierney... more» If you could spend $10 billion over the next four years to make a better world, how would you use the money? Bjørn Lomborg with some advice... more» When Ireland was poor, Irish houses with their grass roofs were lovely to look at, says Germaine Greer. Horrible to live in, of course, steaming dung before the door... more» Literary Darwinism may be criticism’s best hope to bounce back from years of poststructuralism and Marxism. But the jury is still out... more» Confronted with the dreaded charge of being one of the elite, Mark Swed has an answer: “Hey, Bud, you got a problem with us being the best?”... more» The old black American narrative has outlived its usefulness, says Charles Johnson. We need new stories and new concepts to make sense of black experience... more» ... more» Americans are easy with unequal wealth. But an inequality of intelligence, and the smartocracy it creates, sets American teeth on edge... more» The Netherlands once sheltered Jews and other refugees from the Inquisition. Now it runs its own Inquisition. Look at Gregorius Nekschot... more» The late Anna Alchuk’s diary of dreams shows that being called a “Putin critic” in today’s Russia can be very dangerous... more» Chinese enthusiasm for Western classical music is deep, says Alex Ross, but traditional Chinese music is older and more “classical” than anything in the West... more» Every new gadget is, wrote T.S. Eliot, “Filled with fancies and empty of meaning / Tumid apathy with no concentration.” T.S. Eliot? Who’s he?... more» William and Henry. Yes, says Jessica Crispin, the James family is as interesting as a train wreck in some ways, but the work they created speaks for itself... more» Psych departments won’t teach Freud, nor is Marx taught in econ, while Hegel hardly figures in philosophy. In the mall of education, they are now boutique thinkers... more» The police, courts, and prisons are charged with solving social problems, but their only tools are powers of arrest and imprisonment. We need a new way... more» Is the U.S. finished? Well, all those think tank theorists, public intellectuals, and elite media experts seem to think so. How could they be wrong?... more» At the end of her life, Pauline Kael said to a friend, “When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture.” But then who did?... more» “Human beings,” writes Roger Scruton, “have an innate need to conceptualize their world in terms of the transcendental, and to live out the distinction between the sacred and the profane”... more» Like disagreeable vegetables stuck into a delicious meal, contemporary music is forced on concert audiences before they are allowed to enjoy their Brahms... more» Your baby is home from the hospital: what music will be his first? Mozart to make him smarter? Schoenberg to make him a radical? Bach’s sweet counterpoint?... more» Intellectuals once worried about the degeneration of the race. Today they fear cultural decay, says Kenan Malik. Aren’t these worries equally daft?... more» An enormous twin-trunked honey locust dominates the far side of Alan Jacobs’s lawn; in the back is a tall Norway spruce and a maple – but what kind of maple?... more» Dirty jokes can’t really do much harm, says Jim Holt. They don’t so much corrupt us as remind us that we are already corrupted... more» Hollywood’s hero deficit. Movies no longer portray genuine heroism, even though that’s precisely what audiences want to see... more» Once you feel you’ve seen evil, it’s hard to regard other views as anything other than the work of Very Bad People. You prefer conspiracy theories... more» There’s no record of Plato’s Academy offering an honorary doctorate to Alcibiades, even for giving the graduation speech gratis. Robert Mugabe was luckier... more» Feminists were thin on the ground in 19th-century Egypt. But in 1899, there appeared a citizen who held outlandishly modern opinions on the subject of women... more» Winning presidential candidates need a “story” for voters – a vision of America. And if the story is fantasy? What was Kennedy’s story? What was Jimmy Carter’s?... more» Better to let the Arabs “do it imperfectly than to do it yourself perfectly: for it is their country, their way and your time is short.” T.E. Lawrence is still right... more» Oh, the humanities: like animal shelters and tree-planting projects, nice people invariably say nice things about them. All rather cloying... more» Architect of the Houses of Parliament? Every inch of the building’s surface, inside and out, was from one man, who spent his last days designing its ink-pots and umbrella-stands... more» As Mill, Engels, and Betty Friedan well knew, the family as an institution has problems. But the state can’t simply step in to solve them. Jennie Bristow explains... more» Camille Paglia is a pro-sex feminist who’s still for porn and prostitution. But champions of chastity, she says, also stand in a great feminist tradition of defying groupthink... more» In the 19th century, poetry had a mass audience, says Jay Parini. But in the 20th century, poetry decided to get “difficult,” to require footnotes... more» Cartoons to transcend laws of physics, hop around in time and space, and skip from one dimension to another. Just like poetry, writes Billy Collins... more» Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky rattled the role of reason in the pantheon of human motives. For them, homo economicus was ironic, skeptical, almost wickedly complex... more» Steve Vineberg loves art that “emerges from an acknowledgement that we’re none of us pure of either mind or heart.” It’s an art of surprise... more» Yellow journalism was invented by editors who were more interested in selling papers than verifying truth. Today, it’s the rise of yellow science... more» The first disadvantage of an elite education, says William Deresiewicz, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Is this diversity?... more» Like Berlin in 1936, the Beijing games will be a shameful event, says Bernard-Henri Lévy. We must tell Beijing, “Stop the bloodbath, stop the murder in Sudan”... more» Can the destruction of the Inca empire be blamed on ignorance of principles of philosophy? “It can,” said Montesquieu, “and I am going to prove it”... more» Almost exactly 150 years ago a letter for Charles Darwin arrived at his estate in Downe, Kent. When he read it, Darwin was crushed... more» An “it-wasn’t-my-fault” industry now produces books like Scott McClellan’s White House memoir. Next in line: Donald Rumsfeld... more» We get the art we deserve, and today what we deserve is the splashy, pretentious, dumbed down trophy art that dominates the art world ... more» If globalization and democracy can’t be reconciled, says Benjamin Barber, the entire world will start looking look more and more like Darfur or Gaza on a bad day... more» Much of the best literature of the 19th century can’t be grasped without knowing the position of women and women writers: their views of the world and their literary preferences... more» An Inconvenient Opera. Now that Al Gore’s movie is set to become an opera at La Scala, the composer has a comment or two for his librettist... more» The rise of the therapeutic and the eclipse of the tragic ensures college students’ expectations soar even as their intellectual abilities to handle life’s setbacks erode... more» Literary characters. Who would you be, if you could choose? Michael Dirda answers, and means it, when he says: James Bond... more» As we are drained by Google and the web of our inner repertory of culture, we become “pancake people,” our knowledge spread all too wide, too thin... more» The Aids scare, says Brendan O’Neill, was one of the most distorted, duplicitous, and cynical public health panics of the last thirty years... more» Share your grief and you may double your sorrow. Better, perhaps, that all you’ve seen, and all that you suffered, should go with you to the grave... more» So let’s see... The less money your peer group has, the more flashy the jewelry you buy. But then there is also inconspicuous consumption... more» Where interpretation is obvious, power is supreme; if it wavers, flickering, power for the powerless may be possible. Theory still has its uses... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» If Robert Mugabe returns to power this month, it will continue a nightmare of open, repressive brutality – thanks to the refusal of Thabo Mbeki and other African leaders to intervene... more» John Updike started with art as a small child, newspaper comics at first. Edward Hopper and Mark Rothko came later... more» ... interview A butterfly flaps its wing and a hurricane hits Mongolia. Or whatever. Everybody loves the “butterfly effect,” and everybody gets it totally wrong... more» Paris is a miraculous city in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it. Roger Scruton explains... more» Under Kinderarchy, parents are little more than indentured servants. It’s all about the kids: their schooling, brightness, cuteness, and their quite astonishing creativity... more» The central image of Samuel Johnson in James Boswell’s Life is that of a heroic figure battling his demons and keeping them at bay... more» Critical texts to go with contemporary art are so twisted and woolly they could pass for self-parody. Yet they require us to take them seriously... more» “Praise God for not making me an Eskimo.” P.J. O’Rourke learned lots from those trips with his grandma to Chicago’s Field Museum... more» End-time thinking – the belief in a world purified by catastrophe – was once dismissed as a harmless remnant of superstition. It’s not harmless, argues Ian McEwan... more» Even if we believe that authoritarian China is on the wrong side of history, says John Lee, so far it is doing a remarkable job of defying it... more» The best political novels show politics not as burlesque, says Morris Dickstein, but as a calling on which individual hopes and destinies depend... more» Enlightenment museums evolved, almost uniquely, out of Western civilization. The “cultural property movement” wants to undermine them and get its hands on their contents... more» The Egyptian group Al Jihad was part of the core of Al Qaeda. Now its main theorist, Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, “Dr. Fadl,” has turned against violence. Is Al Qaeda falling apart?... more» U.S. foreign policy in expansive, idealistic, and militarist mode has done well: defeats of Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and Soviet communism, for instance... more» Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion of the world today. This is not an unalloyed good, says Freeman Dyson... more» When Robert McCrum became literary editor of The Observer in 1996, the book world was all ink and paper, the smell of cigarettes, coffee, and strong drink... more» In Britain, multiculturalism has become a career opportunity and a source of political patronage, says Theodore Dalrymple... more» Shore up the library, says Robert Darnton. Stock it with books. Reinforce its reading rooms. Don’t think of it as a warehouse or a museum... more» You probably think being Cinderella is all glamour and Prince Charming. Ever try on glass slippers? Ever try to wear a fake smile all day?... more» “What is a journalist?” Dwight Macdonald asked. “Alas, an ignorant and superficial fellow, a kibitzer.” Maybe we need more like him... more» “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,” said Eric Hoffer, via Pat Buchanan. Is this the conservative movement?... more» Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet came in 1970 like an electric jolt. NYC was out of control, with murders heading to 2,200 a year, one every four hours. The novel was unflinching... more» Our hypocrisy obsession forces politicians to tour the daytime-TV sofas trying to show their human side. It doesn’t work: we end up trusting them even less... more» Universities award honorary degrees with many noble motives in mind. Getting a rich person to give them money is only one. Sheer vulgar publicity is another... more» Money can’t buy happiness. Okay. But what about just a little bit of happiness? Maybe with money you can be unhappy in comfort... more» Words perfect for what they mean: jab or fluffy or sneer, each true beyond mere logic. Verbose is an oddly verbose word, and isn’t puny puny? Peppy has the perky, energetic sound it needs... more» War is horror, wrote A.J. Liebling, but “you can feel its pull on men’s memories at the maudlin reunions of war divisions. They mourn for their dead, but also for war”... more» Virgil’s Aeneid is no stiff antiquarian pageant. It’s immediate and primal, about love, abandonment, death – and ultimate triumph... more» All of the books of John Steinbeck are still in print. Why does the work of this earnest but artless writer continue to enjoy such popularity?... more» Literary scholarship: aimless, irrelevant, and dying a slow death in the academy. But there’s a way to revive interest in the study of fiction and criticism... more» With typical narcissism, the children of ’68 see themselves as the center and turning point of history. Has anyone thought about 1958?... more» Is the criminal-justice system racist? No, argues Heather Mac Donald, the high numbers of blacks behind bars reflects crime rates, not bigotry... more» “Hitler was a fascinator, as many people found,” wrote Diana Mosley. “Part of the charm was his extreme naturalness and lack of affectation”... more» Edward Rothstein admits that when it comes to LSD, he inhaled. But in the 1960s, the drug infused the exhalations of musicians, philosophers, and many others... more» To the left, John Wayne has always been a comics version of American power in its swaggering crudeness. Oh yeah? Consider Rio Bravo... more» Your brain has a mind of its own – and it’s not even always yours. But evolution, as Gary Marcus explains, never promised to solve all our problems... more» “This is the story of educational romanticism in our schools – its rise, its etiology, and, we have reason to hope, its approaching demise”... more» In east and southern Africa, two decades of denial and flagrant mismanagement have allowed the HIV virus to hollow out whole countries... more» Want to remember like a genius? Practice too soon and you waste time. Practice too late and you’ve forgotten the material. There’s a perfect point...more» David Sedaris did not exactly quit smoking. He just discovered that he had finished it. It was for him not a proud achievement, but a kind of betrayal... more» Rawls vs. Nozick: the standoff between these two thinkers is central to political philosophy today. Both loved the abstract, and had little regard for human nature... more» Beijing isn’t powerful enough to stop local officials in China from abusing the rights of ordinary citizens. Francis Fukuyama explains... more» Cultural jihadists, says Bruce Bawer, hate the West’s freedoms because those freedoms defy sharia. So do we love our freedoms as much as they hate them? ... more» Art students need two teachers: first, a master for learning rules and skills and then a guru who breaks rules and sets students free. These days, students get a lot of gurus... more» As Vito’s heirs gather, the future of the Corleone dynasty hangs in the balance. Who will control this world? There are three answers: liberal, neocon, and realist... more» Online Islamist propaganda – which now includes thousands of al-Qaeda sites – is rife with lies, errors, and even bogus letters to embarrass rivals... more» The Selfish Gene triggered new thinking about the complexity of evolutionary processes that create life forms. But however selfish their genes, human beings are a social species... more» Black inequality no longer simply a matter of discrimination. It begins by placing blacks into more or less favored statuses in childhood, sorting them by class and gender... more» Isum killed Daniel’s uncle, so Daniel attacked Isum and crippled him for life. It’s New Guinea’s payback culture. Daniel is quite satisfied with it... more» If we are in a universe in which emergence and ceaseless creativity abound, and if we take that creativity as a sense of God we can share, then we must reinvent the sacred... more» You can have “reform” without liberalism, writes Robert Conquest. Russia today is still far from the rule of law, which is much more important than “democracy”... more» “For a long time I did not hear the beauty of church bells; or more accurately, I did not wish to hear it. They sounded only like Christianity,” writes Leon Wieseltier... more» Work in the Whitney Biennial either interrogates and problematizes, or it references while being transgressive. The problem is not the art, it’s the writing... more» “I still don’t know why Sallie and I bothered to go to that party in the forest slope above Aspen.” Rebecca Solnit tells a story every woman will understand... more» ... Well, almost every woman. Flunk this movie! Ben Stein’s new anti-science movie, Expelled, is all propaganda and worldview, with no evidence... more» ... more» Memory in a computer is located somewhere on a chip. But we have no idea where memories in our brains are stored. Gary Marcus explains... more» The British government’s Music Manifesto is not about celebrating music as a free art form but is about using music to push social policy... more» That “Journey of Harmony,” as the Chinese like to call it, with their track-suited SWAT teams and all, actually began in Germany in 1936. Check out Leni Riefenstahl... more» ... more» ... more» “This is how we lost to the white man.” Other people have their mythical stories, says Bill Cosby. Why can’t black people have their own?... more» Genetic ruptures in human prehistory occurred 37,000 and 5,800 years ago – about at the start of paleolithic art and of agriculture and writing. Michael Gazzaniga explains... more» John Ruskin said, “a man wrapped up in himself makes a very small parcel.” The only way to achieve happiness is therefore to get out of yourself... more» The brain is the most complex object known. We can barely grasp the simplest mental functions in biological terms, and yet we blithely use drugs to treat mental disorders... more» Dick Cheney warned that there might never be an “end date” in the struggle against terrorism. All these years later, his wisdom seems vindicated... more» The idea that many Aborigines might be better off not living in remote outback settlements is deeply offensive to many Australian intellectuals. Why?... more» Neoconservatism. To some it means “hawk,” to others “right-wing Jew,” and to still others, it’s a term to describe anything evil – torture or political oppression... more» |
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