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Apr. 2nd, 2012
Alain de Botton
Apr. 2nd, 2012 08:00 amAlain de Botton has been enjoying some good media buzz for months now. He courted controversy in arguing for a temple for atheist worship, and now he has written a book in which he advocates that secular people need to adopt some of the practices of religion, albeit without the supersition and supernaturalism, without God. As David Brooks explains in his book review:
De Botton is not calling for a religious revival. He finds it impossible to take faith in God seriously. He assumes that none of his educated readers could possibly believe in spooky ghosts in the sky.
Instead, he is calling on secular institutions to adopt religion’s pedagogy, to mimic the rituals, habits and teaching techniques that churches, mosques and synagogues perfected over centuries. For example, religious people were smart enough to combine spirituality and eating, aware that while dining in a group, people tend to be in a convivial, welcoming mood. De Botton believes that secular people should create communal restaurants that mimic the Passover Seder. Atheists would sit at big, communal tables. They would find guidebooks in front of them, reminiscent of the Jewish Haggadah or the Catholic missal. The rituals of the meal would direct diners to speak with one another, asking questions of their neighbors like “Whom can you not forgive?” or “What do you fear?”
Brooks is on the side of the believers, and he believes that this secular mimickry of religion is too tepid and hollow to give true spiritual food to the earnest seekers of divine transcendence. I do not know if there is a real divine transcendence to be had, but I am inclined to agree with Brooks. One definintely hungers for something beyond this world, if only because we can scarcely tolerate this earthbound existence, and there is this sense that only something outside of this known world can actually heal the pain and make us whole.
(Source: David Brooks, "Without Gods" in The New York Times)
De Botton is not calling for a religious revival. He finds it impossible to take faith in God seriously. He assumes that none of his educated readers could possibly believe in spooky ghosts in the sky.
Instead, he is calling on secular institutions to adopt religion’s pedagogy, to mimic the rituals, habits and teaching techniques that churches, mosques and synagogues perfected over centuries. For example, religious people were smart enough to combine spirituality and eating, aware that while dining in a group, people tend to be in a convivial, welcoming mood. De Botton believes that secular people should create communal restaurants that mimic the Passover Seder. Atheists would sit at big, communal tables. They would find guidebooks in front of them, reminiscent of the Jewish Haggadah or the Catholic missal. The rituals of the meal would direct diners to speak with one another, asking questions of their neighbors like “Whom can you not forgive?” or “What do you fear?”
Brooks is on the side of the believers, and he believes that this secular mimickry of religion is too tepid and hollow to give true spiritual food to the earnest seekers of divine transcendence. I do not know if there is a real divine transcendence to be had, but I am inclined to agree with Brooks. One definintely hungers for something beyond this world, if only because we can scarcely tolerate this earthbound existence, and there is this sense that only something outside of this known world can actually heal the pain and make us whole.
(Source: David Brooks, "Without Gods" in The New York Times)
Alain de Botton
Apr. 2nd, 2012 08:00 amAlain de Botton has been enjoying some good media buzz for months now. He courted controversy in arguing for a temple for atheist worship, and now he has written a book in which he advocates that secular people need to adopt some of the practices of religion, albeit without the supersition and supernaturalism, without God. As David Brooks explains in his book review:
De Botton is not calling for a religious revival. He finds it impossible to take faith in God seriously. He assumes that none of his educated readers could possibly believe in spooky ghosts in the sky.
Instead, he is calling on secular institutions to adopt religion’s pedagogy, to mimic the rituals, habits and teaching techniques that churches, mosques and synagogues perfected over centuries. For example, religious people were smart enough to combine spirituality and eating, aware that while dining in a group, people tend to be in a convivial, welcoming mood. De Botton believes that secular people should create communal restaurants that mimic the Passover Seder. Atheists would sit at big, communal tables. They would find guidebooks in front of them, reminiscent of the Jewish Haggadah or the Catholic missal. The rituals of the meal would direct diners to speak with one another, asking questions of their neighbors like “Whom can you not forgive?” or “What do you fear?”
Brooks is on the side of the believers, and he believes that this secular mimickry of religion is too tepid and hollow to give true spiritual food to the earnest seekers of divine transcendence. I do not know if there is a real divine transcendence to be had, but I am inclined to agree with Brooks. One definintely hungers for something beyond this world, if only because we can scarcely tolerate this earthbound existence, and there is this sense that only something outside of this known world can actually heal the pain and make us whole.
(Source: David Brooks, "Without Gods" in The New York Times)
De Botton is not calling for a religious revival. He finds it impossible to take faith in God seriously. He assumes that none of his educated readers could possibly believe in spooky ghosts in the sky.
Instead, he is calling on secular institutions to adopt religion’s pedagogy, to mimic the rituals, habits and teaching techniques that churches, mosques and synagogues perfected over centuries. For example, religious people were smart enough to combine spirituality and eating, aware that while dining in a group, people tend to be in a convivial, welcoming mood. De Botton believes that secular people should create communal restaurants that mimic the Passover Seder. Atheists would sit at big, communal tables. They would find guidebooks in front of them, reminiscent of the Jewish Haggadah or the Catholic missal. The rituals of the meal would direct diners to speak with one another, asking questions of their neighbors like “Whom can you not forgive?” or “What do you fear?”
Brooks is on the side of the believers, and he believes that this secular mimickry of religion is too tepid and hollow to give true spiritual food to the earnest seekers of divine transcendence. I do not know if there is a real divine transcendence to be had, but I am inclined to agree with Brooks. One definintely hungers for something beyond this world, if only because we can scarcely tolerate this earthbound existence, and there is this sense that only something outside of this known world can actually heal the pain and make us whole.
(Source: David Brooks, "Without Gods" in The New York Times)
“An ancient author tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue, if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read.”
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
Casanova need not have worried about leading an interesting life. It would also seem that he has no need to chide himself for want of eloquence. I still have yet to break out of the preface, but his memoirs is looking like a veritable masterpiece. I am glad I caught onto it. Sylvia Plath is a special flower, but I need some high-testosterone in my mix, and Casanova certainly provides us with that.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
Casanova need not have worried about leading an interesting life. It would also seem that he has no need to chide himself for want of eloquence. I still have yet to break out of the preface, but his memoirs is looking like a veritable masterpiece. I am glad I caught onto it. Sylvia Plath is a special flower, but I need some high-testosterone in my mix, and Casanova certainly provides us with that.
“An ancient author tells us somewhere, with the tone of a pedagogue, if you have not done anything worthy of being recorded, at least write something worthy of being read.”
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
Casanova need not have worried about leading an interesting life. It would also seem that he has no need to chide himself for want of eloquence. I still have yet to break out of the preface, but his memoirs is looking like a veritable masterpiece. I am glad I caught onto it. Sylvia Plath is a special flower, but I need some high-testosterone in my mix, and Casanova certainly provides us with that.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
Casanova need not have worried about leading an interesting life. It would also seem that he has no need to chide himself for want of eloquence. I still have yet to break out of the preface, but his memoirs is looking like a veritable masterpiece. I am glad I caught onto it. Sylvia Plath is a special flower, but I need some high-testosterone in my mix, and Casanova certainly provides us with that.
Paul Krugman has some colorful words for Paul Ryan's budget coming out of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Aside from the wildly plutocratic character of the thing, giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while slashing programs that serve the neediest, Ryan also promises to pay for it and close the deficit by closing as-yet-undisclosed loopholes. A true swindle.
_ _ _
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
Of course, this has been going on ever since Reagan showed it could be done. These Republican lapdogs just keep getting bolder and bolder, grabbing for more and more, evidently holding everyone in contempt who does not have a few million dollars to throw around.
_ _ _
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
Of course, this has been going on ever since Reagan showed it could be done. These Republican lapdogs just keep getting bolder and bolder, grabbing for more and more, evidently holding everyone in contempt who does not have a few million dollars to throw around.
Paul Krugman has some colorful words for Paul Ryan's budget coming out of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Aside from the wildly plutocratic character of the thing, giving massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while slashing programs that serve the neediest, Ryan also promises to pay for it and close the deficit by closing as-yet-undisclosed loopholes. A true swindle.
_ _ _
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
Of course, this has been going on ever since Reagan showed it could be done. These Republican lapdogs just keep getting bolder and bolder, grabbing for more and more, evidently holding everyone in contempt who does not have a few million dollars to throw around.
_ _ _
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
Of course, this has been going on ever since Reagan showed it could be done. These Republican lapdogs just keep getting bolder and bolder, grabbing for more and more, evidently holding everyone in contempt who does not have a few million dollars to throw around.
The Romneybot
Apr. 2nd, 2012 03:00 pmAny person who tells you he or she truly “understands” Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
-- David Javerbaum at The New York Times
If anyone likes quantum physics humor and is interested in American politics, and is a liberal, you will probably get a kick out of Javerbaum's little piece.
-- David Javerbaum at The New York Times
If anyone likes quantum physics humor and is interested in American politics, and is a liberal, you will probably get a kick out of Javerbaum's little piece.
The Romneybot
Apr. 2nd, 2012 03:00 pmAny person who tells you he or she truly “understands” Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
-- David Javerbaum at The New York Times
If anyone likes quantum physics humor and is interested in American politics, and is a liberal, you will probably get a kick out of Javerbaum's little piece.
-- David Javerbaum at The New York Times
If anyone likes quantum physics humor and is interested in American politics, and is a liberal, you will probably get a kick out of Javerbaum's little piece.
1984 (2,7) Private Loyalties
Apr. 2nd, 2012 05:30 pmWinston dwells on the consequences of living under a fully realized totalitarian government, which strips the individual of all personal associations, including those of family, when the state comes between even parents and children and takes absolute precedence, depriving people of all that makes them most human, leaving them hardly more than automatons to the state.
_ _ _
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.
'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'
'Yes. But the real point of the story -'
( Read more... )
_ _ _
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.
'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'
'Yes. But the real point of the story -'
( Read more... )
1984 (2,7) Private Loyalties
Apr. 2nd, 2012 05:30 pmWinston dwells on the consequences of living under a fully realized totalitarian government, which strips the individual of all personal associations, including those of family, when the state comes between even parents and children and takes absolute precedence, depriving people of all that makes them most human, leaving them hardly more than automatons to the state.
_ _ _
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.
'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'
'Yes. But the real point of the story -'
( Read more... )
_ _ _
The dream was still vivid in his mind, especially the enveloping protecting gesture of the arm in which its whole meaning seemed to be contained. His mind went back to another dream of two months ago. Exactly as his mother had sat on the dingy white-quilted bed, with the child clinging to her, so she had sat in the sunken ship, far underneath him, and drowning deeper every minute, but still looking up at him through the darkening water.
He told Julia the story of his mother's disappearance. Without opening her eyes she rolled over and settled herself into a more comfortable position.
'I expect you were a beastly little swine in those days,' she said indistinctly. 'All children are swine.'
'Yes. But the real point of the story -'
( Read more... )
LiveJournal
Apr. 2nd, 2012 08:00 pmWe would like to take a moment of your time. As we all know, LJ is dying, ever since the sale to Russia. People are moving on. People are changing and growing apart.
-- LJ mod
So true.
Yet, in all fairness, although I do not care for the change in management, and even believe that Russia is a precarious ground for a business to be founded on, I think the decline of LiveJournal has more to do with the rise of Facebook. Facebook apparently does the social networking game better, and it has become easy to leave LiveJournal behind. Personally, I cannot really make the trasition, because e-freindships have also become more real-lifey, and I just don't have that kind of social capital. So, now, blogging for me is mostly about keeping all the shiny stuff that I come across on my Internet travels, and I suppose I fade away along with LJ.
-- LJ mod
So true.
Yet, in all fairness, although I do not care for the change in management, and even believe that Russia is a precarious ground for a business to be founded on, I think the decline of LiveJournal has more to do with the rise of Facebook. Facebook apparently does the social networking game better, and it has become easy to leave LiveJournal behind. Personally, I cannot really make the trasition, because e-freindships have also become more real-lifey, and I just don't have that kind of social capital. So, now, blogging for me is mostly about keeping all the shiny stuff that I come across on my Internet travels, and I suppose I fade away along with LJ.
LiveJournal
Apr. 2nd, 2012 08:00 pmWe would like to take a moment of your time. As we all know, LJ is dying, ever since the sale to Russia. People are moving on. People are changing and growing apart.
-- LJ mod
So true.
Yet, in all fairness, although I do not care for the change in management, and even believe that Russia is a precarious ground for a business to be founded on, I think the decline of LiveJournal has more to do with the rise of Facebook. Facebook apparently does the social networking game better, and it has become easy to leave LiveJournal behind. Personally, I cannot really make the trasition, because e-freindships have also become more real-lifey, and I just don't have that kind of social capital. So, now, blogging for me is mostly about keeping all the shiny stuff that I come across on my Internet travels, and I suppose I fade away along with LJ.
-- LJ mod
So true.
Yet, in all fairness, although I do not care for the change in management, and even believe that Russia is a precarious ground for a business to be founded on, I think the decline of LiveJournal has more to do with the rise of Facebook. Facebook apparently does the social networking game better, and it has become easy to leave LiveJournal behind. Personally, I cannot really make the trasition, because e-freindships have also become more real-lifey, and I just don't have that kind of social capital. So, now, blogging for me is mostly about keeping all the shiny stuff that I come across on my Internet travels, and I suppose I fade away along with LJ.
Falling IQs
Apr. 2nd, 2012 10:30 pmA study reports that IQs have declined in the advanced nations, which is a reversal for the long-term trend of continuing increases. One line of speculation is that humanity has possibly reached its full potential and we are up against a ceiling. However, I find it striking that the decline was kicking in just as the Internet became popular and all-consuming, in the latter 1990s. In so far as the high-level usage of the Internet corresponds to less face-to-face contacts, is it possible that dealing with people in the flesh actually feeds and strengthens IQ, whereas we perhaps starve our brains by interacting with others more through keyboards and screens? After all, we are talking about a decline in IQ, not a leveling off. Very interesting.
(Source: Philip Hunter at Prospect Magazine)
(Source: Philip Hunter at Prospect Magazine)
Falling IQs
Apr. 2nd, 2012 10:30 pmA study reports that IQs have declined in the advanced nations, which is a reversal for the long-term trend of continuing increases. One line of speculation is that humanity has possibly reached its full potential and we are up against a ceiling. However, I find it striking that the decline was kicking in just as the Internet became popular and all-consuming, in the latter 1990s. In so far as the high-level usage of the Internet corresponds to less face-to-face contacts, is it possible that dealing with people in the flesh actually feeds and strengthens IQ, whereas we perhaps starve our brains by interacting with others more through keyboards and screens? After all, we are talking about a decline in IQ, not a leveling off. Very interesting.
(Source: Philip Hunter at Prospect Magazine)
(Source: Philip Hunter at Prospect Magazine)