Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

My recent reading includes THE QUESTION OF GOD (2002) by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr., a contrast of the worldviews of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, considered as exemplars of Christianity and secularism respectively. Early on there's a nice quote from Lewis' own memoir about his parents, I'll simply reproduce here. On his father's side were "true Welshmen, sentimental, passionate, and rhetorical, easily moved both to anger and to tenderness, men who laughed and cried a great deal and had not much talent for happiness." On his mother's side one encounters "a cooler race. Their minds were critical and ironic and they had the talent for happiness in a high degree." The situation bred in Lewis, on his own reflection, "a certain dislike or distrust of emotion as something uncomfortable and embarrassing and even dangerous." I'm not making any point here folks, I just enjoy the wording of that. But if you're curious whether th...

A few thoughts about Turkey. The readers of this blog are a well-informed bunch, and I'm sure they know the basics. To wit: on May 31,  protests were underway (peacefully) in Istanbul, where the catalyzing issue was the government's plan to replace a historical park with a shopping mall. Police responded that day in a heavy-handed way, tear gas, water cannon, 63 arrests. This has led to a spreading of the protests and a wider range of grievances, while Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has asserted that he has the high ground, and called the protestors "hoodlums." This is clearly about a good deal more than a single land-use dispute. It reminds me of something I wrote in my book, Gambling with Borrowed Chips . I sought to explain an upswing in crude oil prices that began in April 2007 and that continued until the summer of 2008. The world price of crude is of course very sensitive to news about the politics of the middle east. In April 2007, when the upward mo...