The point, again, is to make the case that the period 1880 to 1920 was a golden age for western thought -- in philosophy and in the leavening by philosophy of related intellectual work. I've changed several of the items from my earlier list. I will include some commentary on this version of the list. Again, a caution. The use of UPPER CASE LETTERS for all the published items below does not discriminate among genre or by length. Many of the pieces below are books. But some below are brief articles (such as Harris on education, right at the top). Some are plays, speeches, etc. Roll with it. 1880: Fyodor Dostoyevsky [pictured above], THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV William Torrey Harris, PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION Commentary: The Harris item was a contribution to the Journal of Sp...
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In a television commercial for an insurance company, a child (9 ish?) causes some consternation. After the adults around him start bemoaning "the economy," the child asks, "what's the economy?" They can't answer, and he ends up deciding to 'Google it.' Let's try to answer. It is a question from a child [actor], but not a childish question. Even a 9 year old is probably familiar with the catch-all term "society". How about telling him that "the economy" and "society" are the same fact, looked at from two different points of view. Or, if he doesn't know either word so this doesn't help, speak to him in single-syllable bits, and tell him they are "two names for the fact that folks all have to find ways to work and live with folks." When we refer to society as "the economy," we're thinking about this living-together thing in terms of limits, and choices made in awareness of limits. ...
There has been a good deal of talk about the "re-opening of the US economy." I have to say: I despise that expression and anything like it. The term "the economy" is a high-level and for many purposes a quite confusing expression. What is the economy, that it could be closed and re-opened, turned off and then back on by some act of political will, so flicking of a finger? "The economy" is a high-level and confusing expression. Consider this answer: the economy is what an economist studies. As opposed to what? the society, which is what a sociologist studies? the body politic, which is what a political scientist studies? Surely they are all studying the same sort of facts, but with somewhat different emphases and methods. Anyway, we have seen of late a lot of orders from a lot of different authorities dictating a lot of particular actions, prohibiting some others. We have seen no flick of a particular switch. We have seen no closing of a given...
"The United States has institutionalized the mass shooting in a way that [Emile] Durkheim would immediately recognize. As I discovered to my shock when my own children started school in North Carolina some years ago, preparation for a shooting is a part of our children’s lives as soon as they enter kindergarten. The ritual of a Killing Day is known to all adults. It is taught to children first in outline only, and then gradually in more detail as they get older. The lockdown drill is its Mass. The language of 'Active shooters', 'Safe corners', and 'Shelter in place' is its liturgy. 'Run, Hide, Fight' is its creed. Security consultants and credential-dispensing experts are its clergy. My son and daughter have been institutionally readied to be shot dead as surely as I, at their age, was readied by my school to receive my first communion." - Kieran Healey, August 3, 2019. I will only add to Healey's evocative comments that I did ...
"If an individual is to act with proper demeanor and show proper deference, then it will be necessary for him to have areas of self-determination. He must have an expendable supply of the small indulgences which his society employs in its idiom of regard -- such as cigarettes to give, chairs to proffer, food to provide, and so forth. He must have freedom of bodily movement so that it will be possible for him to assume a stance that conveys appropriate respect for others and appropriate demeanor on his own part....He must have a supply of appropriate clean clothing if he is to make the sort of appearance that is expected of a well demeaned person. To look seemly may require a tie, a belt, shoe laces, a mirror, and razor blades -- all of which the authorities may deem unwise to give [a mental hospital's patient]. He must have access to the eating utensils which his society defines as appropriate ones for use, and may find that meat cannot be circumspectly eaten with a cardboar...