It’s a strange business to have written about ‘The Sunday Evening Blues‘ on this blog, in such plaintive fashion, because for many years, Sunday evening was the time of the week that promised a very particular form of entertainment: the Sunday evening movie, for many years, an institution in the life of any Indian householdContinue reading “The Sunday Evening Movie, Blues-Killer Sans Pareil”
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Karl Steel on the Fallacious Animal-Human Distinction
Who is human? What is distinctively human? Answering this fairly intractable question of demarcation–one that students in philosophy of biology can see peeking around the corner at them when they tackle the subject of whether species exist– can often–if not always–involve defining and articulating the non-human. One particularly well-established tradition of such attempts has beenContinue reading “Karl Steel on the Fallacious Animal-Human Distinction”
Karl Popper’s Undistinguished Take on Existentialism
In Chapter 18 ‘Utopia and Violence’, of Conjectures and Refutations, Karl Popper writes: We can see here that the problem of the true and the false rationalisms [Utopianism] is part of a larger problem. Ultimately it is the problem of a sane attitude towards our own existence and its limitations–that very problem of which so muchContinue reading “Karl Popper’s Undistinguished Take on Existentialism”
Writing Away From Home
I am writing today’s post in a coffee shop. This fact would not be so interesting were it not for the fact that I am often tempted to do so, but almost never do. Today, circumstances compel me to write away from home and so, here I am. But writing at venues other than myContinue reading “Writing Away From Home”
Thomas Jefferson: Creepy, or Redeemed by the Declaration of Independence?
The Thomas Jefferson nightmare is on us again. Was the Mother of All Founding Fathers a dastardly racist, and perhaps worse, a hypocrite to boot? Paul Finkelman has an Op-Ed in The New York Times that makes that case: at the time he penned the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson owned 175 slaves; over the nextContinue reading “Thomas Jefferson: Creepy, or Redeemed by the Declaration of Independence?”
Samir Chopra 