A little while ago, on this blog, while writing of my reading of Alex Haley’s Roots as a schoolboy I made note of it as “a member of that group of cultural productions that changed my view of the US forever.” Another distinguished member of that group would be Costas Gavras‘ Missing, a chilling movie that,Continue reading “Costas Gavras’ Missing: Harbinger of Disillusionment”
Author Archives: Samir Chopra
Sanctimony, Hypocrisy, Nuclear Weapons, and Drones
A couple of days ago, on this blog, I wrote a post attempting to refute the charge of ‘selective outrage’ that is often leveled against critics of Israeli policies in the current conflict in Gaza. In it, I pointed out how the accusation of hypocrisy made against the proponent of a claim does not affectContinue reading “Sanctimony, Hypocrisy, Nuclear Weapons, and Drones”
A Day in Gaol, Part Deux: Notes on Police, Precincts, and Penality
Spending a day in jail has some social scientific value for the temporarily detained; it enables a closer, albeit short-lived, look at the systems of policing and criminal justice. And because I often expend much time on this blog railing against the excesses of the New York City Police Department, it makes especial sense forContinue reading “A Day in Gaol, Part Deux: Notes on Police, Precincts, and Penality”
Bernard-Henri Lévy And The Problem of ‘Selective Outrage’
You, sir, are a knave and a hypocrite. You protest and fulminate when X assaults–or otherwise inflicts harms on–Y, but not when A assaults–or otherwise inflicts harm on–B. Yet the crime is the same in each case. Your outrage is selective. I do not, therefore, trust your motives, and will ignore your crocodile tears, yourContinue reading “Bernard-Henri Lévy And The Problem of ‘Selective Outrage’”
Why Get Arrested? Why Perform Civil Disobedience?
A Facebook friend of mine asked in response to my posts and photos about yesterday’s protest at the Israeli mission to the UN: It seems as though you all knew you were going to get arrested and almost seem proud of that? Isn’t there a way to protest without being arrested? This is a veryContinue reading “Why Get Arrested? Why Perform Civil Disobedience?”
Protesting For Gaza: A Day in Gaol
Earlier today, during the course of a peaceful civil disobedience action–at the Israeli mission to the UN, on Manhattan’s East Side–protesting the humanitarian catastrophe currently underway in the Gaza Strip, twenty-six protesters, including moi, were arrested and taken in custody. The protesters included Norman Finkelstein, my Brooklyn College colleague Corey Robin, and my cellmate for theContinue reading “Protesting For Gaza: A Day in Gaol”
On The Alleged Undesirability of Inconsistency
Inconsistency in our beliefs–and thus actions–is often held to be not just a cognitive failure, a breakdown of rationality, but also a moral failure of sorts. Sometimes the inconsistent are accused of hypocrisy, of disingenuousness. We are urged to forensically examine their utterances and actions, sifting through the traces they leave, all the better to indictContinue reading “On The Alleged Undesirability of Inconsistency”
V. S. Naipaul on Diversion and Inspiration
In “The Author’s Note”, a preface of sorts to The Return of Eva Peron with The Killings in Trinidad (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1980), V. S. Naipaul writes, These pieces…were written between 1972 and 1975. They bridged a creative gap: from the end of 1970 to the end of 1973 no novel offered itself toContinue reading “V. S. Naipaul on Diversion and Inspiration”
The Difficulty of the Memoir
As my About page indicates, I am currently working on “a memoirish examination of the politics of cricket fandom” (contracted to Temple University Press, for the series Sporting, edited by Amy Bass). Writing it has proven harder than I thought. I began writing the book late in 2001 and had a hundred-thousand word draft readyContinue reading “The Difficulty of the Memoir”
Isaac Bashevis Singer on A Rabbi’s Crisis
In Isaac Bashevis Singer‘s “I Place My Reliance on No Man” (collected with other short stories in Short Friday) Rabbi Jonathan Danziger goes to pray in his synagogue one Monday morning. As he prays, he encounters a crisis: When the rabbi came to the words, ‘I place my reliance on no man,’ he stopped. The words stuck inContinue reading “Isaac Bashevis Singer on A Rabbi’s Crisis”
Samir Chopra 