In the summer of 1992, I traveled to India to visit my family: my mother, my brother, his wife (my sister-in-law), and my little, then barely six months old nephew. The monsoon lay around the corner, promising mixed relief from the brutal heat of the North Indian plains; the humidity would still oppress, but evenings andContinue reading “An Unforgettable Image, Appropriately Contextualized”
Category Archives: Books
Bertrand Russell On Deterrence By Making ‘Freedom More Pleasant’
In ‘What I Believe,’ an essay whose content–selectively quoted–was instrumental in him having his appointment at the City College of New York revoked¹, Bertrand Russell wrote: One other respect in which our society suffers from the theological conception of ‘sin’ is the treatment of criminals. The view that criminals are ‘wicked’ and ‘deserve’ punishment isContinue reading “Bertrand Russell On Deterrence By Making ‘Freedom More Pleasant’”
Francine Prose On The Consolations Of Post-Apocalyptic Literature
In reviewing Margaret Atwood‘s Stone Mattress: Nine Tales Francine Prose makes a pair of perceptive remarks in her conclusion. First, [T]book offers none of the peculiar comforts and reassurances of such post-apocalyptic novels as Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. It denies us the glorious fantasy of flaming out en masse instead of, so much less dramatically, in aContinue reading “Francine Prose On The Consolations Of Post-Apocalyptic Literature”
Neera Tanden And A Cultural ‘Obsession With Hierarchy’
Over at his blog, Corey Robin details an interesting Twitter spat with Neera Tanden–“the person who many think will be Hillary Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff….the head of the Center for American Progress, the Democratic Party think tank that works closely with the Clintons.” Tanden is an arch-defender of Hillary Clinton–which is unsurprising given the passions political allegiances canContinue reading “Neera Tanden And A Cultural ‘Obsession With Hierarchy’”
Tony Judt On A Pair Of Intellectual Sins
In The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and The French Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998, p. 121), Tony Judt writes of Albert Camus: One of the things that he had to come to dislike the most about Parisian intellectuals was their conviction that they had something to say about everything, and that everythingContinue reading “Tony Judt On A Pair Of Intellectual Sins”
The Most Valuable Philosophical Lesson Of All
I’m often asked–by non-academics, natch–if anything in my philosophical education has been of value to me in the conduct of my lived life. I have found this question hard to answer in the terms my interlocutors demand, largely because is because posed to me in what I call ‘lock-key’ form: is there a lock youContinue reading “The Most Valuable Philosophical Lesson Of All”
Chaucer’s Knight As Stoic Philosopher
In How to Read and Why (Scribner, New York, 2001, p. 281), Harold Bloom invokes ‘The Knight’s Tale‘ from Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales and writes: The Knight sums up Chaucer’s ironic ethos in one grim couplet: It is ful fair a man to bere hym evene For al day meeteth men at unset stevene Bloom continues:Continue reading “Chaucer’s Knight As Stoic Philosopher”
James Baldwin On A White Policeman’s Eyes
In James Baldwin‘s If Beale Street Could Talk (Bantam, New York, 1974) Fonny, a young black man, is in jail for rape–his supposed victim’s eyewitness identification is probably mistaken; ‘outside,’ his pregnant girlfriend, Tish, wonders about the policeman, Bell, who arrested Fonny. Bell had wanted to arrest Fonny for assault ever since he had violentlyContinue reading “James Baldwin On A White Policeman’s Eyes”
The Doctor And The Silenced Patient
In Confessions of a Medicine Man: An Essay in Popular Philosophy (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000, pp. 109-110) Alfred I. Tauber writes: Health care providers have to listen, respond, and generally account for the subjective experience of a patient’s complaint. So much of our discontent can be traced to the too little time the physician spendsContinue reading “The Doctor And The Silenced Patient”
The Convenient Construction Of The Public-Private Distinction
Revolutions are public affairs; revolutionaries bring them about. They fight in the streets, they ‘man’ the barricades, they push back the forces of reaction. And then, they go home for the night, to a meal and a warm bed. There, they rest and recuperate, recharging the batteries of uprising, ready to battle again the nextContinue reading “The Convenient Construction Of The Public-Private Distinction”
Samir Chopra 