Could there be a stupider foreign ‘policy’ decision than the one to strike Iran, ostensibly to disrupt its nuclear weapons program? (If the strike ‘succeeds’ it will: encourage Iran to build a nuclear weapon for, as its rulers are likely to notice, only nations with actual nuclear weapons don’t get attacked by the US; consolidateContinue reading “The Campaign Trail: Where You Go To Say Dumb Things”
Category Archives: Politics
That Scalia Sure Chopped the Individual Mandate Like Broccoli!
I’ve now taught Philosophy of Law twice: first, in Spring 2007, and then later, two sections in Spring 2011. An important section of the class syllabus, once we have completed a comparison and discussion of natural law, positivist, and legal realist theories of the law, is legal reasoning. And invariably, an important topic in legalContinue reading “That Scalia Sure Chopped the Individual Mandate Like Broccoli!”
Breaking News: The US Supreme Court is a Political Institution
Yesterday in Florence vs. Board of Freeholders, the US Supreme Court ruled that if you are arrested–for any reason whatsoever–the law-enforcement officials in charge of you can strip-search you. Over at ScotusBlog, Lyle Denniston sums it up a little better: Insisting that it has no expertise in how to run a jail or prison, theContinue reading “Breaking News: The US Supreme Court is a Political Institution”
Even ‘Degenerate Art’ Can Tempt: The 1937 Entartete Kunst Exhibitions
In July 1937, in Munich, the Nazi Party mounted the Entartete Kunst exhibitions of ‘Degenerate Art.’. The exhibit featured over six hundred paintings, sculptures, prints, and books, a collection put together by a six-man commission that had confiscated–from the collections of thirty-two German museums–art deemed ‘modern, degenerate, or subversive.’ The exhibition remained in Munich tillContinue reading “Even ‘Degenerate Art’ Can Tempt: The 1937 Entartete Kunst Exhibitions”
David Brooks on “Centralization”
On May 23-24, 1865, the victorious Union armies marched through Washington. The columns of troops stretched back 25 miles. They marched as a single mass, clad in blue, their bayonets pointing skyward. Those lines, dear reader, are the openers of a David Brooks article about the “centralization” of power in Washington via the “Obama healthContinue reading “David Brooks on “Centralization””
Hegel’s Stoic and Prison Literature
In his Introduction to Hegel’s Metaphysics (University of Chicago Press, 1969, pp 30-31), Ivan Soll notes that, With great sociological and psychological insight Hegel says that “stoicism, the freedom which goes back into the pure universality of thought, could appear as a general form of the world spirit only in a time of general fearContinue reading “Hegel’s Stoic and Prison Literature”
Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will: Still Scary After All These Years
I have a confession to make: I had not seen Leni Riefenstahl‘s Triumph of the Will till Friday evening. I’ve talked about it, seen clips from it, read critical essays on it, and even seen a biographical film–The Wonderful, Horrible, Life of Leni Riefenstahl–about its director, but never seen Triumph Des Willens itself. On Friday night,Continue reading “Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will: Still Scary After All These Years”
Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and the Fallacy of the ‘Lone Gunman’
It is worth remembering, the next time you see Trayvon Martin‘s parent’s on television, trying to explain their pleas for justice, that you are looking at human beings who, in the giant totem pole that mankind has constructed of Humans Who Have Suffered Terrible Losses, occupy a fairly high position. The killing of Trayvon MartinContinue reading “Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and the Fallacy of the ‘Lone Gunman’”
Susan Matt on Homesickness, the ‘New Globalist’, and Technology
Susan Matt suggests that homesickness still afflicts the ‘new globalists,’ the cosmopolitans who would live ‘abroad,’ whether permanently or temporarily, away from home (“The New Globalist is Homesick”, New York Times, March 21, 2012). And technology, precisely by bringing them back into closer contact with loved ones and old haunts, and assuaging loneliness and longing,Continue reading “Susan Matt on Homesickness, the ‘New Globalist’, and Technology”
Workplace Coercion, the Military, and Resisting Superiors
Corey Robin’s post on Arizona’s new anti-birth control legislation centers on a recurring concern of his: coercion in the private sector work-place, which remains largely impervious to constitutional circumscriptions of state power. I want to use this opportunity to talk about coercion in a very particular workplace: the military. The coercion of subordinates by superiorsContinue reading “Workplace Coercion, the Military, and Resisting Superiors”
Samir Chopra 