An entirely unsurprising poll shows that sixty-seven percent of the registered Republicans in the US support the current administration’s policy of separating children from their undocumented immigrant (or asylum seeking) parents at the border. (Those children are then imprisoned in cages in concentration camps with no plans for their release or reunification with their parents.)Continue reading “The Republican Base’s Malevolent Algorithm”
Tag Archives: anti-intellectualism
The New York Times’ Op-Ed Page Is An Intellectual Dark Web
The New York Times Op-Ed page has been an intellectual dark web for a long time. Few corners of the Internet can lay claim to both Thomas Friedman and David Brooks, two of the most widely ridiculed, mocked, and parodied ‘thought leaders’ ever to have deigned to grace us swine with their pearls of wisdom;Continue reading “The New York Times’ Op-Ed Page Is An Intellectual Dark Web”
G. H. Hardy On The Supposedly ‘Second-Rate Mind’
In A Mathematician’s Apology G. H. Hardy wrote: It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists,Continue reading “G. H. Hardy On The Supposedly ‘Second-Rate Mind’”
Marco Rubio And The Philosophy Of Welding
Many years ago, I taught the inaugural edition of my Philosophy of Welding seminar. I began the semester by introducing some of the problems that would hold our attention during the semester: What is welding? How is it distinguished from other activities that claim to be welding? Is there a distinctive being-in-the-world characteristic of the welderContinue reading “Marco Rubio And The Philosophy Of Welding”
The Cade Rebellion and the Republican Party
Jack Cade, the leader of the Cade Rebellion, is an entertaining Shakespearean character (Henry VI, Part 2), well equipped by the Bard with many memorable lines. So are his followers, one of whom utters the oft-quoted, ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ As Stephen Greenblatt noted in Will in the World: How ShakespeareContinue reading “The Cade Rebellion and the Republican Party”
Samir Chopra 