The Pat Tillman who is the centerpiece of Jon Krakauer‘s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman is a familiar, often admirable, archetype: the ‘warrior’ who wants to fight, to win glory, but who doubts the moral standing of the domain in which he will exercise his courage and skills, and as such,Continue reading “Pat Tillman, The Skeptical ‘Warrior’ And ‘Hero’”
Tag Archives: Jon Krakauer
Talking Kierkegaard With ‘Non-Traditional’ Students
Philosophy being the discipline it is, I often find myself commenting on the identity of my students: it is how I remind those on the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ that there are possibilities here, not always acknowledged, of ways of thinking about the practice of philosophy, inside and outside the classroom. I offer this vagueContinue reading “Talking Kierkegaard With ‘Non-Traditional’ Students”
Afghanistan, Greg Mortenson, And The Temptations Of Charitable Work
In his New Yorker profile of Ashraf Ghani, the president of Afghanistan, George Packer writes: Afghanistan—mountains, deserts, ungoverned spaces—has always seemed to offer a blank slate for utopian dreamers: British imperialists, hippie travellers, Communists, Islamists, international do-gooders. Jon Krakauer’s trenchant takedown of the Greg Mortenson Three-Cups-Of-Tea myth in Three Cups of Deceit offers a depressing confirmationContinue reading “Afghanistan, Greg Mortenson, And The Temptations Of Charitable Work”
Polygamy And Joseph Smith’s Convenient Revelations
In Under The Banner Of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, Jon Krakauer cites Fawn Brodie‘s No Man Knows My History, her classic biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism: Monogamy seemed to him–as it has seemed to many men who have not ceased to love their wives, but who have grown weary ofContinue reading “Polygamy And Joseph Smith’s Convenient Revelations”
Samir Chopra 