“I think the intellectual in relation to politics is something like the Greek chorus, he’s outside the action, but he tells you quite a bit about it.” (Conor Cruise O’Brien, he told an interviewer in 2000.)
Archive for December 19, 2008
Conor Cruise O’Brien Is Dead at 91
December 19, 2008Steven Pinker’s The Moral Instinct
December 19, 2008My son and I continue to talk about equality and religion. My interest was always to know if our respect for one another, our giving value and importance to each individual life, if this stemmed from religious teachings, or from our very nature. I still tend to believe the latter. Now that same son has [...]
the limits of law, not the need for more of it
December 19, 2008In retrospect, the current Madoff story is about someone who was as perfectly suited to swindling as Horowitz was to playing piano. The violation of trust at the heart of that story — of trust by those with the greatest reason to trust — cries out for sympathy. It illustrates the limits of law, not [...]
The meaning of better
December 19, 2008Man will become better when you show him what he is like. (Anton Chekhov) Here is the complete passage from a Chekhov letter (1900?): “I will be reproved for writing only about mediocre events, for not having any positive heroes… We are leading a provincial life, the streets of our city are not even paved, [...]
