Paula Marantz Cohen: Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation Reviwd by Danny Heitman As we’ve often been told, the art of conversation is on life support, ravaged by the excesses of technology. Hooked to our phones and laptops, or so the theory goes, we’ve lost the true gift for gab. Sherry Turkle,… Read More The Joys of Spirited Conversation
There are no softballs in Arianne Shahvisi’s “Arguing for a Better World: How Philosophy Can Help Us Fight for Social Justice.” Instead, the Kurdish-British author, ethicist and academic sets up the reader with exactly the sort of provocative questions many of us heard from our most whataboutist friends and family members. “Has ‘political correctness’ gone too far?” she asks in one… Read More ‘We are all implicated in this system’: A philosopher’s advice for surviving unethical times
DENNIS DALTON When Michael Borodin baptized Roy into Marxism in 1919, Roy came from Indian nationalism to the new faith with the zeal commonly found amongst fresh converts. ‘Marxism is a wonderful philosophy, is it not?’ he exclaimed to a fellow comrade in 1923. ‘It has made of history such an exact science. Roy’s first… Read More MN Roy was to Marxism what Vivekananda was to Hinduism. He separated spirit and form
In the face of an inscrutable, indifferent universe, Pessoa suggests we cultivate a certain longing for the elusive horizon Jonardon Ganeri In elusive point sits on the horizon. A deep yearning stirs within to move closer to this point, perhaps in search of the unknown, perhaps in search of questions without answers. It is a… Read More Solace and saudade
Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices; Analysis: distraction and bullying are key concerns; ‘I would crank up the restrictions’: teachers on banning phones in school Smartphones should be banned from schools to tackle classroom disruption, improve learning and help protect children from cyberbullying, a… Read More Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools
First posted February 16, 2015 We live in a world where all too many people purposefully contribute to the harm of other human beings either by action or inaction. Most violence emerges with some kind of rationale to legitimize its use. Based on his work with extremely violent offenders, the psychiatrist James Gilligan argues that even the… Read More Ted Grimsrud: Violence as a theological problem
First posted March 31, 2013 Shame, Guilt, and Violence / James Gilligan James Gilligan is the author of Violence: Reflections on Our Deadliest Epidemic During the past 35 years I have used prisons and prison mental hospitals as “laboratories” in which to investigate the causes and prevention of the various forms of violence and the relationships between… Read More James Gilligan on Shame, Guilt and Violence
The Czech novelist found himself silenced by the communist regime at home, but achieved international fame with playfully philosophical fiction Czech writer Milan Kundera, who explored being and betrayal over half a century in poems, plays, essays and novels including The Unbearable Lightness of Being, has died aged 94 after a prolonged illness, Anna Mrazova, spokesperson… Read More Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being author dies aged 94
By Edward Carver WHEN HE died unexpectedly in 2020, American anthropologist and left-wing activist David Graeber was best known for his 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, a revisionist history of money, and his involvement in Occupy Wall Street. He helped coin the catchphrase “We are the 99 percent.” But before he became a swashbuckling public… Read More Pirates + Madagascar = Egalitarian Utopia? David Graeber’s “Pirate Enlightenment”
as India is fast moving towards some sort of electoral autocracy, we are witnessing a new kind of crisis emanating from the virus of ‘anti-intellectualism’. Don’t think critically. Don’t question the establishment. Accept the dominant discourse of development, nationalism and religion. Is it, therefore, surprising that even the slightest trace of dissent is criminalised? Avijit… Read More The spirit of the university under threat
