Will the generation after yours still be able to read? If we think of “reading” as basic literacy, then the answer is surely “Yes.” But, what if we think of reading as the ability to sit down with a 300 page physical book and concentrate on it and ponder its depths? What if we think of reading in the way it is portrayed in those images of yore, of a person in a room with a book and no distractions, no computers or phones or televisions? Will that kind of reading still exist in the generation … [Read more...] about Deep Reading Brain, RIP
Modern Society
A Caustic Wit
“The University and other colleges are probably not justified by the existence of any one individual of excellence who may emerge from their course of study but by the fact that every member of the community should be provided the opportunity to develop his or her abilities for their own and the community’s betterment. I have not heard of any preening man being singled out for not achieving the pinnacle of success, so long as he is otherwise conscientious and useful and does not become a … [Read more...] about A Caustic Wit
Rooting for Team Human
The Library of America’s American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels, 1960-1966 opens with Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade. (N.b., that is not a typo in the first name—it really is Poul.) If you like fun, short science fiction novels this is not to be missed. "Short" is an interesting adjective—one of the things that happened in the 1960s is that science fiction novels started to become long. They eventually became very very long. Try to find a recent great science fiction novel that is … [Read more...] about Rooting for Team Human
Apathy in the Face of Evil
Blood Meridian is a hard book to recommend to people. It is brilliant and unforgettable. It is violent and gruesome. Those things are not separable. It’s a post-Civil War tale of The Kid (never named) as he joins a marauding band of scalp hunters in the borderlands between Mexico and what will eventually become part of the United States. Led by John Glanton, this gang commits atrocities everywhere it goes while it hunts down assorted bands of Apaches and Comanches committing comparable … [Read more...] about Apathy in the Face of Evil
Is L’affaire GameStop a Morality Play?
Where were you when you heard the news about GameStop?When it showed up in your Twitter feed, you were probably shocked. Senator Cruz agreed with Representative Ocasio-Cortez, with both saying that what Robinhood did was unacceptable. Clearly, it must be really bad. Then Senator Hawley joined the fray in an article over at First Things titled “Calling Wall Street’s Bluff.” The narrative quickly became that of a good, old-fashioned morality play, in which the “Elites” are attacked by a … [Read more...] about Is L’affaire GameStop a Morality Play?
What Has Reason to do with Faith?
“From Faith to Reason” was the title of my first year collegiate Comparative Literature course. We started with Dante’s Inferno and ended with Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The message was clear; Western civilization used to be based on Faith, but then came the Enlightenment and now Faith is Dead, Long Live Reason. Fortunately, the teacher for the course was obviously bored and lousy, so I didn’t really absorb the lesson. Over the years I have seen that story line repeated innumerable times. … [Read more...] about What Has Reason to do with Faith?