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Recent Essays
- What is it About Music that Plucks the Strings of Grief?Three times in the past few weeks I have found myself in tears. Three times! This is not normal for me; sadness is not my métier. A descent into tears is as unusual for my remorselessly cheerful nature as passing up a good bakery. There are reasons for grief. Reasons good enough that I need… Read more: What is it About Music that Plucks the Strings of Grief?
- Rebranding AtheismA recent essay by Benjamin Cain on Medium got me thinking about something that, to be honest, I don’t spend much time on – religion. Cain’s essay is a convincing takedown of John Vervaeke’s nontheism as a real alternative to atheism. Vervaeke claims that atheists and theist share a common conception of the sacred — a conception… Read more: Rebranding Atheism
- Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic LoveAbout two months ago I picked up J.M. Coetzee’s The Pole — a compact story of late life romantic love. I enjoyed it so much I immediately went on to Waiting for the Barbarians and then Disgrace. You know you’ve enjoyed a story when, after finishing, you immediately find another by the same author. But that second book can be… Read more: Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic Love
- Damn It! Politeness is a VirtueNobody seems to give a damn about politeness. Until, that is, they are treated rudely, ignored, made to feel ignorant or displaced, or pushed aside in a queue. Then, suddenly, we see all too clearly how much we appreciate polite society. Those moments do not translate into the world of ideas, where “polite society” is a… Read more: Damn It! Politeness is a Virtue
- Is Love a Virtue?Virtue theories are the only strand of modern ethical thinking that makes much sense in light of cognitive science. Utilitarian calculus becomes a funhouse of infinite regress in a world where experience changes both who we are and what we value. It didn’t take cognitive science to cast doubt on Kant’s strange metaphysics of freedom… Read more: Is Love a Virtue?
- Utopia: Its the People You’re WithPeople are the essence of what makes a community and it’s hard to imagine anything could be more important. If we don’t like the people, we won’t like the community. If we do, we will. It really is that simple. But deciding what kind of people you’d want in your utopia turns out to be trickier than you might think.
- Thinking About UtopiaWe are all trapped in time and place to certain kinds of life. We spend most of our big-picture energy thinking about the kind of life that’s best for us, given the world we live in. And so we should. But every now and then, a group of people decide to wipe the slate clean… Read more: Thinking About Utopia
- How to Live: Montaigne and the Role of ExemplarsSarah Bakewell’s How To Live or A Life of Montaigne may have a Frankenstein title, but the title perfectly represents what the book is trying to do. It is very much a biography of Montaigne. But it’s a biography organized around a series of life lessons drawn from his Essays and his life. Combining biography and practical philosophy makes… Read more: How to Live: Montaigne and the Role of Exemplars
- Learning How To Think vs. Learning To Think For YourselfIs a college a place to learn how to think or a place where you learn to think for yourself? Caitlan Flanagan argues that colleges telling their students they’ll learn how to think are being lied to – and all they get is what to think. She’s right. And she’s wrong. TW2BR explains why.
- In Defense of Bourgeois Values“The term “bourgeois” has almost always been — been one of contempt. Yet it is precisely the — the bourgeoisie which is responsible for — well, for nearly everything good which has happened in our civilization over the past four centuries.” Charlie Black — Metropolitan Nothing is more important to living a good life than… Read more: In Defense of Bourgeois Values