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Learning How To Think vs. Learning To Think For Yourself
Is 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.
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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…
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Metropolitan
Why has Whit Stillman made so few movies? His filmography is great. Sure, it’s tailor made for someone like me, but I note that most of his (very modestly budgeted movies) seem to have done okay at the box office. His U.H.B (Urban Haute Bourgeoisie) trilogy (which Metropolitan kicks off) is unique. Each movie is…
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Heat
In some alternate, happier Michael Mann universe, Robert De Niro just keeps driving to LAX and Pacino has the shootout with Kevin Gage’s Waingro. Justice wouldn’t be served, but I’d like that ending very much – and not just because it would be so unexpected. But even if we all know that De Niro and…
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Democracy and the Good Life: The Politicization of the Self
Modern political ideologies are nothing more (nor less) than lifestyle brands built to capture votes in the democratic marketplace. They are the shallow, intellectually incoherent two-buck chuck of the political world: sweet, deeply addictive, and very cheap to acquire. These ideologies have already exacted a terrible toll on our democracy and they may or may…
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Parfit and the Philosophical Life
Reasons and Persons may be the most extraordinary book I have ever read. Yet the why behind that statement isn’t easy to articulate. It isn’t the best book of philosophy I’ve read. It’s an important and influential book, but not on the level of something like A Theory of Justice. It’s a grind to read.…
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A Year in Books – Readings From the Last Year
A year covers a lot of books when you’re an avid reader. Old favorites, too much sci-fi, a few Great Courses on audio, and some truly great books. Here’s everything I read with quick notes, highlights and links to the ones that got written about in detail.
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A Tale of Two Doctorow’s
Without planning or malice aforethought, I found myself reading books by two Doctorow’s – E.L. and Cory – at the same moment. This felt rather like a literary Mr. Shuffle (where two songs randomly played off my Apple Playlist happen to have some odd relationship). There is, after all, nothing to tie their work together.…
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The Story of a Life: The Novel and Biography
If novels are the essential artistic expression of transformative choice and decision-making, biography (auto and non) often has similar interests. Reading The Story of a Life, Russian/Ukranian Konstantin Paustovsky’s very literary autobiography is a reminder of how much biography may resemble the novel both in ethical purpose and literary form. After all, the novel is…
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Oppenheimer and the False NON-Equivalency of Hitler and Stalin
False equivalency was a doctrine very much in fashion and not without some reason. Though mainstream journalism has long been a bastion of liberal ideology and has lately become just another armed camp in the great ideology wars, it nevertheless works within a framework and structure that encourages a show of objectivity. That show may…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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