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The Three Senses of “What Now?”
We may contemplate our future with dread and uncertainty or with joy and anticipation. But sometimes we see no future. I came to Ann Patchett’s “What Now?” in the meandering vein of “Things I learned Enroute to Looking Up Other Things” columns. I read Dutch House, which convinced me that Patchett was a good writer. So…
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Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic Love
About 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…
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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…
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Thinking About Utopia
We 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…
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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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Capital and Ideology and Ideology and Ideology
Not many authors have ever made as big a cultural splash as Thomas Piketty did with Capital. His 2019 follow-up, Capital and Ideology, is a big book dedicated to the same general themes but expanding their scope both philosophically, historically and geographically. At the very beginning of Capital and Ideology, Piketty steps outside the narrative…
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Before the Coffee Gets Cold
A few years back we somehow got signed up for a Boksu subscription – a monthly box of seasonal Japanese snacks – that just kept going month after month for years. The boxes are lovely and crafted in way that seems utterly unique to the Japanese as are many of the snacks, and everyone in…
We are not rational animals, we are animals that must work to be rational
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