I’ve posted some thoughts on the Aurora, Colorado tragedy over at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. Here’s a sample: However we usually define tragedy, there’s something uniquely debilitating about those catastrophes that break into our lives for utterly arbitrary and senseless reasons. Indeed, traditional literary tragedy is often bearable because the pivotal moment of collapse … Continue reading
It is one of the great canards of American politics that leftists have gotten tarred as “utopian” dreamers. In conservatives’ hands, progressives and liberals alike are cowards who cannot make their own way in life and thus look to government to protect them from tragedy. These latter are weak-kneed social dependents who believe that conflict … Continue reading
Further commentary unnecessary: “Must we not remind those who are weak and defrauded and despised that God will avenge the cruelties from which they suffer, but will also not hear the cruel resentment which corrupts their hearts? Must we not say to the rich and secure classes of society that their vaunted devotion to the … Continue reading
David Sessions has posted a searching essay on the difficulty of sustaining conviction in Zucotti Park: But there is still that frustrating way that radical hope can turn into religious hope and back again, like they were caught together in a Möbius strip. Terry Eagleton describes both Marxism and Christianity as resting on the demented … Continue reading
Better late than never. Progressives, it seems to me, are tempted by two positions on the Obama Administration’s approach to international affairs/human rights/terrorism (insofar as there’s a unitary approach, which is part of the explanation for being pulled between contradictory positions, etc, etc). I’m tempted by both—haven’t had time to reflect long enough to settle … Continue reading
If you’re eagerly anticipating Obama’s speech tomorrow on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, here’s something to guide your reflections. Sojourner’s Jim Wallis looks at the troop numbers and pulls no punches: So let’s be clear. It’s time for Obama to stop listening to his generals. Whatever the specific announcement will be, if it falls within the … Continue reading
Still reading The Pale King. Still really liking it. I’m trying to go slowly, in order to savor each page (I’m also trying to split time with Pacify Me and Michael Oakeshott’s Skepticism—life is multivariate). In my last post on the book, I wrote: Sane adult life is about taking stances on fundamental questions about … Continue reading
John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: “We may desire abolition of war, industrial justice, greater equality of opportunity for all. But no amount of preaching good will or the golden rule or cultivation of sentiments of love and equity will accomplish the results. There must be change in objective arrangements and institutions. We must work … Continue reading
Perhaps it’s because he’s a student of Reinhold Niebuhr’s ideas…Martin Luther King, Jr. is usually a fine source for wisdom on the limits to violence as a tool for political ends. This one’s for Jennifer Rubin: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to … Continue reading
The Post‘s Jennifer Rubin closed her posting yesterday with a fairly archetypal conservative critique of President Obama’s approach to international relations (“The shrinking superpower“). It more or less echoes the Krauthammer blurb that I rubbished a few days ago. Obama is being too cautious/He’s emboldening our enemies/International consensus is unnecessary to act in Libya/etc. Above … Continue reading
