Miscellany
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A fate worse than death?
The doctrine that war is always a greater evil seems to imply a materialist ethic, a belief that death and pain are the greatest evils. But I do not think they are. I…
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Precision of language, please.
So Jonas’s father says to him when he asks whether his parents love him in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. They come to mind as a good title for this post because I’m thinking…
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In crisis, we crave the humanities
This article in Inside HigherEd makes the point that even in the midst of a crisis, the humanities — fields of study that explore human history, society, art and language and literature, spiritual…
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Is there a crisis of expertise?
When should we trust the experts? For that matter, who counts as an expert, and on what is this based? Expertise is by nature narrow and specialized; at what point does someone’s expertise…
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Knee-Jerk Reactions to Homeschooling: Child Advocacy — or Totalitarianism?
Though I dispute the term “homeschooling” to describe the COVID-19-inspired shift to distance learning in public education, it is clearly causing discomfort not just for those directly involved, but for theorists and policy-makers.…
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Wendell Berry on science worship
Listening to our leaders reassuring us that all public health and political action is being directed by science and expert advice reminds me of this passage from Wendell Berry’s “Letter to a Scientific…
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Mission Creep in the Empire State
Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, announced yesterday that he was teaming up with five neighboring states’ governors to calibrate a strategy for reopening the state’s economy. He is apparently open to…
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Impeachment, the Bible, and the (Dis?)Unifying Power of Texts
This week as, political geek that I am, I have tuned in periodically to the Senate impeachment trial, it has crossed my mind more than once that there is a similarity between what…
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On being a questioner
Yesterday, for some reason, I remembered a friend at a previous church approaching me and telling me that God had “put me on her heart.” She’d heard a sermon on how the intellect…