I knew that many of my fellow citizens took comfort in their own banality: You live a boring life and feel you have nothing to fear from those on high. But how could you anticipate the ways in which insights bred of spying might prove handy to some future regime? New tools have a way of breeding new abuses. Detailed logs of behaviors that I found tame—my Amazon purchases, my online comments, and even my meanderings through the physical world, collected by biometric scanners, say, or license-plate readers on police cars—might someday be read in a hundred different ways by powers whose purposes I couldn’t fathom now. They say you can quote the Bible to support almost any conceivable proposition, and I could only imagine the range of charges that selective looks at my data might render plausible.And we already know that Gen. Clapper lied to a Congressional committee about governments surveillance of citizens.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Cybernetic panopticon …
… If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy - The Atlantic.
Louis C.K meets Plato and more …
… If Everything Is So Amazing, Why's Nobody Happy? | VQR Online. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
An elusive man …
… The Mystery of Primo Levi by Tim Parks | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What is striking about all Levi’s fiction is that despite the frequent references to sexual problems—a female spider discussing her consumption of males, a wise centaur torn apart by sexual desire who experiences “in the form of anxiety and tremulous tension” any sexual encounter that occurs in his vicinity—there is no attempt to dramatize however obliquely or discreetly what might have been the reality of Levi’s domestic life, or to explore the many intimate but sexless friendships he was now in the habit of forming with women. To one of these friends, the German Hety Schmitt-Maas, Levi would confess his frustration with marriage and sense of entrapment, but nothing of this emerges in the fiction. The better stories in the later and looser collections are always returns to the wartime period and Auschwitz.
Something to think on …
One of the functions of intelligence is to take account of the dangers that come from trusting solely to the intelligence.
— Lewis Mumford, born on this date in 1895
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Literary offspring …
… John Clare's Heirs | Boston Review. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Almost everything that could have seemed, to a nineteenth-century reader, like a reason to count Clare as minor, or not to read him, makes him a resource for poets today. “Bard of the fallow field / And the green meadow,” as he called himself, Clare remained closely attentive to what we now call his environment, what he called “nature,” in a way that is neither touristic nor ignorant of agricultural effort. He saw tragic ironies all over the place, but he never sought verbal ironies himself: he is about as sincere (if not naive) as poets get. Clare seems to have benefited from few of the changes wreaked on the planet since the invention of the steam engine and cannot be blamed for whatever brought them about: he may be the last significant white Anglophone poet for whom that was true.Of course, poetry demands that the poet be observant of all about him wherever he may be. It is certainly salutary to observe nature. But a lot besides needs to be looked at, too.
Maybe, but maybe not …
… Do rave reviews on book covers count as literary criticism? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Mutual admiration …
… President Obama & Marilynne Robinson: A Conversation in Iowa by Barack Obama and Marilynne Robinson | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is another piece of Robinson's that Dave sends along: Awakening. And here is something from that:
The President: How do you reconcile the idea of faith being really important to you and you caring a lot about taking faith seriously with the fact that, at least in our democracy and our civic discourse, it seems as if folks who take religion the most seriously sometimes are also those who are suspicious of those not like them?
Robinson: Well, I don’t know how seriously they do take their Christianity, because if you take something seriously, you’re ready to encounter difficulty, run the risk, whatever. I mean, when people are turning in on themselves—and God knows, arming themselves and so on—against the imagined other, they’re not taking their Christianity seriously. I don’t know—I mean, this has happened over and over again in the history of Christianity, there’s no question about that, or other religions, as we know.So we're back to the belief the President expressed in 2008: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." And Robinson seems to share that view.
Here is another piece of Robinson's that Dave sends along: Awakening. And here is something from that:
I will say at the outset that I do not know how this problem can be resolved. I cannot find any slightest inclination in myself to make concessions, precisely because I attach religious value to generous, need I say liberal, social policy. If it would be illiberal and unchristian of me to suppose that divine judgment might be brought down on the United States for grinding the faces of the poor (despite all the great prophet Isaiah has to say on the subject), I take no comfort from the certain knowledge that my opposite is struggling with just the same temptation, though mulling other texts. So, is this order of seriousness, the consequence of the compounded effects of relative democracy and a basically religious habit of mind, on balance stabilizing or destabilizing, good or bad? There is little point to the question, since these things are so engrained in the culture that they are no doubt our perpetual storm, raging in place like the red spot on Jupiter. If there is a dynamic equilibrium at work here, then it takes its stabilizing force from the belief in and expression of views that are opposed. Therefore I can in good conscience put aside my attempts at evenhandedness.
To conflate the practice of your faith with politics — to, as far as oneself is concerned, have no separation of church and state, but your own private theocracy instead, seems to me to really get things mixed up. For one thing, it has to mean that those who disagree with your politics are not just wrong, but evil. Robinson talks a good game about religion in general, but when it gets down to specifics, the self-righteous sanctimony shows.
Inquirer reviews …
… 'Empire of Self,' by Jay Parini: Attempt to keep Gore Vidal in view.
… Ian Rankin's 'Complete Rebus Stories': Satisfying, tight, entertaining.
… JoJo Moyes keeps up the laughter and tears in 'After You'.
… noonline.
God only knows what the last headline is about or even if it is a headline.
… Ian Rankin's 'Complete Rebus Stories': Satisfying, tight, entertaining.
… JoJo Moyes keeps up the laughter and tears in 'After You'.
… noonline.
God only knows what the last headline is about or even if it is a headline.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
In case you wondered …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Fleming Is Forever: Why You Should Read the James Bond Books.
I've read only one, but I must say I was impressed by it.
For the defense …
… Keeping Henry Thoreau Around. ( Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I'm with Levi on this 100 percent. I found the New Yorker article underwhelming and annoying.I mention the canon because I truly sense an effort in this article called Pond Scum to remove Thoreau from our literary pantheon, and I detect a dull and careless complicity with this mission in the immediate reaction on Twitter and elsewhere to Kathryn Schulz's article. A blog post at Bibliomanic includes a screenshot of this tweet by Brent Staples of the New York Times: "Kathryn Schulz burns Henry David Thoreau to the ground. Nothing left but ashes." This tweet has been favorited more than 100 times.Nothing left of Thoreau but ashes? This is supposed to be a good thing? Over my dead body does Henry David Thoreau leave the pantheon — I'll go with him instead if I have to, and I won't be alone.
After a space of time, a new novel …
… ‘Fat City’ author still a contender | The Sacramento Bee. (Hat tip, Dave lull.)
Something to think on …
Without the story - in which everyone living, unborn and dead, participates - men are no more than bits of paper blown on the cold wind.
— George Mackay Brown, born on this date in 1921
Friday, October 16, 2015
Just a thought …
It is surely cause for wonder that people — smart people, thoughtful, well-read, experienced — still ponder quite seriously the life, death, and teachings of a preacher in Judea some 2,000 years ago, if only because the story of Jesus differs so sharply from those of other sages.
This one again …
… Scientists claim they can change your belief on immigrants and God | UK | News | Daily Express.
The scientists targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a brain region a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting and responding to problems.But why would you think that interfering with the part of the brain associated with problem-solving would result in a better solution to any problem?
Blogging note …
Just got back from taking my wife for a medical procedure — had to be at the hospital at 6 a.m. — and I have some errands to run. So blogging will resume sometime after on.
Something to think on …
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
— Oscar Wilde, born on this date in 1854
Hear, hear …
… You Can’t Handle The Truth: The Importance of Free Speech on Campus - The Georgetown Voice.
My aim in this chronology is simply to bring forward the sharp contrast between the state of free speech as an aspirational end in times past and free speech as, at best, an arbitrary means among students at Georgetown. Throughout previous centuries, blood was spilled, monarchs were toppled, and popular assemblies were convened in the hope of someday achieving unrestricted speech. Today, far too many Georgetown students view free speech as a threat to some more noble and remarkably (though unsurprisingly) elusive goal.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Here's one to keep an eye on …
…Spring to come three weeks earlier to the United States.
I certainly plan on paying attention next year.
Amplifying the human voice …
… Ronald Blythe: Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village | The Mookse and the Gripes. ( Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Akenfield itself is a fictional village, but it is based, Blythe says in his preface, on the Suffolk village of Charsfield, “but with the surrounding countryside and myself drawn into it.” When he sat down to write Akenfield, Blythe did not have any idea what a oral historian was and, therefore, did not set out to write an oral history but rather “the work of a poet.” And, indeed, this poetic chronicle of the village both celebrates the unsung lives of its inhabitants and frequently hints at the unfathomable universe we all partake in.
Belated …
… Paul Davis On Crime: Happy 88th Birthday To Actor Sir Roger Moore.
I was busy yesterday with my own birthday. I'm some years younger than Sir Roger.
I was busy yesterday with my own birthday. I'm some years younger than Sir Roger.
Addressing a problem …
… How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop : Nature News & Comment.
Failure to understand our own biases has helped to create a crisis of confidence about the reproducibility of published results, says statistician John Ioannidis, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The issue goes well beyond cases of fraud. Earlier this year, a large project that attempted to replicate 100 psychology studies managed to reproduce only slightly more than one-third2. In 2012, researchers at biotechnology firm Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, reported that they could replicate only 6 out of 53 landmark studies in oncology and haematology3. And in 2009, Ioannidis and his colleagues described how they had been able to fully reproduce only 2 out of 18 microarray-based gene-expression studies4.
Something to think on …
Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?
— Evan Hunter, born on this date in 1926
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Thomas de Quincey
Many years ago, a friend suggested I read Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Intrigued, I put in on my list, and this week read the first essay in this collection of three.
I must say, for a book with such a great title - evocative at once of Rousseau and William S. Burroughs - the content doesn't quite follow suite. Effectively what de Quincey has constructed here is a sort of Romantic treatment of addiction, descent, and dreams. His meditations, while interesting, are meandering, and overrun with veiled homages to Wordsworth and the gang.
Which is not to say that I didn't enough the Confessions - because part of me did. For his honesty alone (especially at the start of the nineteenth century), de Quincey is to celebrated. Cause for equal celebration, I think, is his use of London as a backdrop for his travails. Often, the city serves as a measuring tool, as a sort of calibration. With it, de Quincey charts the thin line between addiction and recovery, between love and loss. Those sections of the book, I felt, were more effective.
Ultimately, this is a collection that feels both ahead, and behind, its times: ahead in the sense that it anticipated the works, as I suggest, of Burroughs and Kerouac (sections of Opium Eater were strongly reminiscent of the Dharma Bums); but behind its time in the sense that its content (modern and raw) is rendered using an antiquated vernacular; it's as if the words themselves are slowing down the story; as if the prose can't quite keep up with tale (slow and clunky as they were).
True, you can't necessarily fault de Quincey for his use of the language of his day: but I'm going to. This work is saturated with Romantic flourish, when what's called for here is actually the opposite: an exit from the trap, a step forward toward something less embellished and more exacting: something, that is, which would more accurately represent the experiences of the addict.
Still, the essay was engaging, and as I say, the bits about London were great. So here's to you, Thomas de Quincey: you opium eater, you.
"The rules are very important,"
said the Archbishop, "send them out to the priests and have them read."
"But Your Eminence, they are perhaps a bit too restrictive and the people are hurting..."
"No, they are sinners, and cannot come into our communion. Now go," and his eager young aides went away.
"But Your Eminence, they are perhaps a bit too restrictive and the people are hurting..."
"No, they are sinners, and cannot come into our communion. Now go," and his eager young aides went away.
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
1Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
3And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. 7I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
Hmm …
… Scientists claim they can change your belief on immigrants and God | UK | News | Daily Express.
Izuma said: "When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions."
Another example of a scientist who doesn't know how to think clearly, starting with the definition of terms. After all, one man's ideology is another's considered viewpoint. One could interpret these results as indicating nothing more than impeding the individual's ability to weigh evidence and arrive at a rational judgment. Maybe they should try it with atheists. Or do they not consider atheism an ideology? WWII Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was terrified on his deathbed that he was going to have to explain to God why he gave an order that he knew would result in high casualties. Hardly an example of religion easing one's fear of death.
Something to think on …
Once we have learned to read, meaning of words can somehow register without consciousness.
— Katherine Mansfield, born on this date in 1888
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Something to curl up with …
… Sofa.com | What to Read on Your Sofa: The novels of Ivy Compton-Burnett. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Almost everything – the action, characterisation and character development, sudden twists and shocking revelations – is carried by dialogue alone; there is virtually nothing else in a typical Ivy Compton-Burnett, apart from unhelpful thumbnail sketches of the characters and rudimentary stage directions. Most of the rest you have to work out for yourself, reading that extraordinary dialogue with care and close attention to discover – gradually or, often, explosively – what is really going on.
Walking and thinking …
… The slow death of purposeless walking - BBC News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In the UK, May is National Walking Month. And a new book, A Philosophy of Walking by Prof Frederic Gros, is currently the object of much discussion. Only last week, a study from Stanford University showed that even walking on a treadmill improved creative thinking.
Multi-faceted …
… The Frustrating, Dizzying Career of Stanley Fish | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Fish does not come close to understanding that Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris—“shallow … schoolyard atheists,” he calls them—assault religion on precisely the same grounds on which billions believe it: They don’t bother with the dulling tedium, the meanders and switchbacks of theological argument, because the global throngs don’t bother with them. In Save the World on Your Own Time (2012), Fish rightly asserts that “intellectual work” concerns itself with “the evaluation, not the celebration, of interests, beliefs, and identities; after all, interests can be base, beliefs can be wrong, and identities are often irrelevant to an inquiry.” And that is exactly what Dawkins and company are up to, the evaluation of beliefs as they are believed.
Au contraire. Fish understands them quite well. They do not evaluate the beliefs as they are believed by those who take the trouble to understand what they believe and why. Dawkins and Co. take no trouble whatever to even learn, let alone understand, how I — and many others — believe. And yes, there is a component of faith underlying science.
Something to think on …
I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am — of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain — or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things … I have no idea whatever of my soul.
— Nicolas Malebranche, who died on this date in 1715
Monday, October 12, 2015
Perfect for digital …
… A new Project Gutenberg gem: The Art of Aubrey Beardsley | TeleRead. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Who is that man?
… How Tom Wolfe Became … Tom Wolfe | Vanity Fair. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
At some point came a thought that struck with the force of revelation: this book had been written by someone. Some human being must have sat down and scribbled the Hardy Boys series, along with the Legends of the NFL—how else would I have ever known that Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Bob Lilly lifted a Volkswagen by himself? I’d never really stopped to ask who had written any of those books, because … well, because it didn’t matter to me who had written them. Their creators were invisible. They had no particular identity. No voice. Now rolling around a living-room floor in New Orleans, Louisiana, howling with laughter, I asked a new question: Who wrote this book? Thinking it might offer a clue, I searched the cover. Right there on the front was a name!!! Tom Wolfe. Who was Tom Wolfe?
Something important to know …
… Making It All Up | The Weekly Standard.
Science isn't science because a bunch of people say it is. Science is what can be duplicated and falsified. I may be religious, but I am not credulous. At least my religion tells me that there are certain things I must take on faith. Science has nothing to do with faith. It has to do with what can be demonstrated.
Two women …
… A Dual Biography of Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl - The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)
Could their very different childhoods tell us something about the choices they ultimately made? Consider what it meant to be the product of a Prussian military family, a girl whose father died before she was old enough to remember him beyond the vague impressions she listed later on as “tall, imposing stature, leather smell, shining boots, a riding whip, horses”—a father whose absence prompted her need for a “masculine model,” as she saw it, and whose mother raised her like “a kindly general,” providing every sort of lesson (violin, piano, English) on a widow’s meagre earnings. It would be easy to see here someone who came to welcome Hitler’s leather-costumed militarism, yet this is an outline of Dietrich’s childhood and the forces that she felt had made her who she was. Riefenstahl grew up in a working-class family on the rise; her mother was a seamstress, her father was a plumber who built up a successful business and was the dominating figure of her early life. Dietrich had an older sister, Riefenstahl a younger brother, both of whom were the “obedient” children in the family and pleased their parents by following conventional paths. Neither the bourgeois widow nor the ambitious plumber could accept the notion that a well-brought-up German girl would ever appear on the stage.
The flâneur as endangered species …
… The slow death of purposeless walking - BBC News. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I suspect this is about as accurate as other accounts of endangered species. But I am sort of gratified to discover that I have ended up as one. I wander about aimlessly all the time.
I suspect this is about as accurate as other accounts of endangered species. But I am sort of gratified to discover that I have ended up as one. I wander about aimlessly all the time.
Something to think on …
I do not go in search of poetry. I wait for poetry to visit me.
— Eugenio Montale, born on this date in 1897
Sunday, October 11, 2015
The course of true love …
… Jack and Joy - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The fact that she did not always prioritize her sons might be seen as another of her feminist achievements.An odd sort of achievement.
Inquirer reviews …
… Edwidge Danticat's lyrical 'Untwine': A teen rebuilds her life.
… 'Gold Fame Citrus' turns California drought into post apocalyptic nightmare.
… Jenny Lawson's 'Furiously Happy' leaves us wanting better, funnier, sharper.
… Geraldine Brooks' 'Secret Chord': Daring, vivid, flawed.
… An explosion of rock-and-roll memories.
Q&A: Talking race, hope, and writing with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
… 'Gold Fame Citrus' turns California drought into post apocalyptic nightmare.
… Jenny Lawson's 'Furiously Happy' leaves us wanting better, funnier, sharper.
… Geraldine Brooks' 'Secret Chord': Daring, vivid, flawed.
… An explosion of rock-and-roll memories.
Q&A: Talking race, hope, and writing with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Something to think on …
In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.
— Theodore Dalrymple, born on this date in 1949
Saturday, October 10, 2015
A tough question …
… "Beyond Eastrod": Shakespeare: on reading a secular gospel by the only author worth reading when the curtain is about to come down on a lifetime (or at any other time in anyone's life).
… if you knew you had time for one author or one book, which would you choose?Off the top of my head, Wallace Stevens, Collected Poems.
One heck of a review …
… of what sounds like a first-rate biography: on Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal by Jay Parini (Doubleday) | On the Seawall: A Literary Website by Ron Slate (GD). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
His grandfather’s isolationist politics triggered Vidal’s anti-imperialist critiques. “The world, in his view, had fallen away from a beautiful moment at the inception of the American republic,” Parini writes, “when – briefly – the ideals of life and liberty seemed to prevail.” Short-lived idyllic beginnings yield to endless malaise. With shrewd timing, Vidal produced satirical novels, essays and plays that Americans wanted to read and see. At least one’s own celebrity and notoriety can flare up in opposition. His antagonistic but poised arguments could enrage his enemies – and so again, I revert to YouTube to watch him joust with William F. Buckley on the Vietnam War, an argument that leads to Buckley calling him a “queer” and losing his famous composure.Buckley himself came to think he had lost it, but he had asked Vidal twice, quite politely, not to use the term "crypto-Nazi." Had it been I, I would have simplyy got up and jacked Vidal's jaw. But I hail from the underclass.
Eye-to-eye …
… Bryan Appleyard — Blog Archive — Simon Schama: The Intellectual IED. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“My whole life has been devoted to the notion that portraits presuppose a sort of engagement. They are the least self-contained form of art. You always have a sitter, and you’ve always got to think of where it’s going to hang. There’s a messy engagement between what hangs on the gallery wall and the rest of the world buzzing around it that has always interested me.”
Backstory …
… Man Booker 2015 shortlist: the stories behind the novels | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, maybe …
…Here’s why good editors are future-proof | TeleRead. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As a guy who used to edit books, I hope the future of editors is rosy.
As a guy who used to edit books, I hope the future of editors is rosy.
Something to think on …
I don't believe for one moment you can write well what you wouldn't read for pleasure.
— Nora Roberts, born on this date in 1950
Finding the truth...
...What It’s Like to Grow Up as a Closeted Gay Extremist Muslim
I began to listen to the doubts and internal nagging voice around 21. Looking into evolution, intellectual, and philosophical arguments against theism, and studying Enlightenment thinkers really opened up this whole door of reason. The mind-forged manacles of blind and dogmatic faith began to loosen. I swiftly abandoned the whole project of revolutionary Islam after the glaring fallacies and absurdities were illuminated by the warm glow of rationality and empiricism.
Friday, October 09, 2015
Wild and crazy guy …
… Pound: poet and political prisoner | spiked review of books. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Sinking to a level few else have …
… Instapundit — WATCH: NYU PROF: FIGHT ‘CLIMATE CHANGE’ WITH HORMONE TREATMENTS ON SMALL CHILDREN — ‘CLOSES T…
These people would be worrisome under the best of circumstances. Given power, they become downright frightening.
These people would be worrisome under the best of circumstances. Given power, they become downright frightening.
God bless her …
… New Cornell president 'would never' require trigger warnings | POLITICO.
“A university is about the fullest and freest expression of ideas and arguments,” she said. “There isn’t any idea that ought not to be tested and questioned. Because that’s how we get closer to the truth.”No lie there.
What do you think?
… Are these the 10 best Shakespeare screen adaptations? | Stage | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Well, I haven't seen the film of Peter Brook's production of Lear, but I did see the stage version and that would certainly be my choice. Polanski's Macbeth was awful. I think Charlton Heston was a better Mark Antony in the 1970 film of Julius Caesar than Brando was in the 1953 version. But the latter is by far the better picture. But you can judge for yourself:
Faith and its byways …
… CatholicHerald.co.uk — Roger Scruton: ‘My tribal religion’. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“Interestingly enough, in my experience, Catholic institutions are the only open-minded ones in terms of higher education. They are the only institutions that would openly offer cover and support to somebody as conservative as me, and without being dogmatic about it or agreeing with me or anything like that. Having some position in Oxford would have been impossible for me without Blackfriars.”
I'm not sure this is so true anymore, at least in this country. The Church, at present, may be so hellbent on attracting those outside the fold that it is willing to give up those who have remained faithful to it.
Conversation …
… James Wood And John Freeman On The State Of Literary Journals | Radio Boston. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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