I’m giving two talks in Rhode Island this week at Salve Regina University. Thanks to philosophy professor Khalil Habib for the invitation. One talk, “Nietzsche on Masters and Slaves,” is for SRU students only and will focus on the First Essay of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. Here’s
Nietzsche on Masters and Slaves — SRU talk upcoming Read More »
The poet Thomas de Quincey said: “Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind, and the most to
Thomas de Quincey in Explaining Postmodernism Read More »
I’m giving two talks in Rhode Island this week at Salve Regina University. Thanks to philosophy professor Khalil Habib for the invitation. One talk takes up leading postmodernist claims that “the Enlightenment Project has failed” (Rorty), that we are living amid its “dim ruins” (Gray), and that consequently our civilization’s “deepest strata” are shifting earthquake-like
SRU talk coming up: “Postmodernism and the Verdict of History” Read More »
Why does Fountain matter so much to art history? Honored to be included in this collection of quotations on Duchamp’s significance. For more context and development: “The Most Important Artist of the Century” and “Why Art Became Ugly.”
The significance of Duchamp’s urinal Read More »
[Re-posted from TRI.] A protester was shot at the University of Washington during a clash between rival factions — one faction physically blocking an audience from hearing a speech, the other faction seeking to hear a rabble-rousing orator. The orator was Milo Yiannopoulos, a leading spokesman for the alt-right movement, a revitalized and muscularized version of nationalist
Political protest in a “post-fact era” Read More »
Wisdom from a giant of the nineteenth-century — Frederick Douglass (circa 1818-1895): “Everybody has asked the question … ‘What shall we do with the Negro?’ I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the
Black History Month: Frederick Douglass Read More »
Anticipating the beginning of Black History Month, a favorite quotation: “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” Source: Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (1928).
Zora Neale Hurston on racism Read More »
FEE this month reprints Sarah Skwire’s good piece from 2017: “The Moral and Spiritual Blessings of Trade Among All Nations”: “Free trade doesn’t just make us better off. It makes us better people.” At PanAm Post this month, Maria Marty takes up the underlying collectivist premises of many anti-free-trade arguments: “La excusa colectivista para limitar
On the *moral* benefits of international trade: Skwire, Marty, and Hicks pieces Read More »