“People are scum.” “Mankind is a moral wasteland.” “I’m ashamed to be human.” Whenever cynics express themselves, I’m tempted to retort that philosophy is autobiography and they should put their claims in the first-person: “I am scum.” “I am a moral wasteland.” “I’m ashamed to be me.” A colleague once took me up on that […]
Why Humans are Born Fit for Freedom [Good Life series] Read More »
Next week I’ll be in Argentina to give four invited talks. August 18: Buenos Aires, conference on my recently-translated book Explicando el Posmodernismo, la crisis del socialismo, with comments by Guillermo Yeatts and Eduardo Marty. My talk title: “Populists and Postmoderns: How Philosophy Empowers Bad Politics.” August 18. Leading a roundtable discussion on “Why the
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A striking pairing of quotations from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes by Lynn Garafola (Oxford University Press, 1989). First, on the innovativeness: “In the History of twentieth-century ballet, no company has had so profound and far-reaching an influence as the Ballets Russes. It existed for only twenty years—from 1909 to 1929—but in those two decades it transformed
Innovation in ballet — and market entrepreneurism Read More »
Over the next two weeks, I’m giving five talks in Santiago and one in Puerto Montt, Chile August 16, Faculty of Economics, University of Chile. “Ethics for Entrepreneurial Business Leaders.” (Drawing on my article “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship.”) August 17: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez: “Why Entrepreneurial Engineers Have Been This Generation’s Unacknowledged Ethical Leaders.” August 17:
Lecture tour in Chile, August 2016 Read More »
In this article, Newberry discusses Kant’s theory of the sublime and contrasts it to Aristotle’s and Rand’s aesthetic theories, along the way using modernists and postmodernists such as Duchamp, Manzoni, Hatoum, and Creed as examples, and then giving an extended review of Start Mark Feldman’s The Future in Our Hands sculpture group. Pandora’s Box: The
Michael Newberry on the sublime in art Read More »
[This is a Portuguese translation of Part 4 of the Theist vs. Atheist debate series, originally published in English at EveryJoe.com.] A religião é imprescindível para a moralidade pessoal? Por John C. Wright Tradução de Matheus Pacini Revisão de Mateus Bernardino Até o momento neste debate, temos o seguinte: o Sr. Hicks e eu concordamos
An ancient myth tells of a poor young man who found a magical ring. The young man’s name was Gyges. He was a shepherd, responsible for tending his village’s sheep as they grazed in the summer meadows away in the hills. His job was lonely, poorly paid, and most of the time he smelled like
Are We Too Wicked for Freedom? [Good Life series] Read More »
[This is a Portuguese translation of “Third-Way Politics and Its Bitter Fruits”, originally published in English at EveryJoe.] Em 1998, o então presidente Bill Clinton anunciou: “nós superamos o debate estéril entre os que dizem que o governo é o problema e os que dizem que o governo é a solução. Meus concidadãos americanos, nós
A terceira via falhou [Portuguese translation] Read More »