Rape is among the most horrific of crimes. Sex should be a fun and beautiful thing — but rape takes that most personal of experiences and turns it into a degradation. There is moderately good news about the number of rapes in the USA. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rape rate has […]
Campus sex and the anti-sexiness of the new authoritarians [Good Life series] Read More »
Here is a common scenario: A successful person makes a donation to a worthy cause but downplays any praise by saying “I’m only giving back.” Like many others, I am troubled by the “giving back” phrase when I hear it. The usual gentle rejoinder is to point out that the phrase assumes that the giver
Kant and “giving back” Read More »
[Originally published at EveryJoe.com.] Let me brag a bit. In high school I was a pretty good at tennis. Now, many years later, I am an occasional weekend player who has somehow acquired the stamina (and the knees) of a middle-aged man. But I still have this recurring fantasy that I will play against the
Is Life Unfair? My Challenge to the Best Tennis Player in the World [The Good Life] Read More »
A fascinating brief item from the Library of Social Science‘s site. All German soldiers swore an oath to Adolf Hitler, vowing, “I shall at all times be prepared to give my life.” Similarly, those in the Schutzstaffel, or SS, vowed “absolute allegiance unto death.” Hitler drew the following conclusion, as he and the National Socialist
The ethics of sacrifice, National Socialist version Read More »
Some quotations and brief glosses on Augustine’s views on the use of persecution and torture in order to save souls. “No salvation outside the church.” (418 CE) “[M]any must first be recalled to their Lord by the stripes of temporal scourging, like evil slaves, and in some degree like good-for-nothing fugitives.” Augustine had defended toleration
St. Augustine on “Righteous Persecution” Read More »
Tomorrow morning I’ll be on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “The Current” radio program, which according to its website is “Canada’s Most Listened-to Radio Program.” Our topic is whether power corrupts. The journalistic context is the recent FIFA scandal, scandals in the Canadian Senate, and the ongoing scandals in politics, business, and so on around the
CBC discussion of corruption and power Read More »
The gall of some people. Apparently Malcolm Gladwell has gone after John Paulson for giving $400 million to Harvard University. It takes a special kind of immorality to feel comfortable doing any of the following: (a) bossily telling other people how to spend their own money, (b) telling them how to spend their philanthropic dollars,
On Gladwell’s chastising Paulson Read More »
An amusing line from Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), the great German essayist: “One should forgive one’s enemies, but not before they are hanged.” The line is rhetorically similar to Augustine’s “Give me chastity, oh Lord, but not yet,” from Book 8 of Confessions.
Heine on forgiving one’s enemies, but not too soon Read More »