Cultural Confusion

One hears recently that we suffer from "cultural exhaustion," which is alleged to be one reason why the West is on the decline. I think another problem is "cultural confusion."

The Mysterious Mystery of the Tea Party

There are some awfully strange theories out there attempting to explain the deep mystery of the recent Tea Party movement. But I don't think it's really all that mysterious.

Selves and Rants

Two items today:

1. People speak with different voices that represent their various selves. Because it communicates no context, however, the information the internet conveys is flat. That can give us the impression that everything anyone says in any context is equally representative of his entire character. But that is a false impression. Thus I think we should be very hesitant before we condemn anyone's character on the basis of a single utterance or sentence, or even a handfull of utterances.

2. A series of "rants" on impatient drivers, bicyclists, medical students talking out of school, sexual exhibitionism, and the importance of reserving our moral outrage for things that are truly morally outrageous.

Singer to World: Drop Dead

Peter Singer argues that we should consider sterilizing ourselves so that we are the last generation of humans on earth. No, he's not kidding.

Authority and Opinion

If Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, has actions he is willing and able to take to address the Gulf oil spill, and the only thing stopping him is that he doesn't have President Obama's permission, then, why, he should by all means sally forth.

Rand and Marx

The recent publication of two biographies of Ayn Rand has rekindled interest in her, and it has also rekindled interest in a by-now standard roster of criticisms of her and her work. As this article rehearses, Rand's work is superficial at best and fraudulent at worst, and it therefore appeals only to immature minds and to some of our basest instincts--which explains why her work is largely not taken seriously in the academy, for example.

By contrast, Karl Marx's work is taken quite seriously. Yet do, or perhaps should, some of the same criticisms leveled at Rand apply also to Marx's work?