From Around the Web: Worth a Look

George Weigel on Benedict and the revival of the Latin Mass. Art critic Roger Kimball on critical thinking and the Enlightenment. Two good pieces from The Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid? and a consideration of the unintended consequences of good intentions – an American Murder Mystery. Jonathan V. Last previews, negatively, the new Brideshead Revisited film. For fans of the Sopranos, a definitive and I think convincing case that Tony is dead. Stephen Norwood reviews the relationship between Harvard and the Nazis. Bjorn Lomborg calls for coolheadedness in the global warming discussion. John Derbyshire explains why many conservatives don’t like science. Yuval Levin on public opinion and the debate over embryos. Kay Hymowitz explains why some teens intentionally try to get pregnant. A fascinating, and vanishing, Albanian tradition.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Culture, Jonathan, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “From Around the Web: Worth a Look”

  1. blackadderiv says:
    June 25, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    The story about the Albanian virgins reminds me of a story I once heard Cardinal George tell about Wittenstein and Elizabeth Anscombe (talk about statistically improbable sentences!) According to the story, Wittgenstein didn’t think women should be philosophers, and didn’t want women in any of his classes. When Anscombe first started attending his lectures, he was apoplectic. Eventually, though, he decided that he would deal with the problem by acting as if Anscombe was a man. So one day he went into class, looked around, and said something to the effect of “okay, now that all the women have left, we can begin.”

    Strange guy. On the bright side, though, at least he didn’t make Anscombe swear an oath of lifetime virginity (she had seven kids).

  2. jonathanjones02 says:
    June 25, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    Wiggenstein’s Poker has a story similar to that one. He was a strange character.

  3. Morning's Minion says:
    June 25, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    Elizabeth went to to become Wittgenstein’s literary executor.

  4. Christopher says:
    June 25, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    Wiggenstein’s Poker was a fun book.

  5. Kevin says:
    June 25, 2008 at 9:19 pm

    From Kimball;
    “To some extent, we owe the infestation of “critical thinking” to that great twentieth-century movement to empty minds while at the same time inflating the sense of self-importance, or, to give it its usual name, Progressive Education. It was John Dewey, after all, who told us that “education as such has no aims,” warned about “the vice of externally imposed ends,” urged upon his readers the notion that “an individual can only live in the present.” (The present, Dewey said, “is what life is in leaving the past behind it,” i.e., a nunc stans of perfect ignorance.)”

    Just so.