Possibility junkies
Voracious omnitasking, argues English professor Mark Edmundson, makes the lives of his students both highly promising and radically vulnerable to living lives that leave no room for reflection and self-knowledge.
A culture of one
Andrew Keen argues that the survival of the very best forms of cultural expression, in journalism, music, fiction, and other disciplines, requires a network of mediation and accreditation.
People, people who poke people . . .
Christine Rosen on how social media encourages the unsociable traits of narcissism and exhibitionism.
Slower, longer, smarter
A veteran journalist laments “the sea change in the culture of literacy” and the decline of good book criticism
Stronger than death
Alan Jacobs and Mark Shea defend the portrayal of magic in the Harry Potter books.
Camille Paglia: Only religion can save the arts
Camille Paglia: “For the fine arts to revive, they must recover their spiritual center.”
A deeply religious civil religion
David Gelernter presents a helpful reminder of the religious, indeed, biblical (if heretical) sources of America’s beliefs about itself
A forgotten prophet
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy: “Moderns are puzzled by the perfectly unsystematic, irrational, antilogical institution, the poorest organization on earth but yet fully alive — the family.”
Better things for better living
Richard DeGrandpre: “When a thousand points of light shine upon you in a commercial war for your thoughts, feelings, and wants, your mind adapts, accepts, and then, to feel stimulated, needs more.”
After irony
Richard Rorty’s tangled spiritual pilgrimage has origins in being the grandson of social gospel theologian Walter Rauschenbusch and the son of committed Leninists.