Interesting reads from last week:
“5 Guidelines for Living in a Pluralist Society,” John D. Inazu
“[All of our] common ground tells us surprisingly little about who we are as a people, what our goals should be, or what counts as progress.”
“Realism Is a Figure of Speech,” Joe Fassler
Vikram Chandra: “Realism is not something that is transparent. It’s not just the glass through which we see. It is also a figure of speech.”
“What if Black America Were a Country?” Theodore R. Johnson
“Essentially, what we're witnessing is a nation that is comparable in certain ways to a regional power existing in the state of Disparistan (or, perhaps, Despairistan).”
“Salon Culture: Network of Ideas,” Andrian Kreye
“For more than a century now the salon as a gathering to exchange ideas has been a footnote of the history of ideas. With the advent of truly mass media this exchange had first been democratized, then in rapid and parallel changes diluted, radicalized, toned down, turned up, upside and down again.”
“Wikipedia, a Professor’s Best Friend,” Darius Jemielniak
“I am a professor who not only recommends that my students use Wikipedia but also encourages them to edit and develop it. However, I am in the clear minority in academia.”
“My Childhood Friend, the ISIS Jihadist,” Jakob Sheikh
“In Amir’s world, the heroes are Sunni extremists fighting for a global Islamic Caliphate. The enemies are the infidels. Weeds to be removed from the face of the earth.”
“S.E. Hinton and the Y.A. Debate,” Jon Michaud
“The author who changed the way that books for teens were written and published has seen her own work go from the spinning wire display rack near checkout to an online marketplace accessible while you wait for your morning latte.”
From our archives:
Mark Edmundson urges us to "Pay Attention!"