Category Archives: culture

Having our way with the past, for it has no honor!

Posted on August 17, 2010 by David Hume

Ross Douthat’s new column, Islam in Two Americas is getting a lot of play. Douthat has to constrain his prose to make it suitable for a print column…I can almost see the excisions of nuance and subtly necessitated by the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, history | Tagged | 16 Comments

If They Didn’t Exist…

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

As I’m not generally a fan of musicals, I cannot say that I knew that much—other than an outline—about the career of Eva Peron. A visit earlier this week to the fascinating, if hagiographical, Eva Peron Museum in Buenos Aires … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Shangri La La

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The invasion (and continued occupation) of Tibet by Communist China was a disgrace, and remains a disgrace, but that’s no reason to romanticize the monk-ridden squalor that preceded Maoist rule. Yet that’s what many in the West did—and still do. … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Grievance and politics

Posted on August 11, 2010 by David Hume

Over at Discover Blogs a comment I thought of interest: Most of the sensitivity/grievance culture of the Right is purely fabricated – we (including me as part of the Right) only do it to point out the hypocrisy within the … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged | 6 Comments

It’s better in Europe, except when it’s not

Posted on July 31, 2010 by David Hume

Liberals in the United States love to laud European ways as a cudgel against American conservative exceptionalism. But they don’t admire all European ways, Ezra Klein on Lindsey Graham’s possible floating of a constitutional amendment to repeal birthright citizenship: How … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged | 17 Comments

Jim Webb and the “dark matter” of American diversity

Posted on July 24, 2010 by David Hume

Jim Webb has returned to his populist roots in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege. Webb is the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. Of Scots-Irish descent himself he is … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged | 8 Comments

Beliefs as descriptions, and beliefs as identities

Posted on July 17, 2010 by David Hume

Stephen Prothero has a piece up, Hinduism’s caste problem, out in the open. Prothero points out that religionists often use logical constructs to play word games which reinforce their in-group. Caste is not a problem with Hinduism per se, but … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

The conservative tendency

Posted on July 13, 2010 by David Hume

A blog which some readers may find of interest, Conservative tendency. The most recent post is a bit of a pedantic muddle: I had a friend who was raised in China in the 1970s (the daughter of a general, in … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | 10 Comments

Atheists may lack essence

Posted on July 12, 2010 by David Hume

Just listened o Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, on a podcast (mp3). He notes that the chain of possession of items impacts how much pleasure we gain out … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Tagged , | 16 Comments

British multiculturalism in action

Posted on July 3, 2010 by David Hume

Family of ‘Harry Potter’ actress charged with threatening to kill her over boyfriend: The strict Muslim father and brother of “Harry Potter” actress Afshan Azad have been charged with threatening to kill her because she has a boyfriend. Azad, 22, … Continue reading →

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