John Gray very warmly reviews Francis O’Gorman’s Forgetfulness: Making the Modern Culture of Amnesia. Trying to control culture from a rationalistic perspective is bound to frustrate: the upshot is that cultural marxists have to double down, manifest as even more authoritarian. Their whole project is akin to “pissing in the wind” but we pay a grim price…
Photographer Sanne de Wilde’s The Island of the Colorblind investigates a Pacific atoll where an unusually high percentage of the population has total color blindness. This phenomenon will of course be familiar to those who have read Oliver Sacks’ book and have seen the accompanying documentary. Cognitive scienceColorOliver SacksphotographyqualiaSanne de Wilde
THE LOSS OF THE CREATURE It may be recovered by a dialectical movement which brings one back to the beaten track but at a level above it. For example, after a lifetime of avoiding the beaten track and guided tours, a man may deliberately seek out the most beaten track of all, the most commonplace…
The very excellent Justin Shubow. I didn’t realize just how intellectually and morally bankrupt, soul-destroying and downright perverse some architects are. The talk gets quite grim towards the end (around 24.30) when the philosophical underpinnings are brought in. aestheticsarchitectureJustin Shubowpost modernismregressive left
Would someone who owns a copy of this book please invite me to their house to see it: I will bring along the finest archival white gloves. And we can’t do it without Bowie’s favourite wine (Mr. Sukita can tell you which one it is). There is a very slight interview with Masayoshi that is being endlessly recycled…
I had the good fortune to meet at a conference the very excellent Frances White who is featured in this documentary. Frances is so much more interesting and empirically sound than the cultural anthropologists who typically operate under a highly derivative and lazy Marxist lens. anthropologybonobosEmpathyevolutionary biologyfrances whiteSociality
This recent title caught my attention given my longstanding interest in Philo. The index heavily features David Runia, which prima facie, is a good indicator. Christianitydavid runiaDidymus the BlindhellenismJudaismJustin Rogerslogosphilo of alexandriaReligion
THE DELTA FACTOR How I Discovered the Delta Factor Sitting at My Desk One Summer Day in Louisiana in the 1950’s Thinking about an Event in the Life of Helen Keller on Another Summer Day in Alabama in 1887 In the beginning was Alpha and the end is Omega, but somewhere between occurred Delta, which…
Scruton, Grayling, Janaway, Tanner and Deathridge each present a short episode on the philosophical influences on Wagner. anthony graylingchris janawayClassical musicGerman Idealismmichael tanneroperaRichard WagnerRoger Scrutonromanticism
Stephen Hicks reviews Nick and Gordon’s latest: an incentive for me to begin reading it given that all three are some of the best conference discussants I’ve come across. The Lockeans ask, “How can we raise everyone up?” while the Rousseaueans ask, “If we can’t raise all of the poor up, how can we lower…
manwithoutqualities 