Both Chandler and Steinbeck, in radically different idioms and voices, express a redemptive optimism. They believe in truth, and they are infused with an intuition of an untarnished human goodness that the shabbiness of the world cannot extinguish. The 1930s were a period of intellectual and cultural ferment that have much to tell us about [...]
Land acknowledgement statements lack factual support: What was the historical nature of the “atrocity” mentioned in the statements? By what “violent and coercive means” was the land stolen? Morally charged language requires painstaking factual research and justification. We are all familiar with the ubiquitous land acknowledgement statement that has become a common feature of political [...]
We now live in a world, as I suppose we always have, that needs to relearn what happened in Oklahoma City 29 years ago. We need to know and feel what radical violence looks like, what it means to snuff out human life for no reason... how it crushes the survivors, and disfigures the communities [...]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its preliminary ruling in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel on January 26, 2024. It landed with a thud, the world shrugged its shoulders, and nothing changed. The ruling was provisional, and a final ruling on the merits may be years away. But this is [...]
What’s needed at this juncture in our cultural evolution is a rebirth of healthy modesty about human being and human fate, a realization that we are imperfect and imperfectible, particular and embodied, with all our warts and blemishes, but for that very reason valuable beyond measure. Infinitude is an appealing concept to many, not mathematically, [...]