Read Paul Kingsnorth’s eulogy for Berry: “In the end … Berry will be proven right.”
See also my 2021 essay on Berry for The Point titled “When Losing is Likely."
Read Paul Kingsnorth’s eulogy for Berry: “In the end … Berry will be proven right.”
See also my 2021 essay on Berry for The Point titled “When Losing is Likely."
I’m heartbroken about losing Wendell Berry, though he died full of years, at a good old age, at the end of a live well lived. I hope to write about his impact on my life later this week. Until now: may he rest in peace and rise in glory!
Matt thinks that, given the nature of forgiveness, the act of forgiving is (a) dependent or contingent upon the repentance of the offender and (b) impossible to do for those who have wronged us if they died unrepentant. I lack the time to respond in full now, but I disagree!
Luke Burgis’s conversation with Tyler Cowen was a pleasure to listen to; it made me like Burgis more than I did already.
Tyler, convert already!
I’m sure you don’t need me to recommend that bombshell essay by Tyler Austin Harper, but do also read his interview with Len Gutkin and Evan Goldstein at the Chronicle.
Dale Coulter’s “Protestant Mind” newsletter has quickly become indispensable reading. Check out his latest on the state of Christian Zionism.
Re: JD Vance’s new book, the three reviews to read are by Kevin D. Williamson (the ugly), Matthew Walther (the mean), and Julia Yost (the meta, and incidentally the just).
On the tragic case of Jason Arday, the two best things to read are by Jesse Singal and Graeme Wood.
Another catch-up read: The one-two New Statesman punch of Emily Lawford and Pippa Bailey on “the angry young women” of progressive Gen Z college grads.
I really enjoyed C. W. Howell’s exploration of God and his absence in the short stories of Ted Chiang.
Brad Littlejohn hits a home run in his essay for Commonplace called “Tech Policy’s Libertarian Hangover," with a helpful follow-up on his Substack.
This is an outstanding, judicious, dispassionately written review by Patrick Iber of Dave Zirin’s new biography of Howard Zinn.
This was a disappointing, deflating, and confusing read. I would have appreciated a good-faith engagement, or even takedown, by comparison to the finished piece.
Only Adam Roberts would launch an investigation into Dorothy Sayers' height. Loved seeing this in my inbox.
Freddie on the fantastical prophecies of the AI true believers:
So this is what I would say to Read and others who are trying to skate the line of being AI skeptic skeptics without being full-on deranged maximalists: you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives in a world that would be almost totally recognizable to people living in the year 2000, a world that functions more or less the same way our world has functioned for the duration of our entire lives, with an economy that is not structurally much different from the same one we’ve always known. There will be jobs, and there will be cancer, and any missions to Mars will be fundamentally scientific endeavors that do not promise any economic return at all. No human being alive today will make it to 150 years old, not even the youngest infants; any asteroid mining that occurs will be a gimmick and will be a net money loser by a vast margin. Nothing in the world of medicine will happen that will come close to matching the improvements in health and longevity that were achieved in the 20th century, when the boring mundane advances of routine handwashing, antibiotics, and vaccines saved lives by the tens of millions. More and more often, you’ll get around in self-driving cars. And that will be cool. Traffic fatalities will decline. But we won’t live to see a world where human-driven cars are banned—you can’t technology your way out of a political problem, and if you think getting Americans to give up their guns is hard, just wait until you see how they cling to their cars. And, you know. Cars are just cars.
Peter Leithart on Samuel Moyn:
Precisely as my own personal time horizon shrank, my familial time horizon expanded because my wife and I lived to see our children’s children. Grandchildren perform a miraculous resurrection that many in my generation experience only on a small scale, or not at all. If Moyn really wants to smash the gerontocracy, he should go natalist.
First line of the Odyssey: ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
First verse of Hebrews: Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις
Somehow it took me two decades to learn that the (in)famous word Homer uses to summarize Odysseus’s winding/many-layered/multiplicitous character is the same word that Hebrews uses to describe God’s many and various ways of speaking to Israel before sending his Son in the person of Jesus.
How did I miss this?
I finally read Antón Barba-Kay’s wonderful essay for Commonweal, published back in January, called “Havens for the Human.” I’m glad I saved it and made time for it. The analysis and prescriptive vision for the future of the university are both lovely.
Plus, we get the line “big brother, big tech, big LOL.” That one got me.
“Ryan Gosling And WB Eye Live-Acton ‘Flintstones’ Pic About Bamm-Bamm”: a real headline at Deadline.
Len Gutkin, “Reading for Sins,” in Liberties:
In fact, the deep logic of any given taboo expresses important, and in some cases perfectly rational, societal commitments. The prerational aspect of any taboo isn’t necessarily the social argument it reflects, but the disabling emotions that its violation elicits.
And “snowflake hermeneutics” is a great tag, too. There is probably a degree of overlap with a certain kind of ideologically inflected hermeneutics in biblical and theological studies. Bears further thought.
Another excellent piece by Dale Coulter, this time on the state of American Protestant seminaries. I have more thoughts than I can share now, but I hope to write them up at a later time.
Read Kit Wilson in Portico on Leszek Kołakowski. As Wilson observes, it is hard to grasp why Kołakowski’s name and influence have waned in the years following his death. A revival is in order.
I learned a lot reading Dale Coulter’s eulogy for postliberal theology. I had no idea about some of the sociopolitical antecedents in the 1970s.
Dan Hitchens bids farewell to Douthat, as does Bill McCormick, SJ, while Massimo Faggioli once more elevates lack of charity into a kind of performance art.