http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:42:10 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en One of the fallouts of the global financial crisis, especially in the wake of the Lehman collapse in September 2008, has been a questioning of the value of much economics, whether as delivered by the mathematical adepts of sophisticated financial modeling in the business world, or by academia. Both kinds ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/1031 While in China this week, President Obama said, “freedom of expression and worship…should be available to all people...” Yet one might question his administration’s seriousness about freedom of worship when one considers its track record so far on religious freedom. Ten months have passed since the inauguration of President Obama for ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/1017 In his recent book The Creation and Destruction of Value, Princeton University’s Harold James observes that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in more than the devastation of economic value. It also facilitated a collapse of values in the sense of people’s faith in particular ideas, institutions, and practices. Among these, ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/1013 In a strange twist on St. Bonaventure’s classic thirteenth century text, The Reduction of the Arts to Theology, we might call recent trends in the humanities The Reduction of the Arts to Biology. Darwinian aesthetics or neurologically driven art history seem at first interdisciplinary, but on closer examination these trends ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/1006 A recent profile in the New York Times of the marriage between President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle had a great deal to say about how the Obamas have balanced their desire for public influence and personal privacy. The article had nothing to say about one of the most ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/1001 Today, Ohio will consider whether to adopt an amendment to its constitution in order to legalize casino gambling in the state's four largest cities. Most of the state's politicians from both parties support the measure. Ohio and its cities are in bad fiscal straits, and the prospect of the tax ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/11/999 South African runner Caster Semenya continues to make headlines after a series of stunning victories. Her success has sparked controversy from those who questioned whether this successful female runner might not actually be a man. Tests found Semenya to have elevated testosterone levels and she is suspected by some of ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/995 Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was keenly knowledgeable about health-care issues in the United States, closely associated with policy on the topic, and a major public figure. Given his stature and wealth, he could have gone to any country in the world for his health care, yet he chose to ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/990 Conservatives sometimes seem more like they are part of a family than a movement. They look up to the same political father figure—Ronald Reagan—but share little else other than a desire to fight over his inheritance. Last week, Princeton University invited four guests to its campus—Ross Douthat, Daniel Larison, Virginia ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/976 Critics of popular music have pointed to its often violent, misogynistic, or sexually explicit lyrics in explaining why we should worry about what plays on our iPods. Defenders of pop music have countered this charge by pointing out that many listeners pay little or no attention to the lyrics, and ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/965 A few weeks ago, rapper Kanye West made headlines by crashing Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony. Swift had won the prize for best female video, but West, believing that Beyoncé should have won, took the stage and interrupted Swift to make his opinion known. ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/951 As the first anniversary of Public Discourse approaches, it is worth asking what the idea of “public discourse” is all about. The need for this is particularly acute at a time when many commentators, on both the left and the right, are concerned with the issue of civility in public ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/945 The central argument in favor of legally recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages is a straightforward equality claim: because there is no relevant difference between the aptness (suitability, capacity) of same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples for marriage, restrictive marriage laws arbitrarily deny important recognition and benefits to same-sex couples who wish ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/938 “What do we care about Ethiopia?” This exclamation, reports Yves Simon in The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought, was a common reaction among Frenchmen during Italy’s 1935 invasion of Ethiopia. The phrase is also sure to capture the initial feelings of many readers opening up Robert Royal’s new translation ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/10/920 A little over a week ago, seven former Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency sent a letter to the President of the United States urging him to reverse Attorney General Eric Holder's decision last month to appoint a special counsel to investigate the conduct of CIA interrogators during the Bush ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/913 Many contributors to Public Discourse, including myself, come from the field of philosophy. This shapes what and how we write, both for Public Discourse and in our other work. Yet our work overlaps in important ways with work in other disciplines. In particular, those of us who write about the ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/906 What do religious narratives have to do with the adaptation of immigrants from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? Is it only in the United States—a remarkably more religious country than Canada or France, where many Haitians have also settled—that Haitian immigrants center their lives on religious communities ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/898 In his thoughtful response to my Public Discourse essay on free trade, Stefan McDaniel raises a number of important questions about the extent to which a commitment to free trade can be reconciled with the fact that human flourishing is not limited to material development and cannot be understood in ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/887 In his fine Public Discourse essay “Free Trade as Prosperity, Free Trade as Human Right,” Samuel Gregg argues that relatively free trade among nations has at least two advantages. First, it tends to make all nations wealthier over time. This is because, as is generally acknowledged, larger markets encourage greater ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/876 Today marks the eighth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and as such is an occasion to remember the victims of these horrific attacks and their surviving family members. Today also marks the eighth anniversary of the catapulting of Islam into America’s public discussions. Such discussions show a ... http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2009/09/870