All previous rounds in this series can be found at the right of the horizontal drop-down menu above. Think of this as a consideration, inviting more consideration, based less on a claim than on a question: what is the proper relationship between the one and the many? “Proper” here might refer to ethics, logic, practicability. […]
Stupidity
It’s everywhere. You look to your right: it’s stupid. You look to your left: it’s stupid. Open a newspaper (really – does anyone “open” a newspaper anymore?): stupid. Turn on the television: stupider. Michael Steele, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin? So stupid. It may not be contagious, but it sure is influential. What’s a non-stupid […]
Looking at the Way We Look at Things II
Confirmation Bias: Even If You Like the Cat When I review with students the fundamentals of academic and intellectual honesty, I take it beyond the obvious perils of plagiarism. I explore with them the massive managerial task of sifting, sorting, and employing the evidence and arguments they have gathered through research, my principal focus in […]
Much Ado About
From Gilgamesh The river rises, flows over its banks and carries us all away, like mayflies floating downstream: they stare at the sun, then all at once there is nothing. to The Sopranos Melfii: Sounds to me like Anthony junior may have stumbled onto existentialism. Tony: Fuckin’ internet! Melfi: No, no, no. It’s a European […]
Now You See It
In the February Harvard Magazine, Craig Lambert’s “From Daguerreotype to Photoshop” offers a primer on on the tension between the image as pictorial artifact and mirror of reality. The issues are many, but here is one brought to mind, Robert Doisneau’s iconic Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville. As Wikipedia explains The identity of the […]