"Poorer children start falling behind the richer children in their age cohort long before they toddle off to their first day of school or sit down for their first standardized test. Before formal instruction begins, children learn from their parents. Poorer children fall into a 'word gap'—they hear and say fewer things per day than… Read More
On Prayer, Post-Conversion
"When I started adapting my life to make room for God, I took to scheduling in religion the way that I’d schedule a dinner with a friend, or a movie night. I made sure to leave discrete blocks of time to do religion, whether it was going to Daily Mass at the church down the… Read More
The Art of Argument
"Arguendo tells the story of Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc., a Supreme Court case brought by an ensemble of exotic dancers who claimed that a restriction on public nudity was a violation of their First Amendment rights to artistic expression. Just as it did in Gatz, a six-hour staging of The Great Gatsby, the Elevator… Read More
You Don’t Get Apologia Like You Used To
"The best dialogue in Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away is the titular first one, which, like Plato’s own writings is being related after the fact, for the benefit of a new audience. Cheryl, Plato’s media escort for his speaking engagement at Google, is explaining her challenging afternoon to a friend over drinks.… Read More
Time to Come Clean On Torture
"It’s no coincidence that Obama uses 'folks' to refer both to the people tortured and the people doing the torturing. Both uses are distancing and anonymous. There’s no mention of the individuals who were made to undergo simulated drowning (some over a hundred times) or the specific people who signed off on these procedures. People… Read More
Against Fairness
"Stephen T. Asma’s book is titled Against Fairness, but it doesn’t take too long for the reader to discover what he is for. Asma thinks we’ve neglected nepotism, favoritism, and particularity in our relationships and our moral reasoning. Our natural impulse to play favorites is, in his opinion, actively suppressed: children have to bring in… Read More
Why Priests?
"[In Why Priests? A Failed Tradition, Garry] Wills sees the pomp and circumstance of church as drawing our attention away from the God who became Man and directing it towards just one particular man, swathed in robes and standing front stage center. But when an actor puts on costuming and grease- paint, she does it to become… Read More
Philip Pullman’s Grimm Fairy Tales
"Why does God feel so far from the magical world? Fairy tales are, after all, not anarchic; there is a strong moral component to many stories (the virtuous third son succeeds where his vice-ridden brothers have failed; secret sins are revealed grotesquely). In addition to law, there is some kind of law keeper, since justice… Read More
“Didn’t you ever break on the floor?”
This post is a follow-up to a reflection on how going to rationality camp made me really grateful for my college debate experience. “Break on the floor” is, I’m pretty sure, part of the Yale Political Union vernacular, so a definition is probably in order. Our debates operated by Robert’s Rules of order, but our parliamentary debate style bears… Read More
The gift my weirdo debate friends gave me
Tonight is the summer alumni debate of my philosophical debating group, and I’ve had an awkward time every time someone has asked me what we’re planning to debate. You see, our topic for the night is “R: Heighten the Contradictions,” which tends to throw people for a loop if they were expecting “R: Elect Obama” “R:… Read More