David Brooks’ recent column on genius , which offered a portrait of the Mozart who excelled by logging his ten thousand hours of rote practice to get on sooner to the good stuff, seemed to gibe poorly with not only our romantic understanding of unique human excellence but our practical . . . . Continue Reading »
Human exceptionalism is not only about human rights, but also human duties, including never using human beings as mere objects and the need to treat animals properly and humanely. The new Gallup Poll about what Americans consider morally acceptable behavior is interesting in both regards, and thus . . . . Continue Reading »
A friend sent me this piece by Alain de Botton celebrating pessimism, describing it as “your kind of article.” Leaving aside what this is meant to imply about me, I do think it warrants some attention. De Botton writes: The modern bourgeois philosophy pins its hopes firmly on two great . . . . Continue Reading »
In honor of the feast of the Ascension, here is Gerald Finzi’s “God Is Gone Up,” sung by the Choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The words are taken from Edward Taylor’s Sacramental Meditations The piece begins around 3:20 into the video. God is gone up with a . . . . Continue Reading »
I am an uninspired gift-giver at the best of times. If I gave you a little purse hand-knitted by my daughter for Christmas last year, odds are that by next Christmas I’ll have forgotten all about it, and you’ll get the same thing again, though perhaps in a different color.Graduations are . . . . Continue Reading »
Diogenes proposes an apt analogy : I see nothing wrong with swatting flies. Let’s say that you have a different opinion. You think the lives of flies are sacred, and therefore you think that swatting flies is grossly immoral. You hold this view with the utmost sincerity. Unfortunately for . . . . Continue Reading »
Well, it is that time of year. And lately we’ve been seeing these buses roll through town: up Main Street, past the carp-juice shop and what used to be the ice-cream store but is now another purveyor of distinctly frilly antiques, around the courthouse square, and off into the blue and distant . . . . Continue Reading »
If you were puzzled by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano ‘s positive article on President Obama’s Notre Dame speech—which appeared right next to another article strongly criticizing his stand on stem-cell research—the paper’s editor, Paulo Rodari, may have . . . . Continue Reading »
At the Wall Street Journal , Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein considers Benedict’s trip to Israel a Success: Pope Benedict XVI does not yet enjoy the goodwill his predecessor generated. Aspects of his past and statements he has made are arguably controversial and have generated criticism—some . . . . Continue Reading »
The Oklahoma Legislature having voted unanimously to outlaw all human cloning—still no word on what the governor will do with the bill—state bureaucrats are now putting $5.5 million into adult stem cell research over the next five years. From the story: The Tobacco Settlement Endowment . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
