All Essays

Essays and commentary on the ideas shaping our world.

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Culture

Maybe I'll Read That: I Get It, But I Can't Explain It

Installment the third being a review of … being itself a review of …

Selective ReaderMay 25, 20263 min read

Maybe I'll Read That: I Get It, But I Can't Explain It

Culture

Interpretants

In the week or two before the man killed himself, I’d started training my attention while running on biosemiosis, by which I mean — please bear with me — I’d been trying to open my attention up to the exchange of symbols and signs among the living organisms and systems surrounding me. One of the reasons I’d started doing this was that my mind kept returning to things that I didn’t want it to keep returning to.

Brian LeliMay 16, 202615 min read

Culture

The Sober Bar That Won't Say Kratom

A Colorado kava chain markets itself as a healing space for people in recovery. Its menus never use the word "kratom." Its supply chain runs through a subsidiary with no public presence. The owner says that's all perfectly legal — and he may have a point. But a test may already have found kratom in his product, and he knows it.

James HartreeMay 8, 202615 min read

Culture

Am I a Sophist?

The teacher is an image of the whole of education, and in their presentation are communicated the aims and approaches of a life of learning. Standing before the classroom of students, the teacher has the option of showing themselves as a knower or a non-knower.

Aaron ShelsbyApril 25, 20267 min read

Culture

Annals of Obsenity: Art, The Person

In February 1921, John Quinn defended The Little Review in court against obscenity charges. As part of his defense, Quinn presented three experts in literature to explain the merits of Ulysses to the drowsy judges. But was it the compliment Philip Moeller of the Theatre Guild made it out to be when he, in his courtroom attestation to its merits, used Freud to explain Ulysses? Freud, after all, is useful notably for making sense of the incomprehensible ravings of madmen. And Moeller, like Freud, made himself sound like one, too, in the process of explaining; so much so that one of the white-haired judges requested that he “speak in a language that the court could understand.”

Jack SchaafApril 21, 202613 min read

Culture

Maybe I'll Read That: Book Passes ... Review Scores!

Installment the second being a review of Ian Buruma’s “Red Card” being itself a review of a book about soccer nationalism

Selective ReaderApril 18, 20262 min read

Maybe I'll Read That: Book Passes ... Review Scores!

Culture

Maybe I’ll Read That: Art in the Time of Ignorance

Installment the first being a review of “Art in the Time of Fascism” by Alex Preston being itself a review of “Watching Over Her” by Jean Baptiste Andrea.

Selective ReaderApril 18, 20262 min read

Maybe I’ll Read That: Art in the Time of Ignorance

Culture

Books Are Dead, And We Have Killed Them

AI summarization is something that the world of education, and particularly classical education, must reckon with if it is to show forth its value for young people growing up in the Intelligence Age. What is the value of the book if the ideas can be obtained separately from it? What is the value of the

Avery LinApril 18, 20268 min read