TRIBAL NATIONALISM
Hannah Arendt:
Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by a “world of enemies,” “one against all,” that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others.
WRITING ABSTRACTS THE EMBODIED CONCRETE
Claire Messud:
We were embodied, animals still and always; our words emanated, became separate from us – wasn’t this precisely the magic of writing, to send a construct of words into the world, to share the abstract as if it were, as if it had been made, real, had become a concrete experience, the way a composer and orchestra created music or an architect and builders a tower?
UNDERSTANDING, FRAMEWORKS, AND INTERPRETATION
Seyla Benhabib:
Understanding always means understanding within a framework that makes sense for us, from where we stand today.
RESPONDING TO AN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
I’m reluctant to say much about yesterday’s attempt to kill Donald Trump. There’s too much that I don’t know, especially about the motivations of the shooter.
Read moreRESPONDING TO PROJECT 2025
It’s really encouraging to see the heightened media coverage of Project 2025. Surely (he thinks!) as people learn more about it, fewer and fewer people will elect a candidate for president aligned with those who developed it.
Read moreHOW MANY WORDS DOES IT TAKE?
Lydia Davis:
I read recently that in English, a mere 43 words account for half of all words in common use, and that just nine (and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you ) account for a quarter in almost any sample of written English (my source is a very entertaining exploration of the English language, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, by Bill Bryson).