Category Archives: Plague Thoughts

Yes, in its own unprecedented way, there is something uniquely horrible about a well-armed state raining down bombs and fire on a densely populated area where two million civilians are ordered to flee this way and that without the protection of their houses that are being blasted to rubble and without dependable sources of water,Continue reading “What can I say about Gaza?”

It’s not easy for post-millennials and digital natives to recapture the dimensionality of pre-internet communications. Where once a single movie commanded the simultaneous attention of hundreds of viewers, now each of us commands, Alladin-like, a hundred thousand genies to be summoned by the stroke of a fingertip. Has this vastly augmented power instilled confidence andContinue reading “Realism and Revolution: Franz Kafka”

I want to record in words one of the strongest and strangest experiences of my life: my month-long ordeal of traveling to Hawaii on short notice to bring home my estranged son. Because of a disagreement about his dietary regimen, he had been shunning me for over a year before he disappeared. My wife andContinue reading “An Island in Time”

Twenty years ago the Iraq War started—the second Iraq War. Fought based on lies. 7,000 Americans died and at least 150,000 Iraqis. Every justification for the war exposed as a lie. Nothing learned from the experience. I recall how I followed the news. I jotted down the frequent sports metaphors. I hear that some peopleContinue reading “Iraq and Afghanistan War Reporting”

Recently, The New York Times ran one of those insipid “Ask the Celebrities” features by asking, “What will later generations find most objectionable about the culture of the early 2020s?” Most of the responses misconstrued the question by pointing to things that have been around for a very long time (“eating dead animals”). But aContinue reading “Selfies and Cancel Culture: The Political Economy of Self-Esteem”

David Brooks recently published an editorial on the death by suicide of his best friend, a highly intelligent man of outstanding accomplishment with a loving family and devoted friends. As in most discussions of depression, the article does not question the medical interpretation of his friends’s condition, though the friend received the best possible medicalContinue reading “Leo Tolstoy and the Forgotten Sources of Depression”

I want to recommend a French author I’ve become addicted to (though I don’t find his person always very sympathetic): Emmanuel Carrère. I mentioned before that he’s been called the French Knausgaard, though admittedly that’s not necessarily a high recommendation in my opinion.  I would be curious what any survivor of a mental crisis orContinue reading “Freedom and Suicide”

I perceive contemporary social relationships as afflicted by an invisible epidemic of hypersensitivity and avoidance. As for me, I am a mild-mannered older man who never intends to give offense. Nevertheless, since the pandemic began I have succeeded in offending two longstanding friends to such a degree that they broke off contact with me andContinue reading “Who Else Has Been Ghosted Lately?”

During my graduate study and career, I disliked the cult status of French critical theory in American English departments. This began after the 1960s and lasted until around the turn of the century. I had come of age at a time when Marx, Hegel, Sartre, and Lukács still set the tone. I was convinced thatContinue reading “What Makes French “Critical Theory” so Distinct?”