Month: July 2011
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‘In the beginning was the relation’: On becoming less strange
We are strangers to each other despite our seeming transparencies, our open confessions, our public language. We use the same words and mean different things. We use different words and mean something else. We stand inside the clatter and the grind and say our public sayings. Some spend our mornings prizing apart concepts. But to…
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The discourse of choice is the burden we carry
We are strangers to each other. Our moral incoherences go stated but unremarked. “Who are you to say?” “That’s just your opinion.” “Well, let’s just agree to disagree.” “Because I said so.” “That’s my choice, not yours.” We have even forgotten the question: What general beliefs confer rational authority upon a set of social practices?…
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Allison Arieff on design ‘beyond the cubicle’
Over cocktails, an old-school literary agent told me that either an editor “gets your work” or she doesn’t. It was the best description of intellectual sympathy, of shared understanding, of common purpose that I’d heard since moving to New York 2 years ago. So when I read Allison Arieff”s “Beyond the Cubicle” yesterday, I saw…
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To become pessimistic or to let a hundred flowers bloom
It’s one of those mornings when I read scores of sour stories about a world headed downhill. In an effort to make playgrounds safer, parents, legislators, and lawyers have made our children more risk-averse and less thick-skinned. Meanwhile, the debt crisis in Greece rages on in the eurozone: no quick fixes, no easy solutions. On…
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‘The choice is to join an institution or die on the vine’
No, Jacoby, it isn’t. Five years ago I would have assumed that Jacoby was right. Three years ago I would have agreed with Jacoby. Two years ago I would have despaired with him. A year ago I floated the question: “Is it possible to live otherwise today?” That little question has made all the difference.…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 