Month: October 2011

• October 18, 2011

  10 word bios

  Individual: So what do you do? Me: I’m a philosopher. I put lives in order. — Institution: So what do you do? Me: I’m a philosopher. I bring lives to order. — Him: So where are you from? Me: The Midwest. Him: And why’d you move? Me: I set out to make life work. — Her:…
• October 16, 2011

  On birthdays as last days

  Here’s my short essay on public philosophy, education, and our spiritual predicament at Butterflies and Wheels. — I’m spending my birthday tomorrow fasting and meditating. The following is an excerpt from Pierre Hadot, The Present Alone is Our Happiness; Conversations with Jeannie Carlier and Arnold I. Davidson, translated by Marc Djaballah, Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2009, 162-6. — Jeannie…
• October 15, 2011

  New universities for these unsettled times?

  Unsettled Times We are living through unsettled times. Old ideas of education are no longer working; new ideas have yet to take hold. In the interregnum, we must think seriously in hopes of building new institutions aimed at fulfilling our basic needs and our higher ends. Weekend Events Later today, I’m heading to The Mycelium…
• October 14, 2011

  Friday meditation: On dreams of old friends (a parable)

  Last night I dreamt of an old friend. I had popped my head into a shop despite my reticence about window shopping. It was something I never did. There among the sweaters I saw my old friend. “Jules!,” a young man cried out to another, as if it’d been years since they’d seen each other.…
• October 13, 2011

  DIY Thursday: Carnivalesquing the grocery store

  Bartholomew Fair As epitomized in Ben Jonson’s comedy Bartholomew Fayre (1614), the fair was a week-long carnival of commerce, pleasure-seeking, marvels, and delights. In Jonson’s rendering, the meaningful social order was also overturned for a time, with the high being brought low and the low high. For us, the lesson is that social status, good reputation, and…