So we asked a bunch of kids what they thought of the TIME magazine cover, and, um, it’s incredible.
politics, philosophy, religion and other rantings
8 Notes
How to Learn French in a Thousand Hard Steps
I know several people who are planning to try their hand at learning French this summer, and since I’m planning to try to advance my own level and get my wife started, I’ve been thinking about the myriad ways I’ve been teaching myself over the past few years. When you first set out to learn a language, the options are so numerous and the advice so contradictory that it can be paralyzing. Since I have managed to achieve basic fluency without being in a Francophone environment for longer than a week or so at a time, and in the process have tried almost everything on the market (with the notable exception of Rosetta Stone), I thought I would go through everything I’ve tried and discarded in hope that some of it might be of help to those of you getting ready to take the plunge.
First, the more big-picture advice:
4 Notes
Scores of critics on the site complained that I had not read the dissertations in full before daring to write about them—an absurd standard for a 500-word blog post. A number of the dissertations aren’t even available.
Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules - WSJ.com. Naomi is making a very strange argument here: that the fewer words one writes, the less one has to read or to know to justify one’s words. But that’s obviously not true. If that kind of proportionality were in effect, I wouldn’t have to know a single thing about you to be justified in saying “You’re a worthless human being.” See? Just five words! How much can I be expected to know in order to justify five little words?
If you go back to Naomi’s original blog post, you’ll first note its title: “The Most Persuasive Case for Eliminating Black Studies? Just Read the Dissertations.” She then continues, “If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students has made it. What a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they’re so irrelevant no one will ever look at them.”
So her position is clear: just from reading very brief descriptions of dissertations, written not by their authors but by a journalist, you can tell that the dissertations are “irrelevant” “left-wing victimization claptrap” that make “a case for eliminating the discipline” of Black Studies. The most universal and absolute condemnation of an entire field possible, based only on fifty words of description of each dissertation by a journalist. This is the claim the legitimacy of which Naomi is steadfastly defending.
To cap off her argument, Naomi further insists that since “a number of the dissertations aren’t even available,” she can’t be faulted for not having read them. We’re getting into some highly peculiar territory here. Indeed, I haven’t read the material I’m condemning, but since I couldn’t possibly have read the material I am condemning, my condemnation of it is thoroughly justified.
I don’t see how this position is defensible on any grounds whatsoever. You could point out that the Chronicle is unlikely to be as vigorous in disciplining left-wong bloggers who say ignorant things about conservatives, and that would be right. But the conclusion to be drawn from this observation should not be “Let a thousand lilies fester”; rather, it should be, “Let’s try to learn from this situation what standards of civility and journalistic responsibility we want to uphold here, and enforce them consistently.” I don’t think the Chronicle will do that — I’m pretty sure that other writers for the Brainstorm blog will continue to say bigoted and uninformed things about conservatives and Christians — but that’s what ought to happen. We should certainly not agree that everyone can be uninformed and bigoted about everyone else.
I would say to Naomi, and to her defenders, that I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to allow your political adversaries to establish your own behavioral parameters. “If they say unfounded things about us we can say unfounded things about them” is not good ethics. It’s much better to have high standards for yourself and then challenge your adversaries to hold the same standards. To those who reply that that won’t work, I would say (a) that depends on what you mean by “work” and (b) anyway, it’s just the right thing to do.
One more thing: people keep talking about Naomi being “fired,” but I would be surprised if she had been paid to write for the Brainstorm blog. Certainly that wasn’t her job; it was a gig at most. If she wasn’t paid, then I think that the Chronicle people could disinvite her from participating at any time, and for any or no reason. If they were paying her, though, the ethical standards for dismissal ought to be higher.
UPDATE: Sonny Bunch points out that in the very piece I’m quoting Naomi mentions that she was a paid contributor. That’s what I get for reading another journalist’s summary of her op-ed instead of the op-ed itself. HAR.
(via ayjay)
1 Notes
Stop Freaking Out About a French Revolution
Love this illustration from the Financial Times:
“Yet the choice for France in this weekend’s presidential run-off is a more familiar one, in which the rhetoric of the campaign belies the narrowness of the policy choice.
The Socialist party leader François Hollande is a small “c” conservative who wants to reclaim Europe’s postwar social market model. Nicolas Sarkozy’s pitch for a second term is also imbued with nostalgia. Mr Sarkozy promises to restore France to the greatness it knew in the days of De Gaulle. The striking impression left by this week’s televised debate between the two candidates was one of deep personal animus rather than of great policy chasms.”
Billy Graham’s Political Turn
I have new piece on The Daily Beast that puts Graham’s opposition to gay marriage in North Carolina in the broader evangelical political context:
What appears to be a departure for Graham actually illustrates an ongoing dilemma for evangelical Christians: the fact that they’ve realized they need to change their tone while remaining determined to hold on to the old message. There have been signs of progress: young evangelicals tend to despise the legacy of the past few decades, and have begun spreading out across the political spectrum. Pseudoscientific views about the earth’s origins, climate change, and homosexuality—all of which have played outsize roles in evangelical political activism—are gradually losing their grip. But all of these developments were driven less by intellectual growth than by bad luck: the Bush administration deeply discredited the alliance between evangelicals and the GOP, and the rapid mainstream acceptance of homosexuality meant conservative Christians were increasingly seen as cruel and bigoted. To the extent conservative evangelical leaders have backed away from issues like gay marriage, it’s had more to do with desperation at this situation than enlightenment on the issue.
The rest here.
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