“Beyond Critical Thinking”: me at AmCon

Last updated on: April 28, 2013 at 1:22 pm By Eve Tushnet

in my continuing quest to become entirely a self-parody: Critical thinking has so thoroughly colonized our idea of education that we tend to think it’s the only kind of thinking. Tests try to measure it, and ritzy private schools all claim to teach it. Critical thinking—analysis, not mere acceptance—is a skill we can all learn. And we’ve learned it too well. We’ve learned only critical thinking skills, and not the equally challenging skills of prudent acceptance: We don’t even realize... Read more

“7 Konigsburg Takes”: Leah Libresco

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 11:24 pm By Eve Tushnet

in honor of the late EL Konigsburg. Read more

Ask Your Doctor If Solidarity Is Right for You… or AA, CBT, LOL

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 11:18 pm By Eve Tushnet

I have a lot of small thoughts about this piece at The Fix about the similarities and differences between cognitive behavioral therapy and the 12 Steps. I don’t know that these small thoughts come together into one big Voltron thought, so I will just put them out there in a list. As always, my opinions are worth exactly what you paid for them. First, although this post will focus on what’s left out of the article, I want to make... Read more

How much of the prison population explosion in the USA is due to the war on drugs?

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 12:48 am By Eve Tushnet

PrawfsBlawg (a law blog) looks at some numbers: …Consider the following thought experiment. What would US prison populations in 2009 look like if in 1980 we released all 23,900 prisoners serving time for drug offenses (the 19,000 state prisoners plus 4,900 federal drug inmates) and proceeded to admit no prisoners for drug crimes in the subsequent years? Instead of rising 3.8-fold, it would have risen 3-fold. A difference, but not an enormous one. (I’ll show my work for these numbers... Read more

From Henri Nouwen, “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”

Last updated on: April 25, 2013 at 12:30 pm By Eve Tushnet

Simply start by admitting that you cannot cure yourself. You have to say yes fully to your powerlessness in order to let God heal you. But it is not really a question of first and then. Your willingness to experience your powerlessness already includes the beginning of surrender to God’s action in you. —via Read more

“Prodigals and Preachers”: me on Marilynne Robinson

Last updated on: April 22, 2013 at 4:26 pm By Eve Tushnet

at Acculturated: This is the halfway point for my series of posts on great novels about marriage, and with this third installment I think I see some intertwined themes emerging. All three of the books so far—Kristin Lavransdatter, How to Be Good, and now Marilynne Robinson’s generational Iowa epic-in-miniature Gilead—are also stories about being sorry, and trying to be better, and wondering how much any person can ever really change. more; keep in mind that all of these posts necessarily... Read more

Kitchen adventures: A brownie for the Second Demographic Transition

Last updated on: April 19, 2013 at 2:15 pm By Eve Tushnet

I may not believe in modern love, but I must confess that I’ve become a convert to the microwavable brownie in a coffee mug, a.k.a. All the Single Brownies. I’ve tried this ultra-internet recipe several different ways and am still experimenting to figure out what works the very best, so use the following as a template and go in with the assumption that you’ll need several rounds of (delicious) experimentation. I made the batter in a separate bowl and then... Read more

“Clinical Sentiments”

Last updated on: April 19, 2013 at 1:19 pm By Eve Tushnet

This chorus ultimately gives way to “St. John of Gods” as an alternative mantra. St. John of God is a psychiatric clinic in a southern suburb of Dublin, run since 1882 by the religious order of that name. Though it offers a range of services, it is best known for alcoholism treatment. The legend of the original St. John of God, a 16th-century Portuguese monk, holds that following a dramatic conversion experience, he was locked up in an asylum for... Read more

“Mirror Sonnet: How to Rise from the Dead”

Last updated on: April 19, 2013 at 12:45 am By Eve Tushnet

Intense; nice hit of form-follows-function; reminds me of the Mountain Goats. Read more

From “Gilead”

Last updated on: April 19, 2013 at 12:40 am By Eve Tushnet

Calvin says somewhere that each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience. That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists of our behavior, and the reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgmental in the ordinary sense. How well do we understand our role? With how much assurance do we perform it? I suppose Calvin’s God was a Frenchman, just as mine is a... Read more