Cheating

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 5:23 am By Peter Leithart

Cheating is pervasive, but rarely receives extended ethical analysis, argues Deborah Rhode in her forthcoming Cheating. We cheat on taxes, in games and sports, in love, in finding shortcuts to get what we want. She argues for a stringent set of criteria for breaking conventions and rules: “individuals’ natural cognitive bias to skew the cost-benefit calculations of cheating in self-serving directions, society needs a general presumption against such misconduct. To justify an exception, a disinterested decision maker should be able... Read more

Groping For Ashbery

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 4:34 am By Peter Leithart

Poet and novelist Ben Lerner struggles to explain the experience of reading the poems of John Ashbery, who died this week. The experience, mind you, not the poems themselves, which tend to defy explanation. Lerner quotes his first novel, where a character is describing reading Ashbery: “The best Ashbery poems . . . describe what it’s like to read an Ashbery poem; his poems refer to how their reference evanesces. And when you read about your reading in the time of... Read more

Negative Passover

Last updated on: September 5, 2017 at 6:00 pm By Peter Leithart

Josiah presides over the greatest Passover in the history of the monarchy (2 Chronicles 35:18). No sooner has the celebration subsided than Josiah heads out of Jerusalem to confront Pharaoh Neco as the latter marches north to fight Assyria. Josiah makes a military and political blunder here. But it’s worse than that. He defies God, and his death at the hands of the Egyptians is what William Johnstone calls a “negative Passover”: “it is none other than God himself who... Read more

Inventing India

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 4:50 am By Peter Leithart

Neel Mukherjee reviews recent books on India, including Adam Roberts’s Superfast. Roberts, he says, offers a serious book that exposes the appalling problems that India faces. Not least is the current government’s penchant for authoritarian manipulations: “Modi, however, has a firm understanding of fake news and image manipulation. From 2012 he began to project 3D holograms of himself at several election rallies simultaneously. The images were simple optical tricks but they succeeded in wowing illiterate rural voters. A sure touch with the... Read more

Suspended Sentences

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 4:26 am By Peter Leithart

The title novella in Patrick Modiano’s collection, Suspended Sentences, is a masterpiece of disquieting understatement. The adult narrator, Patrick, tells of the period of his childhood spent (as “Patoche”) with an odd assortment of caretakers – Little Helene, who walked with a slight limp from a circus accident; Annie F., who wore a man’s leather jacket and tight black trousers; and Mathilde F., Annie’s mother, who always called Patroche “blissful idiot.” Patroche’s parents are alive, but his mother is on... Read more

Forging the Enemy’s Weapon

Last updated on: September 2, 2017 at 11:01 pm By Peter Leithart

In his Life of Bertrand Russell, Ronald Clark describes the austere Evangelical regimen of the philosopher’s childhood: “Lady Russell’s evangelical concern to press her younger grandson into a mould of her own choice stamped him physically, intellectually and emotionally with marks that lasted all his life. A puritan despising comfort, indifferent to food and hating wine, she decreed that the day begin with a cold bath all the year round, followed by half‑an‑hour’s piano practice before family prayers at eight. The... Read more

Burdens

Last updated on: August 31, 2017 at 4:47 pm By Peter Leithart

Trace the development of the Hebrew massa’ (“burden”) through the Bible. In Torah, it refers to the physical labor of the Levites, carrying the furniture of the tabernacle and especially the ark. In Chronicles, it refers to the Levitical “burden” of singing (1 Chronicles 15:22, 27). They no longer carry the sanctuary from place to place, but they still lift Yahweh up on the shoulders of their praise. Song is analogous to bearing the Lord and His house, the Lord who... Read more

Music of the Spirit

Last updated on: September 11, 2017 at 6:01 pm By Peter Leithart

Creation has a musical quality both in its origin and in its very nature. Read more

Remembering Jenson

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 6:23 pm By Peter Leithart

A few items from the archives about Lutheran theologian Robert W. Jenson, who died earlier this week. Here’s my best effort to summarize Robert Jenson’s take on God-and-time, written with faux-Jensonesque pithiness. Is God eternally and infinitely the eternal and infinite God that He is? Of course. He’s God. Is God dependent on creation for His fulfillment? Of course not. He’s God. The biblical God uniquely does not try to escape time. All other gods do; that’s what makes them... Read more