God and Religion at Princeton

Last updated on: September 10, 2019 at 5:39 am By Peter Hammond Schwartz

Collegiate gothic citadel of learning in a historic, picturesque town roughly equidistant from New York and Philadelphia, from Boston and Washington, DC, Princeton University is proximate to urban centers of wealth and power, while remaining demurely provincial and unassuming (the town is a mere 5-minute ride from the Northeast Rail Corridor via the terminally adorable Dinky, a single-car train that departs regularly from the Princeton campus). Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Princeton (both the town and the university, actually) has a bit... Read more

Unalienable Rights, Alien Populations and Natural Law

Last updated on: October 1, 2019 at 2:49 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. The media has spilled much ink parsing the meaning of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recently announced State Department “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” According to the Federal Register notice, “The Commission will provide the Secretary of State advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters.... Read more

‘Hamilton the Musical’ and the American Historical Imagination

Last updated on: August 10, 2020 at 5:28 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

I’ll just say it. Four years out, Hamilton the Musical remains the most important American cultural moment of the 21st century. The genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s creation is that his imaginative, hip hop, racial caste/casting adaptation of the massive Ron Chernow biography of Alexander Hamilton almost instantly, and effortlessly, has changed the way we think about American history. Part One / Alexander Hamilton, Superstar Music and the Historical Imagination Any human community dies, quickly, when it can no longer, inclusively, sing about itself, laugh about itself, and know and... Read more

Amy Wax’s Recent Inflammatory Statements on Cultural Nationalism and Immigration

Last updated on: October 1, 2019 at 2:56 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

For those interested in a framework for thinking about University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Amy Wax’s controversial remarks about immigration, culture, and race at the recent National Conservatism conference in Washington, DC, I’d recommend reading these two documents. Here’s What Amy Wax Really Said About Immigration (The Federalist, July 26, 2019) – Provides a full transcript of Wax’s address to the conference, and the panel discussion and audience Q&A that followed. Amy Wax Is Wrong. Immigrants Are Integrating Just... Read more

Alexander Hamilton, Senator Mike Lee, and the U.S. Constitution

Last updated on: October 1, 2019 at 2:59 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

“Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United states has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself — and … I am still trying to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my rewards. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not... Read more

The Divinity of Data: Artificial Intelligence, the Death of God and the End of Individuality

Last updated on: January 15, 2020 at 4:25 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

In the first decade of the 21st century, an unsexy, inoffensive software markup language called XML solved a problem that has been the predicate for all major historical transformations: extracting content from its conventional forms and repurposing this content in ways never before imagined. XML became the vehicle for liberating data – as digital representations of the stuff of the material world – from established publishing formats. With almost no one paying attention, new possibilities for endlessly reproducing, recombining, and remapping... Read more

From Working Class to White Trash: Risk, Responsibility, Causation, and Brokenness in the United States

Last updated on: September 10, 2019 at 5:40 am By Peter Hammond Schwartz

Long before Donald Trump seized his spurious, self-canceling political moment as the imagined defender and champion of the “hardworking Americans” maligned as “deplorables” and “garbage” by out-of-touch, elitist Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we have grappled as a nation with the complexities and contradictions of the relationship between “class” and “race,” and between “working class” and “white trash.” The Precarious Position of the Working Class American From the late 1970s through the early 1990s, the collapse of the... Read more

Last updated on: January 28, 2021 at 5:27 am By Peter Hammond Schwartz

‘Send Her Back:’ Limitations of a Language Lens on Racism

Last updated on: July 29, 2019 at 8:57 am By Peter Hammond Schwartz

The underlying dynamics that cause & perpetuate racism are incredibly complicated, requiring honesty & introspection. Instead, we default to rote images of the individual as autonomous agent, actor, and author of her life’s drama. We default to conflated behavioral-linguistic perspectives on social change. and raising questions about the value of a “language lens” on racism. Read more

Thirteen Ways to Think About the Election of Donald Trump

Last updated on: July 31, 2019 at 12:28 pm By Peter Hammond Schwartz

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings _____ I wrote this essay in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. Reading it nearly 3 years later reminds... Read more