101 Escapes from Idiocracy

Peter Wehner, a former Republican official, reviews a new book about the author of Narnia. He believes the great writer’s political views were influenced by his religious background – and were close to those of “classical liberals” like John Locke and John Stuart Mill.

In this essay, Stanford classicist and poli sci professor Josiah Ober tries to explain why Socrates chose to accept the verdict of the Athenian jury – and commit suicide. Ober introduces several different interpretations, and challenges the conventional view doubting the legitimacy of the whole trial.

The title says it all – Mike Judge was planning to release spoof campaign ads featuring the hilarious U.S. president from the future. But the studio would rather avoid some troubling comparisons…

This blog post contains a curious comic illustrating Neil Postman’s fear that “Huxley, not Orwell, was right” in describing the totalitarianism of the future. Of course, with the growth of government and corporate surveillance, it has become a lot harder to dismiss Orwell. Postman was the most famous media critic – and skeptic – since Marshal McLuhan.

This article tries to explain “why apocalyptic fiction and film haven’t caught on in the Middle Kingdom.” It makes a curious comparison to American mass (and high-brow) culture, rife with dystopian visions. It also suggests things may be changing, but quite slowly…

The strapline for this article says “the Enlightenment philosopher’s attack on cosmopolitan élites now seems prophetic.” The piece also suggests Rousseau knew from personal experience haw hard it is to resists temptation without fear of God. The author of the profile is a famous Indian writer – and I assume the title comes from the editors.

A hopeful piece on one of my favorite topics – the dystopian imagination. Here is a brief quote that sums it all up: “As with Orwell, Bradbury recognised that tyranny is at its most potent when it’s superficially most benevolent, when it dresses up coercion and censorship in kindly, caring language.” On my laptop, the article ends with a stark pro-Brexit ad. If this is targeted advertising, I guess they need to fix their algorithm – for the next campaign.

Artistic masterpieces are sometimes born under the most unusual of circumstances. This piece describes the peculiar writers’ workshop that 200 years ago gave birth to Mary Shelley’s literary masterpiece – when she was not yet 19.

Joel Klein is the in-house satirist of Time Magazine. But in this piece he is only half-joking...

The author of this op-ed piece is someone who “leveraged” a humanities degree (and a penchant for evocative writing) to pursue a successful career in IT. Perhaps this could be a way to hug the Zeitgeist with only one arm? Speaking of computers, there is some recent research indicating that reading from a screen facilitates focus on details – and can make it harder to see the forest, connect the dots, etc. I guess Carr would not be surpsised…

This is a provocative piece from the English site of the German magazine Der Spiegel. At the bottom of the article, there is a link to a response which takes the opposite point of view.

This is a heartfelt plea to readers to cherish and keep books in pristine condition –particularly, to never break their backs. The author seems to be a bit oversensitive – but perhaps this is what it takes to be a real reader.

I hope this isn’t too good to be true. Though, if this is to be believed, you have to be careful what you wish for...

See if you can take with a smile this provocation from Carlin Romano, professor of philosophy and humanities, who laments the waning of reading among American college students.

Our pet bunny, Zhuzhi, died the other day. She was very, very old (close to 10 years and 5 months), and had become weaker and weaker over the previous couple of weeks. We were all very attached to her, and took good care of her until the very end, when she finally stopped breathing. I am also thinking, even if this is a bit narcissistic, that Zhuzhi probably loved us back. And this may have helped her hang in for so long – if this wonderful, at times heart-breaking article, is to be believed.

Mark Edmundson, English professor at the University of Virginia, asked this question of the incoming class of 2015 a few years back. In his article, he gave advice to students on how to acquire a real education, even if the stakes were stacked against them.

This is a review of the movie which gave the name of this blog. It did not achieve Oscar glory, but can definitely make you think – particularly in the context of Donald Trump’s political (or post-political?) triumph.

A fun article on the uses and misuses of literature in business education. Despite some negative examples, good literature could be truly illuminating for those who do not just skate through the default major…

This is a fun article from Harvard Magazine describing the lives of Ivy League superachievers. It reminds me of an older piece by David Brooks, “The Organization Kid.” That title, of course, is a spoof of the 1950s sociological classic, Organization Man.

A few years ago, psychologists Josh Foster and Joan M.Twenge published a book called The Narcissism Epidemic. In this blog post, Twenge says they have done another study “showing that narcissistic traits are increasing even faster than we previously thought.” Some of their colleagues disagree, pointing to other data or methodological flaws in the work of Foster and Twenge. They could be right. But this is precisely the trend Christopher Lasch diagnosed in The Culture of Narcissism. And the outcome Tocqueville, Mill, Webb, Hobhouse and others once feared. One could argue that Foster and Twenge describe a mostly American cultural tendency. Tocqueville once felt, however, that in the United States he could observe the future shape and character of the whole civilized world. And that could still be the case. 

In this article, Susan Faludi ( a prominent American feminist) criticizes what she sees as an unfortunate transformation of feminism. She thinks until a few decades ago feminism was a broad social movement aiming to create a better world for all – and liberate men, too, from the shackles of an oppressive socioeconomic success. Now much of what passes for feminism apparently focuses on personal success (and perhaps equal opportunity self-indulgence?) for women belonging to the educated elite.

This is the title of an article by Theodore Dalrymple (the author of the opinion piece making “the case for cannibalism” we assembled and discussed in class). He makes some disturbing observations and draws insightful comparisons between Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, Jack London’s The Iron Heel, and  George Orwell’s 1984 (and there is also a great dystopian book that is not mentioned – since it was written in Russia – We, by Evgeny Zamyatin). I would rather not give away too much – and would be curious as to what you make of it all. I will post a great article here perhaps once a week for those who would like to continue to read great non-fiction outside of course assignments (which might be the best way to improve your written English). And I will try to respond to all comments and questions. Enjoy!