Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. At his website, he states: “I write about Russian and Soviet history, military history, and military ethics.” His general view of the politics seems to be describable in non-standard terms as “liberal realism”. For example, while making it clear he is far more liberal than … [Read more…]
I’ve been reading a fair amount of works of narrative history lately, most dealing with the history of the Celtic peoples—especially those of the British Isles; lately, I’ve been reading more general histories of the British peoples for greater context. For decades, some prominent historians have been integrating archaeological and linguistic knowledge into their analyses … [Read more…]
Wayne Allensworth has a frighteningly interesting commentary on virtual reality, an addictive abuse of technology which might generate still more problems than what we’re seeing from our better established abuses of technology (`ordinary’ video games, cellphones for 4 to 104, etc), Disconnected: Our Virtual Unreality, where he writes near the end: Alistair Charlton of the … [Read more…]
Sacramental Christians need to have an understanding of this world which is compatible with sacramental Christian beliefs. You can’t believe the Creator is present, let alone Present on the altar, when you have an understanding of the physical world which is inconsistent with such a Presence. A particularly important part of the physical world is … [Read more…]
I don’t get it. What world do political theorists and philosophers, political commentators of all sorts, live in? For decades, their fellow practitioners of the humane arts and sciences, the historians, have been trying to deal with the realities of human biological existence—William McNeil, the distinguished historian from U of Chicago, was well-known for trying … [Read more…]
Razib Khan, is a geneticist who is an atheist but not a naively anthropocentric atheist nor one blind to the reasons why others hold or seek a faith he doesn’t hold and doesn’t desire. He has published an essay, Can a Religious Person be a Good Scientist?, in which he says: In the culture of … [Read more…]
By “liberalism,” I mean a closely related set of systems of freedoms of a specific sort, those emphasizing and even `enforcing’ an individualism which in its moderate form is compatible with the traits of many northwestern Europeans and fewer other Europeans and—for the most part—far fewer others. [An example of enforcing individualism would be changes … [Read more…]
In The Return of Fear, Peter Frost, an anthropologist, gives a few facts which don’t argue fully against the current belief among Americans and Europeans that Muslim men are prone to violence and fanaticism; those facts do tell us of the ethnic basis for this inclination. Indonesians—88% Muslim—have low rates of violent crime, as do … [Read more…]
Ten years ago or more, I read the Inferno, the first volume of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. It didn’t make too much of an impression on me, seeming to be at least in part a matter of Dante taking shots at some of his enemies, a lot of people he didn’t admire (often, for good … [Read more…]
See the article, Notable: Bigger groups make less social time for red colobus, at John Hawk’s website. [I had a problem linking properly to this article but it can be found under “Stories” if it doesn’t come up on the front page. I will adjust my link when possible.] Professor Hawks discusses an article summarizing … [Read more…]