March 2010
11 posts
12 tags
2 tags
Sacrificial Nation
By Paul W. Kahn.
The United States is a political theological project. Popular sovereignty is the mystical corpus, and sacrifice is the act of self-transcendence.
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What sort of political phenomenon is the United States? Arguably the first modern nation-state, it seems increasingly anachronistic. Long committed to the...
5 tags
Two Views of Justice
- Too much justice? Harvey Mansfield in conversation with Yascha Mounk. [more]
- Justice: the whole story? Onora O’Neill in conversation with Alexander Lee. [more]
3 tags
Raging for Democracy
By Nadia Urbinati.
(Translated by Yascha Mounk)
Race riots, Italian style. Why recent confrontations between immigrant workers and mafia clans might strengthen Italian democracy.
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Just off the coast of Calabria in Southern Italy, Rosarno was home to hundreds of African migrant workers, many of them illegal immigrants. Working...
2 tags
When Humanitarianism Hurts
By Stephen Wertheim.
The language of duty in politics feeds self-delusive moralism. Humanitarian interventionists take note.
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A duty to intervene. The responsibility to protect. Never again. This is the language of international ethics in our time. It is the language of justice construed as categorical imperatives. To deny...
2 tags
Stepwells and Civilization
By Karan Mahajan.
Novelist Karan Mahajan descends into the stepwells of Gujarat and Rajastan to report on one of modern India’s disappearing treasures.
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The stepwell lacks a proper analogue in the modern world. Sunk into earth like a man-made canyon, it is impossible to imagine whole. Viewed from the sky, it looks...
2 tags
Earthly Paradise
By Sam Munson.
“Two days before his forty-fourth birthday the authorities release an obscure writer (whom I’ll call, with amazing presumption, Telemachus) from prison.”
A short story.
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So: two days before his forty-fourth birthday (according to whatever foreign power has seized control of my already cramped and stinging ...
2 tags
The Hardest Choice
By Alexander Lee.
In 1993, two ten-year-olds tortured, abused, and killed a toddler. In 2001, they were released from prison. One of the juvenile murderers has now been rearrested on child porn charges. The question is: where does justice lie?
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“For the sort of man who is unwilling to take up the course of well-doing,...
2 tags
Not Even Zeus
By David Hayes.
A New Translation of Theognis 19 - 26.
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With skill I placed a seal upon my words, Kurnus. They can’t be stolen — or if They are, the truth will out. My lines will not Be changed from good to bad. Every Man will say, “Look! Verses by Theognis, The world-famous...
2 tags
The Mercy Shot
By Yascha Mounk.
In 1997, Tony Blair promised that “things can only get better.” Did they?
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If you switched on a British TV in the spring of 1997, you would probably have heard a catchy, optimistic tune: Things Can Only Get Better. Puzzled, you would have watched the back of an unidentifiable man. Leaving...
2 tags
An Englishman at CPAC
By Timothy Stanley.
Timothy Stanley reports from the front lines of the Conference for Conservative Activists in Washington, D.C.
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I am here in Washington DC at a revolutionary moment. The Tea Party has come to town and hijacked the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Women with stately hairdos share the cameras...