Author Archives: stephenkmacksd

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About stephenkmacksd

Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer. 'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.' https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary

Queer Atheist Reads David Brooks on The Radical Individualists

David Brooks is reeling from the effects of his colleagues reporting on the Radical Individualist’s in our midst. It seems that something like 28% of Americans live alone and half the births in America in women under thirty are out … Continue reading →

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Niall Ferguson on Chinese State Capitalism by Political Observer

Here is Niall Ferguson in the magazine Foreign Policy, the prestigious voice of American Establishment thinking, in an essay entitled We’re All State Capitalists Now. Mr. Ferguson or the editors have a way with this outworn cliché, it speaks of … Continue reading →

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On Authority, David Brooks vs Immanuel Kant

David Brooks http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/opinion/brooks-the-jeremy-lin-problem.html?… “The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays “The Lonely Man … Continue reading →

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David Brooks on Jeremy Lin: Thank you to Matthew Carnicelli of Brooklyn, New York!

Jeremy Lin is an NBA player who, at present, is having phenomenal success and is a person of deep religious faith. In his desperation to manufacture his latest column, Mr. Brooks takes Mr. Lin as his subject of a very … Continue reading →

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Out of Wedlock Births and the Specter of American Decadence by Queer Atheist

Here is proof that women in America no longer have to postpone their wish for children until marriage. Here, also, is proof that David Brooks’ obsession with out of wedlock births as a sign of American decadence is not about … Continue reading →

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On Clubability, after Isaiah Berlin by Political Observer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/06/usa.politics1Here is what Isaiah Berlin celebrated as a man being clubable, in it's institutionalized form: our special relationship. You recall the paragraph in The Color of Truth by Kai Bird where Sir Isaiah celebrates the Bundy brothers as one of … Continue reading →

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Executive Order 9066: America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

http://todaysdocument.tumblr.com/post/17881526195/issued-by-president-frankli…  

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David Brooks:”The depressing lesson of the last few weeks is that the public debate is dominated by people who stopped thinking in 1975.”.

For the past week I’ve been reading Pauline Kleingeld’s new book Kant and Cosmopolitanism:The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship published by Cambridge University Press. I measure a book by it’s first one hundred pages, so I have spent the last … Continue reading →

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Current Reading: Kant and Cosmopolitanism by Pauline Kleingeld

Glad to say that I have just received Professor Kleingeld’s new book and am reading it with rapt attention. Happy Scholar  

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On Ross Douthat: Actions Speak Louder Than Words by Political Cynic

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-the-working-clas…   While contemplating a reply to Mr. Douthat’s essay of February 11,2012, titled Can The Working Class Be Saved?, a thought kept recurring to me that would give me no rest: in 21 states Republican legislators and governors have … Continue reading →

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