Who gets to declare a cultural debate over? According to a recent RNS column, late debate participants, critics, and allies to those directly impacted by the issues being debated are the ones who get to declare differences “unbridgeable” and the debate itself a draw. I find this fascinating, and perhaps you will too. In order: […]
Checking your lenses
I had an eye exam today, my first in too long. I’ve had my current glasses for nearly a decade and no substantial changes to my vision. But there was a surprise. There’s a defect in my lenses. It’s a small thing, a little whorl in the glass that warps light as it passes through […]
Why Communicating Can Be So Hard
Steven Pinker is a Harvard psychologist who has spent the last few years studying language and morality. You may recognize his curly grey locks from his 2007 TED talk on the international violence rate: “The surprising decline of violence.” In a new column posted to the Chronicle of Higher Education this week—just in time to drive traffic […]
Worlds Apart: The Incommensurability Problem
When I was about 7 years old, my brother had a series of children’s songs on cassette tape. One of the songs included this chorus: Danke schön, mein Herr! Danke schön, danke schön! Thank you, my King— For life is so wunderschön! The problem? I didn’t yet speak German. So what I heard instead was […]
