All entries by this author

David Lodge’s Henry James Novel *

Aug 28th, 2004 | Filed by

It’s about writing novels rather than sexual secrets.… Read the rest



Eichmann, Everyman as Genocidaire *

Aug 28th, 2004 | Filed by

It seemed the right thing to do at the time.… Read the rest



David Cesarani’s Biography of Eichmann *

Aug 28th, 2004 | Filed by

Scrupulously objective; the hatchet-job is reserved for Hannah Arendt.… Read the rest



1893–1895–1897–1899: Or How Norman N. Holland Gave Game, Set, and Match to Frederick Crews

Aug 28th, 2004 | By Robert Wilcocks

The situation of the present state of psychoanalysis and of the current reputation of Sigmund Freud is well documented and cogently (and patiently!) presented in Professor Crews’s “Reply to Holland.”(1) In my view, and in the opinion of several other Freud scholars, the continuing ability of Freudian rhetoric to deceive is even more dangerous and difficult to resolve than Crews allows.

And, alas, the kind of staged public jousting whereby Fred Crews will accept the publication for the Spring/Summer issue of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine (vol. 9, no. 1) of “a commentary on both submissions [that of Holland and the reply of Crews] by the psychiatrist Peter Barglow” seems to be `loaded’ from the start.

Barglow is a … Read the rest



Googling for Laughs

Aug 28th, 2004 2:17 am | By

I’m a kind and generous person, and I’ve just been enjoying a good laugh, so I’ll let you enjoy it too. It’s funny how I found this essay. It’s on Alan Sokal’s site, but that’s not how I found it (there are a lot of articles there, happily, and I haven’t read them all yet). No, I found it by typing Sandra Harding and – a certain unkind adjective, into google. What a lot came up! I’ll have to try it with different unkind adjectives in the future. What a pity that life is so short – I’m sure to miss some interesting stuff. Quite a lot. But I found a lot, too.

This essay is about Social TextRead the rest



More Profundity

Aug 27th, 2004 8:14 pm | By

More Harding. Why? Because there is more, that’s why. Because you don’t know the half of it. Because that previous comment barely scratched the surface. Because it just keeps getting worse. Because my jaw keeps dropping until I can barely use the damn thing to talk and eat anymore. Because this book was published by Cornell University Press. I repeat – this book was published by Cornell University Press.

And because I’m a woman, god damn it, and a feminist, and this kind of bilge is enough to discredit both categories. Feminist! She calls herself a feminist! She links what she’s doing with feminism! It’s an outrage! Well you see what I mean about the jaw. Same thing with the … Read the rest



Common Sense Good, Political Correctness Bad *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

And the difference is entirely self-evident. Right.… Read the rest



Excluded *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

Blunkett bans animal rights campaigner Jerry Vlasak.… Read the rest



Free Speech Shouldn’t Cover Death Threats *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

Blunkett was right to ban animal rights ‘activist.’… Read the rest



Outrage at Harker on OutRage *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

Music is important to black people, and not being beaten to death is important to gay people.… Read the rest



Hey, it’s Popular *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

‘Music is very important to black people,’ so if it advocates killing gays – er – shut up?… Read the rest



Work of Art Thrown in Bin and Badly Damaged *

Aug 27th, 2004 | Filed by

Tragedy at Tate when cleaner throws away bin liner filled with waste paper.… Read the rest



From Multiculturalism to Where? *

Aug 26th, 2004 | Filed by

The city on a hill where everyone celebrates differences isn’t working out.… Read the rest



Margaret Talbot on Munchausen’s by Proxy *

Aug 26th, 2004 | Filed by

Naming a syndrome can create it, and when is a crime a ‘disorder’?… Read the rest



‘A Good Book Should Make You Cry’? *

Aug 26th, 2004 | Filed by

The lachrymose world of the problem novel for children.… Read the rest



Epistemology for Toddlers

Aug 25th, 2004 11:40 pm | By

I mentioned that I’ve been reading Sandra Harding. I have. Therefore I need to vent. I also need to write in short simple clause-free declarative sentences, because that’s the way Harding writes, and it’s catching.

Reading Harding is a very strange experience. I keep wondering – huh? What happened? Why did this book get published? Why didn’t anyone shove it back at her and say (at the very least), ‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to re-write this for grown-ups. Children don’t read books about epistemology.’ Why does she write the way she does? Why do people let her? And then publish it? And then why do other people buy the books and read them? And why, godgivemestrength, why do people … Read the rest



Undercurrent

Aug 25th, 2004 7:28 pm | By

Just to gather them all in one place. Jonathan Derbyshire has a post about the vexed (especially around here – we vex the damn thing to death) matter of the, shall we say, tender-mindedness of some parts of the left toward Islamism.

There seems to me to be an essential continuity between the stance adopted towards radical Islam by the intellectual left broadly conceived (and not just the SWP), and certain of the attitudes that characterised the so-called ‘New Left’ in the 1960s, and which were brilliantly diagnosed by Irving Howe in a wonderful 1965 essay entitled ‘New Styles in “Leftism”‘…

Yes, I like Howe, and he looks better all the time. He nailed the anti-intellectual aspect of the New … Read the rest



Convicted Murderer Flees Extradition *

Aug 25th, 2004 | Filed by

Chooses ‘green of life’ over ‘grey of legal punishment’. For himself, that is.… Read the rest



Salim Mansur on Selective Outrage *

Aug 25th, 2004 | Filed by

The victims are black and non-Arab; the victimizers are of Arab origin. … Read the rest



Outrage! Plan Mobo Protest *

Aug 25th, 2004 | Filed by

Gay rights group to pressure the BBC not to broadcast the music of black artists who promote homophobia.… Read the rest