Only 5% of Americans realize there is no life after death.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Silly Ideas About Compensation 
Oct 26th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Paying executives 532 times as much as the bottom workers is not actually all that useful.… Read the rest
Spiked on Eagleton
Oct 25th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He is fed up with cultural theory, but not quite fed up enough.… Read the rest
Ian Buruma on the Israeli Left
Oct 24th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Left is rich and Ashkenazi, the working class is Sephardic and religious – so the left dwindles.… Read the rest
Globalisation Means Americanisation
Oct 24th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Sonja Hegasy has fallen for the Enlightenment myth, Mona Abaza says.… Read the rest
Fanonian Rhetoric on Globalisation
Oct 24th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The wretched of the earth like new music and clothes, just as the rich do.… Read the rest
Difficulty
Oct 23rd, 2003 6:55 pm | By Ophelia BensonA few more thoughts on ‘difficulty’ and bad writing. The result of reading another introduction, this one to the anthology Critical Terms for Literary Study. Thomas McLaughlin has some interestingly symptomatic things to say.
… Read the restSo the very project of theory is unsettling. It brings assumptions into question…And…it does so in what is often a forbidding and arcane style. Many readers are frightened off by the difficulty of theory, which they can then dismiss as an effort to cover up in an artifically difficult style the fact that it has nothing to say…Of course theory is difficult – sometimes for compelling reasons, sometimes because of offensive self-indulgence – but simply assuming that it is all empty rhetoric ultimately keeps you
The Pope as an Absolute Monarch
Oct 23rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
John Paul II reasserted and even amplified the doctrine of ‘Papal infallibility.’… Read the rest
Ma Teresa a Celebrity, Yes, But Not a Saint
Oct 23rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
India’s Science and Rationalists’ Association held a demonstration to protest against the beatification… Read the rest
New University Subject: Underpaying Labour
Oct 23rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If administrators want to talk of truth and justice, they should talk about low wages for staff, too.… Read the rest
Vandalism Drives Scientists Out of UK
Oct 23rd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why would sub-Saharan Africa need drought-resistant plants, after all?… Read the rest
It Was Just as Bad For Me as it Was For You
Oct 22nd, 2003 7:14 pm | By Ophelia BensonI enjoy coincidences. They make me feel like part of the Divine Plan. (That’s a joke, but actually there was a coincidence last week that made me feel tempted to go all New Agey. I resisted, though.) So it amused me a couple of days ago that I started the day reading a new collection of ‘theoretical’ articles (by which you are to understand articles written by people who once would have been called literary critics but who have now moved Up in the world) – articles of a badness, a pretension, a tortuously protracted emptiness, that has to be read to be believed, and then after I’d done that until I couldn’t stand it any more I got on … Read the rest
Terrorism for Humanity?
Oct 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Richard Wolin has suspicions about Ted Honderich’s acuity.… Read the rest
Buffy Yes, Philosophy No
Oct 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A set of pretty good essays about Buffy the Vampire-Slayer – but not about philosophy.… Read the rest
Official State Witch
Oct 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Good to know – there’s nonsense in Norway, too.… Read the rest
Muslims in India
Oct 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
M J Akbar: ‘it is a myth that Islamic law is not amenable to re-interpretation.’… Read the rest
Human Nature
Oct 22nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Pinker and Wilson do a much more impressive job with the humanities than any humanist I know has been able to do with the sciences.’… Read the rest
When in Doubt, Beatify
Oct 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Christopher Hitchens is not a fan of ‘Mother’ Teresa.… Read the rest
‘Stress De-briefing’
Oct 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Therapeutic practices should be founded on research.… Read the rest
Nature Will Have Her Little Joke
Oct 21st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Organically grown milk found to have more toxins than GM milk has.… Read the rest
