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The Inauguration

2009-01-20T07:22:00.002-09:00

Watching the inauguration, the former presidents are announced and the television cameras give us an intimate view of GHWB and Barbara emerging... they're flanked by two Marines, who salute in a highly dignified way.

Unlike the other presidents, who pass by the Marines without noticing them, GHWB raises a trembling salute and affectionately pats the stoic Marine on the leg has he passes him. It's a tender moment. And one feels like they've just glimpsed a quiet decency.

Patrick Smith on Air Travel

2008-01-02T08:36:00.000-09:00

Immanuel Kant - Bad for America

2007-12-10T13:06:00.000-09:00

Paul Theroux on Aid to Africa

2007-11-11T00:35:00.001-09:00

Google vs Facebook

2007-10-22T14:10:00.001-08:00

A ceiling in St.-François-Xavier, Paris

2007-10-06T09:20:00.001-08:00

The War as We Saw It

2007-08-19T12:01:00.000-08:00

...Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

...The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Mark Lilla on University Education

2007-08-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

...American higher education is civic education. While we Americans may disagree about the nature of our values, most of us see our schools as vehicles for inculcating them. No one in the culture wars thinks of himself as working for a foreign power. But the aim of any liberal education worthy of the name is to transport students out of the world they live in, making them less certain about what is valuable in life. It does not seek to overcome alienation, it tries to induce it. Genuine liberal education is, of necessity, an un-American activity.

Mark Lilla on The Politics of God

2007-08-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

Milan Cathedral

2007-08-19T10:18:00.001-08:00

Getting Iraq Wrong

2007-08-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

...In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm.

...I’ve learned that good judgment in politics looks different from good judgment in intellectual life. Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea. In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way.

...The attribute that underpins good judgment in politicians is a sense of reality. “What is called wisdom in statesmen,” Berlin wrote, referring to figures like Roosevelt and Churchill, “is understanding rather than knowledge — some kind of acquaintance with relevant facts of such a kind that it enables those who have it to tell what fits with what; what can be done in given circumstances and what cannot, what means will work in what situations and how far, without necessarily being able to explain how they know this or even what they know.”

...The vital judgments a politician makes every day are about people: whom to trust, whom to believe and whom to avoid. The question of loyalty arises daily: Who will betray and who will stay true? Having good judgment in these matters, having a sound sense of reality, requires trusting some very unscientific intuitions about people.

phronesis:
...A sense of reality is not just a sense of the world as it is, but as it might be. Like great artists, great politicians see possibilities others cannot and then seek to turn them into realities. To bring the new into being, a politician needs a sense of timing, of when to leap and when to remain still. Bismarck famously remarked that political judgment was the ability to hear, before anyone else, the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.

...In the face of the unexpected event, a virtuoso in politics must be capable of improvisation and appear as imperturbable as possible. People do want leadership, and even when a leader is nonplussed by events, he must still remember to give the people the reassurance they deserve. Part of good judgment consists of knowing when to keep up appearances.

...Political careers often end badly because politicians live the human situation: making choices among competing goods with only ordinary instincts and fallible information to go by.

...Good judgment in politics is messy. It means balancing policy and politics in imperfect compromises that always leave someone unhappy — often yourself.

...they didn’t take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else would believe in it, too.

...emotions in politics, as in life, tend to be self-justifying and in matters of ultimate political judgment, nothing, not even your own feelings, should be held immune from the burden of justification through cross-examination and argument

...People with good judgment listen to warning bells within. Prudent leaders force themselves to listen equally to advocates and opponents of the course of action they are thinking of pursuing. They do not suppose that their own good intentions will guarantee good results. They do not suppose they know all they need to know. If power corrupts, it corrupts this sixth sense of personal limitation on which prudence relies.

...Daring leaders can be trusted as long as they give some inkling of knowing what it is to fail. They must be men of sorrow acquainted with grief, as the prophet Isaiah says, men and women who have not led charmed lives, who understand us as we really are, who have never given up hope and who know they are in politics to make their country better. These are the leaders whose judgment, even if sometimes wrong, will still prove worthy of trust.

G. E. M. Anscombe: Modern Moral Philosophy

2007-04-26T23:44:00.000-08:00

2007-04-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Long Room at the Trinity College Old Library

2003 Rieth Lecture

2007-04-18T12:15:00.000-08:00

Modern neuroscience

2002 Reith Lecture

2007-04-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

Philosophical look at the "crisis of trust" in contemporary life.

From Metternich to Jim Baker

2007-01-04T22:11:00.000-09:00

Role of Psychology Education

2007-01-04T22:08:00.000-09:00

G. E. M. Anscombe: Living the Truth

2007-01-04T21:47:00.000-09:00