It’s Power, Just Power Kautilya and Machiavelli Commingled There’s a classic of Sanskrit law attributed to Kautilya called the Arthashastra. It makes Machiavelli look like a kitten playing with string. But put the two together and we have some chance of understanding what is going on with the Kavanaugh hearings. It’s about power. There’s nothing…
Roe is obviously about far more more than a woman’s right to make her own health choices or abortion. It is as much about those who seek to control women, who seek to shame, manipulate, or use people for their own purposes, and who would impose their will and values on others. It is a…
One of the more compelling elements of the yoga tradition are sources that suggest we change the world when we understand more about it. Our actions, intentions, feelings are driven by feelings and impressions, and often incomplete and lazy arguments. The tasks that demand rigor, seriousness, a conscientious appeal to facts—best we can discern—and arguments—organized…
Ah, the inevitable Back to School essay in today’s Sunday New York Times with all its earnest and undesigning intendments. It cites the renowned physicist making the point that if you are an average person who applies themselves diligently you’ll get very good at something and that that’s a real something. Thank goodness most of…
School is on the horizon and I mourn more than the loss of a summer largely lost, but that’s all too personal a matter to matter much. I don’t lament my shrinking university enrollments, they mean I can pay closer attention to students in the classes and that I will have fewer papers to grade…
Ross Douthat in the NYTimes writes today about how the humanities are on life-support, at best, in colleges and universities. I am here not merely to confirm anecdotally those enrollment facts—my classes for the first time in 30+ years are under enrolled when once they bursted at seams. The crisis in teaching the humanities is…
We live in structures and, rightwing conspiracies notwithstanding, the deeper formations of the state as culture and ethos will determine who we are. Who do we want to be is a difficult question because it takes time and thought and effort to think about what that means. So first a few facts. Wages are not…
Let’s start here: there is no arc of justice bending towards justice, there is no promise or guarantee that rights will not be oppressed, ignored, or reversed. You can _believe_ in that arc bending or you can ask for a more honest, likely less “faithful” view. We’re at a turning point. The oligarchs and authoritarians…
Six Faces of Muruga A Look in the Mirror, at Least for this Morning 1. Trump isn’t changing America, he’s showing us who we have always been. Rejecting that with “but not me” is also true. Now, look around you. Really look. See?2. Justice is a shakedown, as we used to say in the neighborhood….
Who are these people who can incarcerate and traumatize children, debase our society, and claim it the proper interpretation of the law? That it is God’s law that gives them authority? It’s important to note that Trump and his sociopaths are deliberately and self-consciously using religion to justify their behaviors. Sessions and Sanders cite the…