tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34369697749298301112012-02-16T09:44:27.391-08:00The best education for the best is the best education for all.Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-20909082378396928052011-11-08T20:05:00.000-08:002011-11-08T20:27:42.837-08:00

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-73726959802161809742011-04-10T23:36:00.000-07:002011-10-24T13:04:54.013-07:00

In my twenties, I wanted to go to jail. Not state prison. Those places are dangerous. I wanted a nice federal penitentiary for tax offenders or folks who take goods and minors across state lines. I didn't have money, and I had aspirations of being a classical musician or a fiction writer. Both those vocations require many hours of hard, learned work in small rooms with the utmost concentration.

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-88667102883073541252010-07-19T17:53:00.000-07:002010-07-24T07:53:14.515-07:00

J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace is a horrifying little book I wish I would have written. I read it years ago, and I'm still not at peace with the story. It's terribly important and rich, and I am both unnerved and strangely unmanned by it. The novel haunts and enlightens. I found out that they made a movie of it with John Malkovich as David Lurie. I just saw it, and the movie is similarly blessed..

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-42663568805386254932010-07-06T14:48:00.000-07:002010-07-21T15:53:46.206-07:00

I tell people that I'm suspicious of science, and they look at me like I'm a rube. To be clear, if I want a house built or a car fixed, I go to an engineer, not a shaman. The human heart's persistent beating often strikes me as a standing miracle, but I hold that both it and the planes populating the sky can be explained away by science. I think we are descended from monkeys. I also believe in

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-60173744679682681492010-07-02T15:47:00.000-07:002010-10-31T12:01:37.259-07:00

A persuasive myth abounds that students are consumers in educational institutions. Students pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for their degrees and for this reason students, parents, and even the bankers who foot the bill are supposed to have a say in the shape of what's done in the classroom, if for no other reason than to ensure an appropriate return on their respective investments. In a

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-88454972873554413432010-06-11T19:03:00.000-07:002011-04-11T01:09:19.411-07:00

The great danger is that Berkeley is one of those institutions where the excellent is the enemy of the Good.UCLA basketball coach John Wooden passed last week. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said this about the man: “He was a great teacher,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He was a molder of character and basketball was just a means for him to affect us and make us deal with our character issues, because what we

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-56970323373243122382010-06-10T14:37:00.000-07:002010-08-24T16:14:42.810-07:00

This is another insider post.The blog post marries two philosophical concepts: parts of the soul and passions as the guide for action. At the end of this post, you should understand how Mill's idea of higher and lower pleasures confuses moral discourse. The simple argument is that Mill's higher and lower pleasures map on to different parts of the soul, and that Mill was wrong about needing to

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-55094200001944131062010-05-25T07:18:00.000-07:002010-06-08T15:32:21.651-07:00

“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is supposed to be the philosopher's western, kind of an Oresteia set in the American badlands. Jimmy Stewart plays an east coast lawyer who moves to the American west to find that the law of the land isn't the US constitution, but rather, in this wild America, fear and violence drive political action. Stewart is aghast. He learns, as it turns out, that in

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-72843865927221605142010-05-18T13:08:00.001-07:002010-07-28T18:15:57.418-07:00

This blog post is a bit of inside philosophy. The good news for the people playing at home is that I think I'm going to write another post, in a few days, concerning masculinity and Liberty Valance, which will be more accessible for those unindoctrinated. But for now, let's plow through some Kant.Kant begins the conclusion of the Second Critique, "Two things fill the mind with ever new and

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-64489992948691049662010-04-12T18:36:00.000-07:002010-05-02T08:09:10.442-07:00

I took my show on the road this weekend. I presented my first conference paper at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The conference topic was "Desire." The experience was excellent. Clancy Smith, a pragmatist PhD candidate, willed this conference into existence. He was the head of conference committee, a position he aptly described as having “All of the responsibility and none of the power.” I

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-35532393407568053742010-03-26T22:03:00.000-07:002010-03-29T12:30:11.180-07:00

I spent last weekend sticking it to brown kids. I graded twenty odd papers on whether the US was legally and morally justified to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The topic is provocative. The quality of papers ranged the map. That's not true strictly true: Europe and America did fine; Africa, Asia, and Latin America were not similarly blessed. I looked at my grade distribution. The

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-4768758344293197122010-01-01T10:15:00.000-08:002010-01-01T21:19:01.313-08:00

A relatively young Nietzsche begins, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life" thanking forgetfulness. The idea is that without the power of memory, none of our acts would have meaning, and without the power of forgetfulness, we'd be too horrified by past indiscretions and miscues to summon the courage to do anything in the present. After the ball dropped in New York, I turned off Ryan

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-45169221001584383702009-12-27T13:42:00.000-08:002010-04-26T15:18:29.934-07:00

As it stands, a Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) candidate does a year or two of general work spanning the gamut of the conventional bounds of her given discipline, then gets swept into a specialized project and spends the balance of her time developing expertise in a particular set of entrenched problems. This sounds fine, and even responsible if one is training a general practitioner or even a

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-47899897896880112812009-11-27T07:37:00.000-08:002009-11-29T08:31:15.274-08:00

One of the Profs is teaching a Philosophy of Revolutions class in the fall. I'm smart, black, and I grew up in the 20th century- I've done some reading on the subject. Last night over turkey, I was thinking about the possibility of such a project in terms of Hegel's "Introduction to the Philosophy of History." Here is the skinny: When most people think of revolution, they think of a groundswell

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-419514223717416212009-11-01T00:12:00.000-07:002009-11-01T00:19:02.826-07:00

Well, at least now I know I can do it. I've had a buggy sketch in my mind for years, but I think I worked out the details: objective validity, Kants transcendential unity of apperception, and self-consciousness in pictorial form.

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-12327636896864835832009-10-12T23:25:00.000-07:002009-11-27T10:22:02.482-08:00

Through no fault of my own, I've inherited a side project about Gratitude. I wrote the proposal, and it goes like this:Gratitude, Democracy, and the Strains of Moral Community George Pullman provided. He owned the houses, schools, playgrounds, shops, the theater, market, and library for his factory workers in Pullman, Illinois. He allowed a few exceptions to his rule as a gesture of humility: he

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-52624241173911632672009-10-03T13:26:00.000-07:002009-10-03T23:15:12.499-07:00

The guys-- and yes, philosophy graduate students are overwhelmingly guys-- were talking about topics they are scared to address in their writing. In this discipline, you are supposed to push the bounds of thought to its limits, but if you overstep those bounds, there is very little to stop you from becoming a raving lunatic. For example, there are so many philosophers and mathematicians who have

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-85712032181159126782009-08-30T14:14:00.000-07:002009-09-20T18:55:38.073-07:00

I am initially averse to big decisions. I can be depended upon to make them in a pinch, and even with a certain amount of courage and aplomb, but I find big decisions to be devilish things. I don't think it's a mark on the quality of my character, but rather, my distaste of big decisions flows from my being aware that we are damned to a life where decisions in the face of uncertainty matter, and

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-37894029726258699622009-07-30T12:59:00.000-07:002009-08-13T18:21:50.801-07:00

I've spent the last week trying to sell my latest completed novel, ADAM'S LANDING. For complicated reasons touched on here, I'm having a hard time making it to the next step, which is a shame because I finished ADAM'S LANDING over two years ago. The first chapter is here, and if you know anyone in the industry, feel free to send them a link.Chapter 1Claymore Roe was a fifteen-year old sophomore

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-71931912950118571392009-07-26T05:56:00.000-07:002009-08-13T18:23:37.965-07:00

It's the little expressions of courage and cowardice that move our nation's mores. Witness the cowardice. Rather than hurt a Police Officer's feelings, President Obama betrayed every person-- even his younger self-- who has ever been hassled by a cop.The following account seems unobjectionable to both sides:Professor Louis Gates was coming home from China. He and his driver, after trying to force

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-16096932471256367572009-07-23T13:03:00.000-07:002009-07-23T19:22:09.701-07:00

Teen softball is thrilling. I went to my first ever game in Kansas City, in support of Bonnie's niece Zoya. I had some kin in the game. The spectacle beats baseball by yards. The underhand pitching motion is more natural for the human body, which means less recovery time between pitches and faster games. The mound is closer to the plate, and the girls are awesome, in the classical sense, as in

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-33433657001383915682009-07-14T09:33:00.000-07:002010-07-21T17:23:53.744-07:00

I followed Bonnie to her home in Kansas City. She was to be ordained. Now she is Reverend Bonnie, and it's a beautiful thing. After spending the last two weeks with her family, I've had barbecue, I've driven past the Kansas City Raceway, and I've been bitten by all manners of insect. We've set off homemade fireworks on her nephew's 3 and a half acre plot of land in Missouri for the Fourth of July

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-14271327306772122962009-06-26T08:48:00.000-07:002010-08-18T16:06:25.189-07:00

Safety and the SouthWe are an interracial couple. I'm black and my girlfriend is white, though she tans to a lovely bronze in a pinch. Because of the Civil War and the Civil Rights movements-- you may have heard of them, they were in all of the papers-- our friends worried that our Union would fail to be received with due dignity in the American South. The supposed danger multiplies when one

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-32794181898290527392009-06-25T07:16:00.000-07:002010-08-18T15:44:06.851-07:00

Last year, the day before I met Bonnie, I bought a bicycle. I bought the bike with designs on doing a tour through some culturally significant swath of America. In the middle of our courtship, I told her about my plan. She was apprehensive at first but eventually she said she was in. I let her pick the route, and she confessed a desire to see the South. Bonnie has friends dotted along the

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-55212919309187854412009-05-06T09:29:00.000-07:002009-05-06T09:38:03.767-07:00

I've been a bit promiscuous concerning my blogging. I recently posted two pieces on a friend's blog. Just Say NoandCivic Responsibility

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-26151857477168239712009-03-05T07:34:00.000-08:002009-03-05T08:06:56.569-08:00

One of the happy accidents of our modern depression is that the social sciences, economics in particular, have come to be appreciated for what they are: sophisticated models derived from artistic, pre-critical foundations. It doesn't mean their findings are wrong; rather, it means that the basic assumptions governing our public policy are primarily aesthetic and deeply undetermined. The human

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-24986402660963836602009-03-02T17:53:00.000-08:002009-03-03T07:01:42.049-08:00

I'm going to be busy for a few weeks. Here is a chapter of the latest book in place of a post:Chapter 1In certain south Chicago neighborhoods, instead of talking about the weather or how to secure their daily bread or raise their bright, beautiful, and beloved children, neighborhood gossips dish the wrath of Naki Yeboah, Senator Jakob Yeboah's daughter. Naki's rage hung in the breeze, polluting

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-71011246668438872512009-02-14T08:18:00.000-08:002009-02-16T18:09:18.205-08:00

I am doomed to life with a reed knife in my hand- not because I like shaving wood, or because I was destined to play the oboe, or even because Tchaikovsky erupted a schism in my family, but because I believe in the redemptive power of music; I am a thinker because of public school music programs. I make no claims to have a life in music, and certainly not for music, as I've heard some zealots

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-63551750360003359332009-02-08T17:09:00.000-08:002009-02-10T09:25:17.656-08:00

I believe in Karaoke. It promotes a quality of political courage often overlooked. I'm not talking about the insular private Karaoke rooms where a clan gets boozy and sings Madonna for each other; I'm referring to dive bar Karaoke in a room full of working stiff strangers, where some work-a-day janitor sidles up from the shadows to the microphone and belts out "My Way," to a crowd of appreciative

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-43803603594252413392009-02-01T16:58:00.000-08:002010-03-27T10:01:24.667-07:00

A few days before the inauguration, I received a mass email from Michelle Obama calling out for community service. It was the usual work, helping out at the local soup kitchen. This isn't bad, but this kind of work seems too easy, easy to the point of degrading in the face of the problem. Even subsequent pictures of the Obamas yucking it up at their local shelters proved nauseating. I remember

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-70254206517563491942009-01-25T16:50:00.000-08:002009-02-16T18:11:03.094-08:00

This Negro found himself at a party last night with his girlfriend, resplendent in turquoise, toasting the inauguration of the HNIC. I don't get dapper and out very often, most of the time I feel as though I should be reading or writing a book or figuring out a new way to stick it to the Man. But the party was lovely. There were about 100 political science academics of various status from all

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-73397451808550521042009-01-11T18:02:00.000-08:002009-01-25T16:50:15.562-08:00

I have to believe there is room in the 21st century for African American literature. I am not talking about slave stories or Ghetto fiction, but a novel written in brisk prose peopled with morally engaged and intellectually attractive people. Richard Powers, "The Time of Our Singing," is the kind of fiction that fulfills this void. I believe Muriel Barbary's "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-8533160816901412512009-01-10T11:38:00.000-08:002009-01-10T15:18:35.465-08:00

We had a discussion about what constitutes activist political theory. The general sense was that an activist academic is a professor who writes about politics during the day time, then moonlights as a labor organizer. While that may be one extreme example, there are other, better ones.Activist theorists may also be revisionist historians who are striving to flesh out the underside of previously

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-58808924151554690892009-01-05T16:10:00.000-08:002009-01-10T11:48:48.544-08:00

I finished reading the Elegance of the Hedgehog, and the book is a success.For complicated reasons, it's terribly difficult to depict morally and intellectually engaging people who are poor. It's one of the reasons Rosanne was such a TV hit during the 80s and early 90s. They weren't stupid; they were just poor. It's one of the reasons the characters in Iris Murdoch's books or David Lodge's books

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3436969774929830111.post-39307322429189095332009-01-03T19:33:00.000-08:002009-01-10T15:42:42.722-08:00

I'm going to make it through this long life calling chicks, chicks; damn that strain of third wave feminism that construes my term of art as misogyny. I have never meant the word as a pejorative. I do not know anyone who means the term as a perjorative. I love women. I'm in love with a woman, and she is a pretty cool chick. And I love her most dearly in the moment she casually refers to my

Political Scientistnoreply@blogger.com0