Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Robert Wright predicted one of its most important consequences. In his essay “Voice of America,” which appeared in the September 13, 1993, issue of the magazine the New Republic, Wright reported on his forays into Usenet, a set of online discussion groups
Andrew McAfee, Erik Brynjolfsson • Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future
This is the genius behind the kvetching about “political correctness,” for instance: you get to keep talking the way you’ve always talked, but instead of having to worry you’re being lazy, you get to tell yourself you’re actually being courageous.
Adrian Daub • What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic)
For the inhabitants of the United States, the anglicization of the world is, just as Churchill predicted, a “grand convenience.” It allows them to do business in any part of the world. It also helps their ideas and ambitions to resound. Films, books, shows, music, and advertisements flow easily out of the United States, so that even the remotest fo
... See moreDaniel Immerwahr • How to Hide an Empire
The judges, however, wisely rejected that argument, quoting Thurgood Marshall's observation that given the mysteries of human motivation, “it would be unwise to presume as a matter of law that human beings of one definable group will not discriminate against other members of their group.”
Randall Kennedy • Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
In a recent book, he argues that many of the students currently enrolled are simply not capable of performing college-level work.
Derek Bok • Higher Education in America
The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates of 2000, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. In th
... See moreChris Hedges • Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
Progressive education reform has accomplished many things. It has made school a lot more pleasant, and a lot more interesting. But it’s also brought with it costs for us as individuals and as citizens. Memory is how we transmit virtues and values, and partake of a shared culture.
Joshua Foer • Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
But what is their definition of the oppressed? It is not the economically oppressed that they have come to defend but the culturally oppressed.