Daily Archives: May 25, 2010

Think big thoughts: two images from the 1909 Paris Air Show held at the Grand Palais

Maybe your life’s vision is set too low. Take the Paris Air Show of 1909 for inspiration, and think of how far people with vision, intelligence, ambition, and imagination managed to reach in just the past one hundred years. Can you imagine … Continue reading

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A delicious deconstruction of John Gray by A.C. Grayling

Of John Gray’s Black Mass, A.C. Grayling writes that the book: tells us that the world is in a bad way and that there is nothing we can do about it. Perhaps we can infer from this that his aim … Continue reading

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Enlightenment pessimist John Gray v. Enlightenment optimist A.C. Grayling

John Gray is a very, very tart-tongued skeptic of Enlightenment triumphalism of the Bertrand Russell variety, and he recently wrote a rather biting essay attacking A.C. Grayling for taking up, in the 21st century, Russell’s supposedly naive mantle: Russell fell victim … Continue reading

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Doubting the doctrine of hell: India disorients a Christian

One of Andrew Sullivan’s blog readers wrote this today: I’m a Christian . . . I think. I say, “I think” because a recent trip to India left me stumbling on the foundation of faith laid since my youth. I … Continue reading

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Why, if you’re a humanist, Renaissance art is important to contemplate

Stefano Zuffi, in his new book How to Read Italian Renaissance Painting  (Abrams 2010), explains: Wheras artists in the Middle Ages were not consciously ‘medieval’, artists in Italy between 1400 and 1600 very deliberately worked to bring about renewal. . . . … Continue reading

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