After the Future tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-223564 2013-06-18T09:55:06-07:00 "Without the ultrarational hopes and passions of religion no society will ever have the courage to conquer despair and attempt the impossible; for the vision of a just society is an impossible one, which can be approximated only by those who do not regard it as impossible."--Reinhold Niebuhr TypePad Little Fish Fighting Big Ones tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e201901d86a915970b 2013-06-18T09:55:06-07:00 2013-06-18T16:14:24-07:00 There is something admirable about the local autonomy enjoyed, for instance, by the patchwork of city states that composed the Italian Peninsula during the Renaissance. Not so desirable was their continuous, pointless fighting among themselves, and in the end their... Jack Whelan O'Hehir on American Dystopia tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20191036ae2c1970c 2013-06-16T11:35:38-07:00 2013-06-16T11:39:54-07:00 Are we there yet? O'Hehir has an interesting piece that complements the discussion in comments about my last post. He quotes Neil Postman echoing a comment made by Jonathan about how Huxley was perhaps a more accurate predictor of our... Jack Whelan Josh Marshall & Historical Vacuum Syndrome tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20192ab296492970d 2013-06-15T09:37:25-07:00 2013-06-17T08:25:26-07:00 Josh Marshall has created a firestorm among his liberal readership by coming out pretty strongly against the Manning and Snowden leaks. I think he gives a thoughtful, honest justification for his views, and the key to it is explained in... Jack Whelan The Puritan Mind tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20192ab1efa00970d 2013-06-14T09:45:07-07:00 2013-06-14T09:47:59-07:00 Several years ago I did a series of posts on the Puritan Mind trying to understand both its dark and light sides. The positive side I called Whiggery. Whiggery, I argued, was the spirit of the abolitionist movement and the... Jack Whelan Data Mining tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e201901d4e0e3f970b 2013-06-12T09:22:20-07:00 2013-06-13T14:12:54-07:00 David Simon, the creator of HBO's "The Wire" says this about the Snowden leaks: The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. And it forever will, to a greater and greater extent. And therefore, the present-day question... Jack Whelan Verax: Loners Telling Truths tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20191033b9e57970c 2013-06-11T12:41:02-07:00 2013-06-11T16:05:14-07:00 My two cents on the Snowden leak: Of course, I'm among those who admire his courage, and I am temperamentally inclined to side with whoever takes it upon himself to subvert the technocracy. But it seems a quixotic gesture, and... Jack Whelan Verax: Loners Telling Truths tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20192ab02a651970d 2013-06-11T09:46:26-07:00 2013-06-11T09:46:26-07:00 My two cents on the Snowden leak: Of course, I'm among those who admire his courage, and I am temperamentally inclined to side with whoever takes it upon himself to subvert the technocracy. But it seems a quixotic gesture, and... Jack Whelan Finding the Balance between Centralization and Localism II tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e2019103300ba6970c 2013-06-10T21:30:03-07:00 2013-06-10T21:38:38-07:00 The euro zone faces the same choice as the Holy Roman Empire and American patriots of old: how to overcome discredited forms of confederation. Rather than digging themselves into a deeper recession and democratic deficit through austerity measures, the states... Jack Whelan The Erosion of the Human tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e2019103256c83970c 2013-06-09T10:25:24-07:00 2013-06-09T22:43:10-07:00 My daily use of technological communication has been shaping me into someone more likely to forget others. The flow of water carves rock, a little bit at a time. And our personhood is carved, too, by the flow of our... Jack Whelan Quote of the Day: David Brooks tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e201901d1b841d970b 2013-06-07T09:14:43-07:00 2013-06-07T09:36:18-07:00 Since the New Deal, we have become accustomed to seeing American politics as an ever-concentrated national enterprise. But the sclerosis of the federal system will inevitably produce a reversal, as regions fill the void. The happiest people these days are... Jack Whelan Quote of the Day: T.M. Luhrmann tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e2019102b94d11970c 2013-05-30T08:15:17-07:00 2013-05-30T08:16:51-07:00 In this morning's NYT: The role of belief in religion is greatly overstated, as anthropologists have long known. In 1912, Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern social science, argued that religion arose as a way for social groups... Jack Whelan Game Change (Updated) tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834520c4d69e20192aa4400f8970d 2013-05-24T08:44:05-07:00 2013-05-24T10:50:45-07:00 I just saw the movie--was vaguely aware of it when it first came out, but didn't have HBO. But after watching it, found this remarkable video of Steve Schmidt, one of McCain's key strategists in the 2008 campaign. Woody Harrelson... Jack Whelan