Remember yesterday’s distraction about tweeting a reduced Declaration of Independence? NewsRealBlog has a problem with it. Supposedly, it’s further proof of our cultural decline. Did I mention this is David Horowitz’s site? Here is an article describing the intersection between my academic discipline and Horowitz. Looking at the other entries, I am nonplussed. I thought they’d be funnier. Meh.
Ian McEwan. If you’ve not read him, you should. A quotation I came across this morning, which has occupied many of my thoughts for the day. I’ll set it out just to emphasize its perspicuity.
Cruelty is a failure of imagination.
Here’s another one by McEwan. It’s monstrous in its scope if he is correct, of which I am not so sure. Measuring it is worthy of a career, let alone a passage on some random blog, ergo… a distraction.
When the Enlightenment was being sort of undermined by the theorists in the academies, that was done with a general sense of security about the ultimate cultural victory of Enlightenment values, and now I think that victory is a lot less assured. (185)
Smith, Zadie & Ian McEwan. (2005). Zadie Smith talks with Ian McEwan. In V. Vida, ed. (2007). The Believer book of writers talking with writers (165-191). San Francisco: Believer Books.