So what are we really talking about when we talk about natural? It depends; the adjective is impressively slippery, its use steeped in dubious assumptions that are easy to overlook. Perhaps the most incoherent of[…]
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Month: May 2015
“…if nature offers a moral standard by which we can measure ourselves, and a set of values to which we should aspire, exactly what sort of values are they?”
Implicit here is the idea that nature is a repository of abiding moral and ethical values — and that we can say with confidence exactly what those values are. Philosophers often call this the “naturalistic[…]
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“Once you designate some spaces as safe, you imply that the rest are unsafe”
Some people trace safe spaces back to the feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings[…]
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“…the term “whore” does not necessarily have to be misogynist, but it was in the context…”
I should not have just called [redacted] a whore. She’s a loathsome and awful human being, but this has nothing to do with sexuality and I should not be using such misogynist terms so casually[…]
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“A genuine, spiritually and theologically grounded, rabbinic voice is missing from the American Jewish community’s Israel conversation”
Rabbinic talk is not political talk. Political does not mean partisan. Political talk focuses on the strategic and tactical questions of the day, on parties, interests, adversaries, threats, and the like. Religious thinkers and leaders[…]
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“There is a fine line…between legitimate criticism, which is what Israel deserves, and illegitimate criticism”
The 20th century produced many international conflicts that were clear-cut, black-and-white, good-and-evil. … The Israeli Palestinian/Israeli Arab/Israeli Muslim clash is not black-and-white. It’s not about good guys and bad guys. There are bad guys on[…]
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“…when the orders are reworded to say “allow natural death,” patients and family members and even medical professionals are much more likely to give their consent…”
It seems that getting end-of-life patients and their families to endorse “do not resuscitate” orders has been challenging. To many ears, “D.N.R.” sounds a little too much like throwing Grandpa under the bus. But according[…]
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“One point of beat-up bluejeans is to bother good taste, which is a muscular aesthetic stance, a canny market footing and an ambiguous moral position”
One point of beat-up bluejeans is to bother good taste, which is a muscular aesthetic stance, a canny market footing and an ambiguous moral position. Some distressed denim is beauty-marked with subtle scuffs amounting to[…]
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“Such street culture is simply the black urban version of one of America’s most iconic traditions: the Wild West”
In all inner-city neighborhoods, however, there is a problem minority that varies between about 12.1 percent (in San Diego, for example) and 28 percent (in Phoenix) that comes largely from the disconnected youth between ages[…]
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“…the whole proposition of nakba is problematic insofar as it sets up Israel’s creation as a zero-sum game”
…the whole proposition of nakba is problematic insofar as it sets up Israel’s creation as a zero-sum game: Israeli independence as a disaster for the Palestinians. When Palestinians say the “disaster” of 1948, they do[…]
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