In the beginning the earth was without parking. The planner said, Let there be parking, and there was parking. And the planner saw that it was good. And the planner then said, Let there be off-street parking for each land use, according to its kind. And developers provided off-street parking for each land use according … Continue reading The Tragedy of Free Parking
Socrates was known for engaging people in conversation and, through a series of probing follow-up questions, exposing flaws in their reasoning. Using what is now called Socratic questioning, he challenged their assumptions by prompting them to clarify their beliefs, examine their evidence, and explore logical consequences. This often led them to recognize contradictions in their … Continue reading Agnes Callard and the Socratic Life
Mark Twain kept me busy for the last two weeks. Tom Sawyer was a fun read but I found the going hard with Huckleberry Finn. The bulk of the book employed the dialect of the blacks of late 19th century America. I followed up the books with Ken Burns’ 2001 documentary on Twain. In it, … Continue reading Twain in India
In Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future, Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato celebrate the potential of AI to transform our lives. Hoffman was the co-founder of LinkedIn, was on the board of PayPal, and was an early philanthropic investor in OpenAI. While he makes a passionate case for AI, the work … Continue reading Superagency
Alistair Horne’s magisterial ‘A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62’ is a masterpiece and has been a gripping read so far. The Algerians never had a national identity until the beginning of their discontent with the French. The land was ruled by the Carthaginians for seven centuries who were then replaced by the Romans, the … Continue reading ‘A Savage War of Peace’ – The Roots of the Algerian War
Just as including He/She/They in your bio was recently considered an ‘in’ thing (at least until a few months ago), the term ‘Settler’ is also laden with symbolism, solidarity, and wokeness. But like many academic constructs, it does not always hold up to strong scrutiny. Settler colonialism originally referred to the process by which colonial … Continue reading On Settler Colonialism
While planning to read War and Peace, the initial challenge was zeroing down on the version to be read. While I settled for the Anthony Briggs translation, one of the criteria by which other versions were compared was the use of French within the work. The novel has substantial dialogues in French and some English … Continue reading The French Language in ‘War and Peace’
For someone who was arguably one of the world’s greatest observers of love, emotions, and human sensitivity, Tolstoy’s record as a husband was abysmally poor. His lust and exploits before marriage led to him contracting gonorrhea and fathering a child whom he never cared for. Paul Johnson, in Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre … Continue reading Tolstoy, the Toxic Husband
Some thoughts after finishing Tolstoy's War and Peace: The sheer number of aristrocatic parties and balls featured in the book was mind-boggling. The peasants and aam-aadmi perspectives are conspicuously absent. Tolstoy goes to great lengths to dismiss the 'Great Man of History' theory. For him, its sheer foolishness to describe historical events as grand narratives … Continue reading On War and Peace
Zena Hitz in ‘Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life’ offers a fascinating exploration of whether Mary was an intellectual. An ancient Syriac dialogue between Joseph and Mary imagines Joseph rebuking Mary for her apparent unchastity while Mary rebukes him in turn for his inferior knowledge of the scriptures: JOSEPH: You have … Continue reading Was Mary an ‘Intellectual’?
