Literature
Elizabeth Kolbert?s article on Amory Lovins (?Mr. Green? Jan. 22, 2007) exposes a vexing problem at the core of contemporary environmentalism. Lovins offers example after example of ecologically savvy solutions, by shrewdly linking energy conservation with the charms of free-market economics. Then, towards the end of the article, Lovins unconvincingly invokes the phrases ?moral?, ?spiritual?, and ?higher purpose? in order to explain why people will not simply consume more resources once energy can be produced and consumed more efficiently: ?Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.? Lovins then quotes the first two lines of Wallace Stevens?s poem ?The Well Dressed Man with a Beard?: ?After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.? Importantly, though, Stevens is playing off of Nietzsche?s insistence that the ?no?s of the world are precisely spiritual and theological in nature: so-called ?higher purpose? is often an excuse for not taking lower, earthly matters more seriously. Thus, to be truly environmental, humans must say ?yes? to the material world?in all its complexity?before enduring positive changes can be enacted. Kolbert?s article shows that as long as environmentalists defer to metaphysical justifications for human behavior, true ecological awareness will be endlessly deferred.
- D.t. Max Visit
It was a pleasure to have D.T. Max visit Loyola this past week. My current students had prepared questions about David Foster Wallace, long-form journalism, and writing in the age of digital media. I was so happy with how the conversation turned...
- Technologies R Us
The USA Today reports on The Dumbest Generation and presents a sort of counterargument. The basic concern is whether social networking sites like Facebook are making Generation Y students 'dumb', or whether such practices are simply (and complexly)...
- Attention, Focus
I am starting to glimpse a constellation. A recent Wall Street Journal article on Kindle e-book reading argues: ...an infinite bookstore at your fingertips is great news for book sales, and may be great news for the dissemination of knowledge, but not...
- Google By Numbers
I've noticed an interesting trend lately, whereby a writer makes an expository point by way of an offhand reference to the sheer numeric quantities of a Google search. For instance: Patricia Marx, in a recent article on sale shopping in the poor...
- From Bourdin And Nietzsche To The Genre Of Aphorisms
My letter to The New Yorker was published in the September 15, 2008 issue. It is in reference to a fascinating article by David Grann on Frédéric Bourdin, the French con-man who pretends to be various children. In this letter I juxtapose...
Literature
Green Values
Elizabeth Kolbert?s article on Amory Lovins (?Mr. Green? Jan. 22, 2007) exposes a vexing problem at the core of contemporary environmentalism. Lovins offers example after example of ecologically savvy solutions, by shrewdly linking energy conservation with the charms of free-market economics. Then, towards the end of the article, Lovins unconvincingly invokes the phrases ?moral?, ?spiritual?, and ?higher purpose? in order to explain why people will not simply consume more resources once energy can be produced and consumed more efficiently: ?Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.? Lovins then quotes the first two lines of Wallace Stevens?s poem ?The Well Dressed Man with a Beard?: ?After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.? Importantly, though, Stevens is playing off of Nietzsche?s insistence that the ?no?s of the world are precisely spiritual and theological in nature: so-called ?higher purpose? is often an excuse for not taking lower, earthly matters more seriously. Thus, to be truly environmental, humans must say ?yes? to the material world?in all its complexity?before enduring positive changes can be enacted. Kolbert?s article shows that as long as environmentalists defer to metaphysical justifications for human behavior, true ecological awareness will be endlessly deferred.
- D.t. Max Visit
It was a pleasure to have D.T. Max visit Loyola this past week. My current students had prepared questions about David Foster Wallace, long-form journalism, and writing in the age of digital media. I was so happy with how the conversation turned...
- Technologies R Us
The USA Today reports on The Dumbest Generation and presents a sort of counterargument. The basic concern is whether social networking sites like Facebook are making Generation Y students 'dumb', or whether such practices are simply (and complexly)...
- Attention, Focus
I am starting to glimpse a constellation. A recent Wall Street Journal article on Kindle e-book reading argues: ...an infinite bookstore at your fingertips is great news for book sales, and may be great news for the dissemination of knowledge, but not...
- Google By Numbers
I've noticed an interesting trend lately, whereby a writer makes an expository point by way of an offhand reference to the sheer numeric quantities of a Google search. For instance: Patricia Marx, in a recent article on sale shopping in the poor...
- From Bourdin And Nietzsche To The Genre Of Aphorisms
My letter to The New Yorker was published in the September 15, 2008 issue. It is in reference to a fascinating article by David Grann on Frédéric Bourdin, the French con-man who pretends to be various children. In this letter I juxtapose...