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‘I’m Smarter than Everyone Else’ Disease 1
- Culture
- May 3, 2016
“It’s a sickness,” said a friend of mine who until recently was an elected official in our city. “It sets in after you’re elected the first time, or maybe even when you’re running for office.” That sickness is “thinking you’re smarter than everyone else.” My friend made this statement after reading in our local paper
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Prof’s CV of Failures Goes Viral (and Why That’s a Good Thing)0
- Culture
- May 3, 2016
Sometimes we feel good about other people’s failures. Too often, that’s the feeling the Germans called Schadenfreude—not something to be proud of. But sometimes the human instinct to relish in the failure of others can be used to instruct. That’s the implication of a Washington Post “Wonkblog” from last week entitled “Why it feels so
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What the Catholic Church Said about the Public Schools in 1852 0
- Education
- May 3, 2016
America is known as the “land of the free.” Yet, technically, it forces its children to receive some type of formal education. Compulsory education laws have been a part of the American Republic for a little over 150 years (they also existed in some Puritan settlements in colonial America). In all states, children between the
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Children Help Adults to Grow Up 0
- Culture
- May 3, 2016
It is a truism that children need adults to help them grow up. It is, however, less known but equally true that adults need children to help them grow into the fullness of maturity. Whereas children need to be taught about life in all its multifarious manifestations, satisfying their natural sense of wonder and their
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Is there a Measurable Benefit to Public Art?0
- Culture
- May 3, 2016
In the Western world, it’s widely assumed that making works of art easily available and visible to the public improves people’s lives in tangible ways. Having lived in half-a-dozen major American cities and one English city, I’ve seen public art everywhere. Much of it is funded in whole or part by the taxpayers. But what,
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Is ‘More Diversity’ Really the Answer to Racial Problems?0
- Culture
- May 3, 2016
With all of the racial tension lately, is diversity really the answer to our racial problems? This seems to be the solution that the San Francisco Police Department favors at a time when it is under scrutiny for racist text messages among its officers. As Paul Elias reports for the Associated Press, “San Francisco’s police
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‘I’m Smarter than Everyone Else’ Disease 1