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Dear Professor Tirrell: Speech isn’t Toxic, People Are 0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
In Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “No Exit,” the character Joseph Garcin concludes that torture and other forms of physical punishment pale in comparison to the torment of poor company. So he pronounces that “Hell is other people.” The same cynical view overcomes me when intelligent people theorize about the harm caused by offensive speech. Lynne Tirrell,
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Philosopher Roger Scruton on ‘The Virtue of Irrelevance’0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
Have you ever glanced through your child’s homework and noticed… well… just how focused it is on the present? Whether it be a reading assignment, or a math problem, or even a science experiment, much of today’s curriculum seems to tie into some modern, social justice-minded issue. Meanwhile, the more classic elements of education, such
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Monogamy isn’t Natural. But is it Good?0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
In a recent interview (linking to Vanity Fair instead of Playboy), Scarlett Johansson discussed a variety of topics: Broadway, her career, the craft of film-making, and her split from husband Romain Dauriac. It will be the second failed marriage for Johansson, who is not yet 33. So it’s no surprise she sounded a little down on
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Anti-Homework Trend: Freeing Kids from a Culture of Dependency?0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
Late last summer, Texas teacher Brandy Young made internet waves when she sent a note about homework to the parents of her students. Instead of the normal spend-30-minutes-a-day-on-homework command that parents normally hear, Mrs. Young’s note informed them that she would not be giving homework at all. Instead, she asked families to spend more time
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E.B. White’s Touching Letter to Man Who Lost Hope in Humanity 0
- Culture
- February 27, 2017
I’m a longtime fan of E.B. White. Intellectual Takeout readers likely know he wrote a lot more than just Charlotte’s Web. His short story The Door is one of my favorite short stories. (We’ll deconstruct that one another other day; as you can see, it’s quite mad.) I bring up White because an old friend
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The Death of Outdoor Recess 0
- Culture
- February 24, 2017
A mom in New York tells me she’s in a fight with her kid’s preschool. You might think she’s unhappy with the zero-tolerance policy for Kombucha? Too much enrichment? Not enough? In fact, it’s none of the above. Her fight is over the children playing outside. The mother wants her kid to be outside more
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