literature

Practicalities and criticism

I wish I could remember where I first heard of Matthew Arnold. I recall encountering a long quotation from what is likely his most famous work, Culture and Anarchy,1 when reading another book and being drawn to it. (I thought it was quoted in Albert Camus’ The Rebel.2 However, I found from its re-read that…
Read more →

Fighting back against partisanism

“You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra1 Three months ago, I introduced the concept of partisanism and discussed some of the problems it causes.2 Two months ago, I described how the partisan…
Read more →

Darkness at Noon and Partisan Control of Thought

I was at a particularly receptive point in my life when I first encountered Czeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind,1 and I realized it early on in the work when he presented an important concept. When describing his decision to part from the Eastern bloc in the early ’50s,i Milosz explains: My own decision proceeded, not…
Read more →

Politicians and the public

Over time, I’ve been increasingly hit with this creeping notion that my views aren’t represented by the politicians I’ve been tasked at electing. It felt different when I was first old enough to vote and, though my political views have changed substantially and repeatedly in the years since, it’s only been quite recent that I’ve…
Read more →

Reforming prisons

When reading Maclean’s, an article occasionally brings to mind different things I’ve read previously. Sometimes, it will conform with what I’ve encountered in a way that strengthens what I’ve come to understand about a topic. At other times, it will go against this understanding, either making me question this knowledge or sort of distrust aspects…
Read more →