Having to spend some time in a waiting room yesterday evening, I was happy to remember a small book in my back pocket. The book is a speech by Albert Camus, titled Create Dangerously: The Power and Responsibility of the Artist. The English translation is done Sandra Smith. This is one of those short books that took me a long time to finish. It’s only 46 pages long. But it’s full of ups and downs…
It is, for understandable reasons, difficult to hear, ‘What you’re doing is not what you think/say it is.’ A message like this is not likely to evoke a friendly response; it is unlikely to be seen as a friendly remark. In essence, the message does not deny the activity—’Yes, you are doing something’—but rather denies the interpretation assigned to the activity. This is my attitude toward the cognitive/experimental psychology of culture, although I must admit…
I have written an essay for The Side View (TSV). You can read my full essay here. To give you a flavor of the essay, I am including two excerpts from it here. The first passage is about how our desire for information (about someone) has to be distinguished from connecting (to that someone). … in our desire to reconnect, we overestimate the role of impersonal knowledge. A contrived example can clarify this point. Imagine that after…
What is a good way to introduce yourself to someone? I hadn’t given this question much thought. But I started asking it when I received Rachel Haywire‘s tweet, “Where can I get an introduction to your work?” Is there an introductory place in my work? A place appropriate for new friends and interlocutors? I can search for such a place now, or ex post facto put the label “start here” on an article. But I…
My guest in the upcoming episode of the Three Books series will be Andrew Taggart. We have already had one conversation, which I immensely enjoyed. I am very much looking forward to talking with him again. Given my decision to read at least one of the three selected books of each guest, I have started reading Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. The book is divided into 61 chapters. I am currently on Chapter 30. Before…